Complexity's head of cybersports Jason Lake shared his opinion on the state of the professional CS: GO scene during a broadcast on his Twitch channel. In his opinion, Valve and the largest tournament organizers should jointly discuss the problems that have arisen due to the impact of the pandemic on the discipline.
Lake believes that the North American region is primarily affected by the pandemic. While it has remained an important part of the cybersports industry over the past few years, the massive shift to an online format due to the coronavirus pandemic has made it difficult for North American teams to participate in major tournaments. While Riot was officially promoting its competitive shooter, American CS: GO teams were forced to relocate to Europe to continue playing. As a result, quite a few professional cyber athletes have made the decision to move to Valorant over the past year. And several major organizations, including 100 Thieves, Cloud9 and Chaos, have disbanded their CS:GO teams.
According to the head of Complexity, if the tournament organizers don't take action soon, there is a risk of losing the whole region, i.e. to be in a situation where mostly European teams are present on the professional scene.