Counter-Strike’s case opening record has been broken again

Just a month after a new record was set for the number of cases opened since the introduction of the cosmetic loot boxes in 2013, players broke it yet again in April by 27%.

The details:

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) players opened a record-breaking total of 39.47 million cases in March, an increase of 11.8 million over February. The increase in case opening and sales was caused by rumors of, and the eventual reveal of, the highly anticipated Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), which carries over all inventory items from CS:GO, such as skins and stickers.
• This record has now been broken once more, with a total of 50,296,368 cases opened. Not only has the CS2 hype train continued to grow, but Valve has also released the new Anubis collection as the final case for CS:GO, which includes some rather cool-looking skins, resulting in yet another increase in openings. Between the case's April 25 launch and the end of the month, approximately nine million of them were opened, indicating that even without the Anubis collection, case openings increased by a couple of million.
• Another record may be set in the coming months as the full summer release of CS2 approaches, as the game is still in its limited test phase, with a limited number of pros, content creators, and randomly selected players able to experience the improvements made to the 20+-year-old formula. Traders have also started selling more unopened cases on the marketplace, lowering their overall cost, so now is a good time to try and get the skins you desire.

More Counter-Strike news:

• Copenhagen Flames, a Danish esports organization, has declared bankruptcy. After failing to secure any kind of sponsorship, the organization was unable to secure funding to keep itself afloat, resulting in its CEO terminating all staff contracts and releasing its CS:GO roster as free agents.
• The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat is using a custom map in CS:GO to get around Russia's media restrictions on reporting on the Russo-Ukrainian war. The map is styled after a Soviet-era city, and the player can enter a room that contains Western reporting on the war in the Russian language, covering events that would not have been addressed by state media.