CS:GO now has a subscription service offering better player stats
Also the chicken models have received a visual upgrade
When I used to compete in Counter-Strike 1.6 tournaments, I would do so with a print-out of the map we were playing taped to the wall by my monitor. Today's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players go several steps further in the pursuit of being better at clicking on heads than the other team.
To aid them, Valve have launched a new subscription service called CS:GO 360 Stats. For $1 a month, players get access to match stats from their Competitive, Premier and Wingman game mode matches.
Valve quietly announced the service as part of the latest release notes. It's light on detail, but a FAQ has a little more. You can sign up to the service in-game, and only matches you play while your subscription is active have their stats recorded.
It's not clear to me how much benefit this offers to players over and above free services already available. For example, csgostats.gg and scope.gg offer similar stats at no cost, while you can upload demo files to Leetify to have them analysed by an AI.
There is a similar official subscription service for Dota 2, called Dota+, but it offers a lot more than stats (and costs more, at $4 a month). Maybe CS:GO 360 Stats is a toe in the water and the subscription, or the stats, will grow in time. Although right now the CS:GO community is mostly just concerned Valve are going to compete by killing off all these free stats websites via limiting their API.
The stat service isn't the only change in the latest update. The chicken models have also received a visual upgrade, and on classic map Nuke, someone has "Centered a lamp that was bugging me".
