Valve and Nexon develop ‘Counter Strike Online’ targeting Asian gamers!

Counter Strike happens to be one of the most played First Person Shooters, online. Now that CS:Source and CS1.6 have simultaneous leagues running online, they combine to make up really impressive number. 15 Million accounts on Steam! Now they will soon be joined by a new title being developed by Nexon Corporation with Valve looking over them; Counter Strike Online (watch the promotional video). CSO will aim to get Asia playing it, and make it as popular as StarCraft in South Korea. Maybe? Of course when it comes to gaming, Asia means Thailand, China, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. An excerpt from the press-release at Destructroid mentions David Lee, CEO of Nexon Japan Co.,

“It is our utmost pleasure to be able to develop Counter-Strike Online with Valve,” said David K. Lee, CEO of NEXON Japan Co., Ltd. “We will be devoting our expertise in online game development and service know-how for Asian territories to Counter-Strike Online. Already a global phenomenon, we are confident we can grow the success of Counter-Strike with this new product by tailoring the gameplay for the millions of gamers in Asia, one of the gaming industries fastest growing territories.”

While it remains to be seen how much different it would be from previous installations that went out to improve Counter Strike 1.6, like Condition Zero which ended up in the trashcans with bad reviews, one cannot let up the idea that this might actually be the change that is so required for CS1.6. This game will not require Steam (hence no SteamID). If Nexon and Valve market this game aggressively, you can expect this to become a standard at tournaments and leagues - internationally. So it’s better one starts practicing on it as soon as it comes out.