Article written by Nerdbuster

On June 23rd 2011, Valve announced through Steam that Team Fortress 2 would be switching to a “free to play” platform. Gamers all over the world graciously accepted this change, happy that they could sit AFK in servers and craft hats all day. On the day of the switch June 24th steam simultaneously updated the TF2 page and discounted Counterstrike: Source 50% bringing the price down to $10. Seven days later the steam summer sale started, at which point CSS was discounted an additional 25% bringing the price to $5.

Below is raw data collected from Steam game statistics for the peak usage of Counter Strike: Source.

    June 23rd - 26,122
    June 24th - 36,836 *** (TF2 went free this day)
    June 30th - 45,158
    July 10th - 49,335
    July 20th - 55,467

Between June 23rd and July 20th Counterstrike Source Peak usage increased 103%. We can only speculate that most of the users who bought CSS in that time period came to steam to play TF2, but the numbers and dates do not lie. For all those who have repeatedly spouted off about “source being dead” you have been challenged!