ITV (formerly Granada and Carlton)

The most popular online action game franchise, Counter-Strike, achieved 7.6 billion viewer-minutes in the past month, according to the specialist researcher Gameasure.

As for the number of potential 'customers' , it ain't exactly China in terms of size.

As of May 2006, Counter-Strike is still the most widely played online first-person shooter in the world. In 2002 there were over 30,000 Counter-Strike servers on the Internet (second place was Unreal Tournament with about 9,800). In 2004, GameSpy statistics showed over 85,000 players simultaneously playing Counter-Strike at any point in time, and in 2006, Steam regularly shows over 200,000 players for Counter-Strike[1] (this includes Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike). According to statistics gathered by Valve's content-delivery platform, Steam, these players collectively contribute to over 4.5 billion minutes of playing time each month,[1] solidifying its position as the most popular online first-person shooter in history.

I notice the the big 'Lukawski' forgot to mention those who probably don't like advertising.



Counter-Strike was originally played online through the WON gaming service, which was shut down in 2004,[2] forcing players to switch to Steam (to which a section of players responded by creating their own WON network, dubbed WON2).


Game on

G..