14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has confirmed that the closed beta stage for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive won't make its intended late October release date, as the studio has delayed it after getting some serious feedback from professional Counter-Strike players and needs to make modifications before it's ready for at least a closed release.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was announced earlier this year by Valve as a new installment in its extremely popular online shooter series, promising to combine the best elements from the old but still played Counter-Strike 1.6 and the newer Counter-Strike: Source.
Players were treated with a couple of new videos since then and the company promised that it will start accepting people into a closed beta stage before opening it to the public for more feedback.
The beta was scheduled to start in October but, as you now see, the month has ended and a release hasn't happened.
Valve writer Chet Faliszek explained to ESEA News that this is due to some reactions from professional Counter-Strike players, that highlighted some issues that would've been brought out by many other players.
"They gave us a lot of feedback on things we should get in the game before we release it, otherwise we're going to be getting a lot of bug reports or a lot of feedback and it would just be redundant," Faliszek said. "So saying October's getting scary now because... we are testing those changes but we can't just put in everything at once... We're pushing as hard as we can on that."
The Valve writer confirmed that the closed beta will see 10,000 players join it, at first, and that it's going to grow in size exponentially afterward. In terms of its end, however, Faliszek highlights that it depends on the feedback from the community.
"And when does it end?" he said. "When the community tells us it ends and it's ready. We have no mandate from anybody of when we have to ship this. So we're more than happy to just keep working on this until it's ready to ship. By the end of it, everyone will be playing the game. It will be the released game that you're playing and then at some point we'll say, 'OK we're going to officially release it.'"
As you can see, Valve retains its classic game development attitude, so expect Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to be released sometime in 2012, although the beta might kick off before the end of this year.
