Happy Birthday to Us
2013.08.22 - 
CS:GO is officially one year old! To celebrate the first birthday of Counter-Strike’s latest incarnation, we’re shipping an update today with a bunch of gameplay adjustments — weapon balancing, map tweaks, bug fixes and more. Be sure to check the change log for more info.
We’d also like to recognize the people who’ve helped us blow out the candles on past birthday cakes by rewarding Counter-Strike’s five-year veterans. If you activated any version of Counter-Strike on Steam before August 21st, 2008 and have an account in good standing, you are now the owner of the highly rare, non-tradeable Five-Year Veteran Coin, which you can equip from your inventory and show off wherever your avatar is shown.
If you’re not a five-year vet, but you’re pretty close, hang in there: Players who purchased any version of CS after August 21st, 2008 will automatically get your coin once you’ve hit the five-year mark.
ESEA LAN Grand Finals
2013.08.18 -
Congratulations to 
NiP on their win over 
compLexity in the ESEA LAN Grand Finals. They win the $20,000 prize. Both teams will be invited to the ESWC Grand Finals that will take place later this year.
8/13 – The Arms Deal Update
2013.08.14 -
Introducing the Arms Deal Update, which lets you experience all the illicit thrills of black market weapons trafficking without any of the hanging around in darkened warehouses getting knifed to death. The Arms Deal Update lets you collect, buy, sell and trade over 100 all-new decorated weapons that you can equip in-game.
You can start collecting decorated weapons via timed weapon drops just by playing CS:GO on official and community servers. You can also get them by opening dropped weapon cases with the appropriate key, or by trading with other players through Steam’s Trading interface. Additionally, any decorated weapons you’ve found, bought or traded can be sold on the Steam Marketplace.
We also want The Arms Deal Update to give back to the community, which is why we’re happy to announce the eSports Weapon Case. A portion of the proceeds from sales of eSports Case Keys will go towards prize purses at CS:GO community competitive events.
Last but not least, as part of the Arms Deal Update, we’ve added two new stock weapons available to everyone, the M4A1-S and USP-S.
Find out more about the update here and through the Arms Deal FAQ, or simply hop into the game and check it out yourself. And as always, be sure to let us know what you think on the CS:GO forums, Reddit, and the Steam Community Discussions.
Operation Payback, Extended!
2013.07.31 -
If you missed last week’s great news about Operation Payback: with the support of the CS:GO community, the map-makers’ share has reached over $150,000! Thanks to everyone who has participated so far.
To celebrate the success of Operation Payback, we’re extending the event for an extra month. You’ll continue to get access to these fantastic maps on our official servers until August 31st.
Meanwhile, we’re looking at a great list of maps that we hope to include in the next operation. If you’ve been working on a map, now is the time to make sure it’s in the workshop and getting votes!
