PC gaming has been around for many decades, but believe it or not, it's more popular now than at any time in history. Some of this has been spurred by market growth, but a lot of it has to do with affordability of hardware.
Due to this increasing popularity game sales have been breaking records on a yearly basis. We saw Diablo 3 crush sales pacing records when it debuted in 2012, and this year Overwatch became a massive financial success surpassing the five million mark within short order. Although both of these titles are shining examples of good fortune in the PC gaming industry, they fall well short of the #1 best-selling game.
According to SteamSpy, CS:GO has sold 25 million units since its release on August 21st, 2012. This makes it the best-selling game ever on the PC platform, surpassing Mineraft's 24.5 million.
CS:GO sales have benefited greatly from several factors. For one, it is one of the three most popular eSports games in the world with an extremely vibrant community. This has drawn gamers and competitors alike, retaining a significant majority of the community that is committed to improving their skill and competing at a high level. The game also benefits from a high value proposition. Sold at $14.99, sometimes dropping below $9.99 during sales periods, it is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of hours of entertainment.
But perhaps what has buffered CS:GO's sales figures the most is cheating and smurfing. Given its low cost, purchasing a copy on an anonymous profile to utilize hacks and obliterate lower skilled players is common within the community. Hackers regularly purchase additional copies to play around with cheat software, and when banned will simply purchase another copy.
It is worth mentioning that Team Fortress 2 has a total of 37 million owners on Steam. This title falls under a grey area since it was bundled with Valve's The Orange Box, which included several notable titles within one $59.99 package. Nonetheless, Valve knows how to sell high volume, and Counter-Strike is far from dead.
