Head shots and artwork.

Anxiety object cult game and community projects: "Counter-Strike" is probably the most controversial games of all time - and also one of the most popular. Until today the games industry learns from the success of the hobby project that is now ten years old.

 

Between 19 and 27 June 1999 was a piece of software released to the world that until now the attention of millions of people bind: "Counter-Strike." At the beginning there are six maps, nine weapons and a mission - to free hostages. Today the former hobby project of two students on cultural cipher has become the object of fear politicians and educators, the football of the E-Sport - and the inspiration for plans and hopes of the games industry, its clients work for it.

"It grew by itself," said Counter-Strike "creator Le Minh the success of the first true web-2.0-game in a
Interview with the developer site Gamasutra. The two inventors had actually broken any rules at the time of successful computer games seemed to apply.

The story of "Counter-Strike" is also the story of a new
Generation of media consumers. Jess Cliff of Americans and the Vietnam-Minh Le Canadians get to know over the Internet. Together, the computer science students "Counter-Strike" - actually a reconstruction, a so-called mod, the ego-shooter Half-Life. " Soon after conducting the two already have a whole team that is always new versions developed.

2.0 Gaming, Community, Mulitplayer - all in 1999

The "Counter-Strike-maker is an example of a vanguard in the network not just consume, but organized and produced. "Counter-Strike", one could also say, is for computer games, what Wikipedia for encyclopedia and Linux operating systems is a large, successful community project. Until today, players develop new "Maps", playing the 'Counter-Strike community is alive after ten years than ever before. For a computer game, this incredibly life, certainly for one, it's not from professionals has been developed. Today, many are trying
this effect to make use - including titles such as Sony
"Little Big Planet" or Will Wright
"Spore" is the creativity of the player to tap.

Cliff Le Minh and modified a given computer game, not only in appearance, but fundamental: "Half-Life" sent the players alone in an underground high-tech laboratory in the fight against alien monsters. The modification leaves but teams of "policemen" and "terrorists" against each other. The host of players are using network cable or Internet connection. "Counter-Strike" is still one of the most popular multiplayer games of all time - and in turn model for all that, bringing industry giants like Sony, Microsoft and Electronic Arts are trying to player consoles and PC tie.

70 euros per month for Internet Flatrate

Modifications were disseminated in 1999 - new to Counter-Strike "was that the players not only against each other, but play each other. Also the "Co-op Gaming," Industry is now mainstream. And team-Shooter have been established as a separate genre. " 'Counter-Strike' was the first working team game," says "Counter-Strike" veteran David Hiltscher. He now works for ESL league games in Cologne, and knows the shooter since nine years. Cost him his hobby was 70 euros a month - so much he paid for telephone connection with Internet flatrate.

Multiplayer over the network, which was an expensive fun. The first users were thus from the IT professionals or are children of bourgeois parents. Nevertheless, play together brings people together, "we played with bankers and students together, and sometimes took us to the barbecue," explains David Hiltscher overcoming layer and age barriers.

The "Half-Life Valve manufacturer offering in 2000, a retail version of the modification" Counter-Strike "and land so that every year in the Top Ten. The creators of Minh Le and Jess Cliffe is Valve On. There are always new versions, the game finds the path to the disks of student PC.

"Counter-Strike" is code word and the fight

Also on the stone houses of Robert, on 26 April 2002 in his former school in Erfurt 16 people and then shot himself. At least since then is "Counter-Strike", a code has become a battle cry.

It is considered the prototypical violent game, before the politicians and educators warn. Although the investigation commission, the mass murder should be aware, though is that Robert Stone Houses "killing routines games" pursued,
but also makes clear that "Robert stone houses are not the nights by" Counter-Strike "has played, and" Counter-Strike "is not a long-running house by Robert Stein has been." For critics, the game does not matter: The fact that virtual head hits in "Counter-Strike" as a special ability card apply them enough to make it as "Killerspiel" to blame.

The popularity of the classic does not detract. To Counter-Strike "around is a huge subculture emerged on YouTube alone there are over 120,000 videos on the topic. Some fans even modify the modification, you can instead masked policemen and special forces
The Simpsons compete.

Others bring the art phenomenon
Street Art comes into play: In their version of grace subversive graffiti artist Banksy as the walls of the battle arenas: "This map is soon hot Nike map." That the alleged scene of potential killers perfectly on self-irony has shown again and again: whether in comics, like those
that of the "Counter-Strike" Bender cartoonists, now also produces animated films, or in the numerous real films, in which the player
absurd pages of "Counter-Strike" satirize: The jerky movements of the characters in the game, always the same Türquietsch noises from scratch respawning enemies. To Counter-Strike "humor can laugh at you, no surprise, even his players. Gamer jokes are inside jokes.

"Counter-Strike movie with hundreds of thousands of spectators

Other caricature prejudices. As Daniel Roth and Alexander Schenk, and its film
"A Gamer's Day" exaggerates the clichés: A boy wakes up in the midst of chip debris and flees into the world of the game. Hunger feelings slakes it with the exclusive food pizza, friends and parents can not hold on escapism, sometime mixed reality game world and he brings suit in the fight with gun and Tarnbewegungen waste to dustbin.

"The costume, we can tailor," recalls Alexander Roth. The high school student and his friend Daniel Schenk invested $ 1000 and from 2003 to 2005 two years of their leisure time in the strip. At 323 pages later, she documented the resonance of their work: Instead of the expected ten thousand of spectators, they reached hundreds of thousands. Their analysis also shows the generation of the media "Counter-Strike: Only three reports of print media about the film, and Giga, the only television station for computer. His audience will find "A Gamer's Day" on the Internet.

Like other youth cultures also creates the "Counter-Strike community their own rooms. Their subculture is differentiated from it, makes their characters and codes for unity and distinction to the outside. Punks gathered in a park, developed in small fanzines printed edition - the generation of "Counter-Strike" is completely on the Internet, their community is a digitally networked.

Computer games is now a sport has become, "Counter-Strike" with its
Hundreds of thousands of football fans is the E-Sports
World Championships five different sponsors and prize money.

And the Creator? They have retired, Minh Le does not respond to inquiries, just like Jess Cliffe. Auszuschlachten your glory, as the two apparently never quite considered.

To say it with a
"Counter-Strike" artists to say: "We can entertain ourselves, walking around, a bit of street art, and photograph them. We can even follow the rules and try to each other equally. But damn it all, it makes it more fun to break. "