The CPL Summer and Winter Championships, along with the World Cyber Games, Electronic Sports World Cup and Intel Extreme Masters World Championships, were considered Majors by the community, although Valve did not sponsor or give any official designation to the tournaments. The first significant international tournament was the 2001 Cyberathlete Professional League Winter Championship, considered the first "Major". The first game in the series, Counter-Strike 1.6, was officially released in 2000 and competitive play began soon after. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. Astralis hold the record for the most Major titles with 4.Ĭounter-Strike: Global Offensive is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve. The current defending champions are Natus Vincere, after winning their first major championship at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021. The Majors are considered to be the most important and prestigious tournaments in the Global Offensive scene. Since then, the Major circuit has expanded significantly, with recent tournaments advertising a US$2,000,000 prize pool and featuring twenty-four teams from around the world.
The first CS:GO Major took place in 2013 in Jönköping, Sweden and was hosted by DreamHack with a total prize pool of US$250,000 split among 16 teams. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships, commonly known as the Majors, are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) esports tournaments sponsored by Valve, the game's developer.