Counter-Strike (and particularly the game released as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has since metamorphosed into Counter-Strike 2) is almost certainly my most-played game ever (at least as far as I can tell), sitting in my Steam library at nearly 2,000 hours played in the decade since I purchased it.
You might reasonably assume that, for someone to play a game so much, they must enjoy playing it. This is, unfortunately, not always the case for Counter-Strike and myself. You could say we have a sort of love-hate relationship. I love Counter-Strike, I play Counter-Strike, and then I hate myself for playing Counter-Strike.
I really very rarely enjoy playing Counter-Strike. Yet, for the past two years, rarely has a week gone by in which I have not played the game for at least a few hours. In the immortal words of Benoit Blanc: “It makes no damn sense. Compels me though.”
How is this contradiction possible? It’s actually quite simple: the game’s mechanics are perfectly tuned to keep me craving the gameplay, despite only occasionally having fun. I believe that the game touches on several of the core aesthetics discussed in the video: sense pleasure, challenge, fellowship, competition, and (perhaps most surprisingly) abnegation. For each, let’s go over a mechanic that supports it.
Sense pleasure: Counter-Strike is a fast-paced game. Matches are around 45 minutes to an hour, but they’re comprised of individual 2-minute-ish rounds. Every 2 minutes, you get a soft reset, and a new dopamine loop. The rush of adrenaline from this pacing is pleasurable. The fact that losing a match drops your rank adds to the stress, and therefore to the pleasure.
Challenge: Counter-Strike utilizes skill-based matchmaking; you face off as a team against other people around your skill level. So, the game is rarely so easy that you get bored, or so hard that you get tilted and smash your computer into bits. It is almost always at the perfect level of challenge to keep you engaged and sweating.
Fellowship: I almost exclusively play Counter-Strike with two friends of mine from high school. About 90% of the fun we have comes not from the game itself, but from the interactions we have with each other while playing, and from the joy of sharing in a hard-fought victory (or the anger of sharing in an absolutely garbage match where we get demolished). The fact that the game is built around a team of five players, with whom you have a shared objective, and within which each player is essential to success, means you (almost) always get this strong fellowship.
Competition: As I mentioned in Challenge, you compete against other people online, but you also compete against your friends and teammates on the scoreboard, which you can view at any time during the match. Plenty of light-hearted trash-talking will come your way if you wind up dead last among your teammates, and this friendly rivalry keeps you invested in each match. Additionally, you compete against everyone in the world via your rank; when you win, the number goes up, and when you lose, it goes down. It’s a subtle way to reinforce your standing in the global pool. You want to be the best, don’t you?
Abnegation: For as cerebral as Counter-Strike is, after several hundred hours on the same maps, you do get a sort of auto-pilot mode for it. Now, will you perform very well in auto-pilot? Not necessarily, but if all you want to do is blow off some steam after class, there’s nothing better than just chatting with your buddies as your teammates yell at you to get your head in the game. The fact that the same classic maps have been in the game for literal decades encourages your ability to turn your brain off a bit.
Sorry for the long post. You should try Counter-Strike! I hate it!
Violet
