Ukrainian Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostylijev (26) is considered one of the world’s best players in CS:GO (now Counter-Strike 2) and is generally revered as one of the best shooter players in the world. Now he wanted to cash in on his reputation and launched a program for €137 to “become as good as him” – but the project failed shortly after it was launched.
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s1mple thinks Counter-Strike 2 is bad, sells lessons instead
This was his new project: On June 3rd, s1mple launched the project “Play Like S1mple” together with the ESL FACEIT group.
The idea was to offer a kind of online course on Counter-Strike 2, with lessons from s1mple and guests. Access to the project costs $149 – the equivalent of €137.
In the meantime, the offer had already been reduced to $97, which is about €90.
Those who pay should get private access to s1mple
The star player said:
Besides the educational part of the classes, I want to build a real connection with my people, which means you can look forward to various online and offline activities for members.
According to the US site Dexerto, buyers were promised 70 instructional videos, as well as monthly tournaments, private Discord channels and a private communication channel to s1mple and his friends.
Project ends silently after 6 weeks
This is the current status: According to Dexerto, the project was practically discontinued about 6 weeks after its launch, although it is still available for purchase:
“Click on their heads”
What was the reaction to the courses? The feedback was generally negative. Some people who bought the course said publicly that it was simply not worth $149/€137. The project was “pure fraud” – there were better guides on YouTube.
One user on reddit says: “The project failed because the guides were poorly made and basically amounted to ‘click like this on their heads and now you have full control of B.'”
Another user says that providing detailed guides for every level of knowledge requires a “shit-load” of work because Counter-Strike is so complex. There is also already established and strong competition when it comes to guides and analyses.
Apparently, the project went very well and had many buyers, as a news account reports.
This is what’s behind it: It seems that the whole project did not receive the response from the community that was hoped for. It received a lot of negative criticism.
Simply giving people their money back certainly speaks volumes for the organizers and is decent. But doing so without making any kind of statement seems strange.
We’ve seen a similar project before, back then by Ninja. It’s apparently an attempt by popular shooter gamers to somehow make money from their name. But the actual usefulness of these videos and courses is being questioned. Just because someone is an outstanding shooter gamer doesn’t mean that they can impart their knowledge particularly well. Stars often simply lack the patience for this: The biggest streamer on Twitch offers a “Masterclass” for €200 – but testers make fun of it