How to design for esports in titles like Counter-Strike and Project Cars

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
November 19, 2016
Updated June 20, 2025
17 min

One thing that some of the biggest games in esports share in common is that they don’t change that much. Sure, they have updates and new characters, but the basic gameplay stays the same, and that allows for the cultivation of celebrity teams and athletes over time.

That means you have to get the design right the first time, as happened with games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends. And if you’re going to change your title every year, as Activision does with Call of Duty, then you have to carefully consider the impact on esports.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.