Counter Strike: GO beta delayed to 2012

Valve’s reputation isn’t getting much better.

Valve doesn’t exactly have a reputation for delivering games on time, and it appears as if the beta for its Counter-Strike update will do nothing to change that. Speaking with Counter-Strike: Source professional players Kyle “Ksharp” Miller and Ronald “Rambo” Kim, Valve writer Chet Faliszek confirmed that the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive beta test has been delayed.

Scheduled to begin in October, the beta was pushed back after Valve collected feedback from professional Counter-Strike gamers. Faliszek did not provide an updated release date for the beta, nor did he indicate whether the game was still on track to hit its early 2012 release window.

“They gave us a lot of feedback that was obvious, things that we should get in the game before we release [the beta], otherwise we’re going to be getting a lot of bug reports or a lot of feedback that would just be redundant,” he said.

As for the beta itself, Faliszek said that the original invite size will be about 10,000 people, a number that will gradually increase as Valve continues to test server infrastructure and scalability.

“The biggest thing of those first 10,000 is we have to look at percentage of crashes,” he continued. “You can argue with us on bullet-spray patterns and all kind of things, but crashes? There’s really no argument for that. It shouldn’t be happening.” Faliszek went on to note that the beta will eventually enter an open beta phase, where “there will be no barrier to entry.”

As for when the beta will end, Faliszek said Valve will ship the game when the community says it’s ready. “We have no mandate from anybody of when we have to ship this,” he said. “So we’re more than happy to just keep working on this ’til it’s ready to ship. By the end of this, everyone will be playing the game–it will be the released game that you’re just playing. Then, at some point, we’ll say, ‘OK we’re going to release it.’”