After the completion of ESL One New York Championship, where Evil Geniuses took the title. ESL’s Michal ‘Carmac’ Bicharz shocked the CS:GO community by running a poll to rename “Terrorists” and “Counter-Terrorists” to more subtle and viewer-friendly names like “offence” and “Defence”. This change was suggested by Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau, who is an eSport consultant.
The community definitely did not want to see the change which was evident by the votes which were inclined heavily inclined towards keeping the existing names. Over 13,000 voters took part in the poll with 69% of them wanting to keep things as is.
Counter-Strike has its roots that go as far back as 20 years, which makes it understandable as to why the community would not want to see this change. However, the names Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist can be controversial and not very sponsor-friendly. To attract more investment and mainstream viewership, it is possible that these names get changed in the future.
Famous CSGO YouTuber Anomaly agreed that the change could have a positive impact. Not having to use the word ‘terrorist’ in a video will help in avoiding possible demonetization.
On the flip-side of things, map designer FMPONE was not very happy about the possible change. He showed this by tweeting, “Appeasement is absolutely futile, authenticity is worth fighting for”.
Whether the change happens or not is yet to be seen. Valve will have to consider various things before making such a drastic decision.
