Week CS:GO goes off the list I'll start paying attention to new star there.

Word. That thing's been there for ages, I'm really surprised so many people are picking the game up. And I don't think the ranking is fake either (that's what I thought originally). CSGO is now about as watched as DOTA2 is on twitch. Half a year ago they weren't even in the same league.

One of reasons why CS:GO is always top seller is smurfing. You simply can't create new smurf account and grief noobs without fresh licence.

Smurfing is highly ineffective. I've noticed some patterns in the CS:GO ranking system and here's my theory: The rating shift isn't as simple as 'win or loss'. I strongly believe it accounts for the # of won rounds aside from the end result (win or loss). For example, a 15:15 score IS a tie and you won't gain/lose elo rating unless there's a discrepancy in the skill level between the two teams. BUT, 14:16 is a win for the second team. That doesn't mean the system sees it as "ok, team 2 won give them the most possible elo points from the opposing team". I feel it to be more close to a tie. Team 2 gains a bit, team 1 loses a bit. The exact rating lost and gained is ofc unknown. Theoretically, to gain the maximum amount of elo rating, you should beat the enemy team 16:0. And I am pretty sure that it also takes individual scores into account aswell. I have jumped from Nova 2 to MG2 in only like 15 matches after improving myself by playing non-matchmaking servers. In nova 2 I would obviously come on top tremendously. In MG2 I was still consistently 1st or second on the scoreboard, although my win rate was very close to 50% (I noted down all my wins, losses and scores). And I still advanced to MGE quite easily where I stabilized because I don't have much time to practice anymore. In conclusion, a smurf account with an upper-rank player (starting from DMG let's say) will advance extremely fast. And I doubt a lot of people purchase so many accounts just to smurf.

I played CS:S for 13 hours, with friends but it was boring. (Not skill based, noobs are quite close to pros when it goes to aim and shoot here. Main difference is knowledge of maps routes, spots. Guns have spray shooting CoD style. Fluidity of movement sux.) I played CS:GO for 9 hours with friends and it was boring too. (Not enough skill based too, but bit better. Unfortunately many maps are made in way that you get enemy to your back from any side = Call of Duty TDM style. Guns have somewhere between recoil and spray based hit patterns. Fluidity of movement sux.) I can hardly count hours spent on CS 1.6 steam/non-steam. (Pure skill based, one person with pistol takes on 4 noobs with AKs. Guns have recoil based hit patterns. Movement is more real.)

I agree with your stance on CS:S, the hitboxes were way too large and the recoil was too friendly. But I strongly disagree with your comments on CS:GO. The firing inaccuracy is completely different to 1.6, in the sense that the first shots while spraying have huge penalties in GO. This automatically makes spray-and-pray tactics almost completely ineffective. The overall recoil in CS:GO feels higher, this is especially noticeable when using the AK. The point is that I don't know at which stage CS:GO was when you played it. If you played it somewhere in beta or close to release, I have to tell you that a lot of stuff has changed. It's harder to control your weapon accuracy while spraying. You said something about 1 pistol pro killing 4 noobs with AKs. This is exactly where the game has changed. The deagle was ridiculously op to the point that it didn't even make sense to buy a different pistol. If you logged in right now in CS:GO and used the deagle, you'll notice you simply cannot hit a freaking thing with that weapon. First shot accuracy is good. But it has massive recoil and takes quite a bit after firing to get that initial accuracy again. And the spray pattern is completely random, totally discouraging spamming that weapon. It's a very rewarding weapon if used properly, just like in 1.6. But it's far harder to use. The gap between noobs and pros is higher in this regard, and it also applies to most weapons in the game. CS:GO is a very hard game to master. The best thing they've done is balance the weapons. Remember the p228 pistol which was so damn useless in 1.6? Now we have the p250 which is 1 hit headshot with helmet at close ranges. Remember the five-seven? The same as p250 but far more accurate. Remember the submachine guns? You only bought the mp5 because it was the only one that was actually good and cheap. Now we have a variety of them which are useful in their own situations. Or the UMP which was such a joke of a weapon it wasn't even funny. No more useless weapons (mostly). Even the dual berettas are pretty good. BUT, I agree on what you said about movement. It was more natural in 1.6. But overall the game is much more polished than 1.6 was, in all honesty.