Valve has confirmed to Dust2.us that they will not grant licenses to tournament organizers to operate Counter-Strike: Global Offensive events despite allowing licenses for a number of legacy titles including Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source.
The confirmation by Valve follows an unexpected decision by the publisher to re-release CS:GO as a separate App ID on Steam, making it far easier for fans of CS2‘s predecessor to access the game. Decoupling CS:GO from CS2 has seen the game explode in popularity once again, with the 2012 title boasting 60,000+ players at the time of publication.
Valve’s decision to formally disallow tournament operators from running CS:GO events will likely be an unpopular one with fans of the title, as the re-release of CS:GO could inspire "throwback" events for the title. Additionally, there is a contingent of players who prefer CS:GO to Counter-Strike 2 despite the massive improvements made to the game over the past 2.5 years.
While Valve did not comment on why they will not deny licenses, it is possible they don’t want to dilute CS2‘s player base nor open the door to events being run in a game they no longer support.
Valve’s stance goes against their general policy of continuing to allow TOs to request an operating license for the majority of their games, including vintage titles like Team Fortress: Classic, CS 1.6, and Day of Defeat.
There is also the matter of Valve’s upcoming Deadlock, which has seen over 200+ tournaments held according to Liquipedia, despite Valve technically not allowing TOs to request a license for the unreleased title.