Streaming star Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek believes more top-class Counter-Strike pros like s1mple should make the switch to Valorant as they could earn ridiculous sums of money within a year.
When Valorant was finally released back in June of 2020, professionals from different esports decided to make the jump over. As a result, you’ve got players from Call of Duty, Fortnite, Overwatch, and even Apex Legends competing.
A big focus was also put on Counter-Strike players, given the similarities between Riot Games’ new shooter and Valve’s iconic, two-decade-old franchise.
Many CS pros, who struggled to compete at a high level in CS, made the switch, and others have toyed with the idea of jumping over too. Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev, arguably CS’s greatest talented, joked that Valorant was too easy for him, but others have implored him to make the jump himself.
That includes former Counter-Strike pro shroud, who believes that top-class CS:GO players could make more than their career earnings in a year or so of playing Valorant.
“I think if he does (s1mple play Valorant) he’s going to make a f**k tonne of money,” shroud said during his March 25 stream. “Valorant is on the climb for these pro players to make more money than they ever made in their whole career in CS, isn’t that crazy?
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“Like, yeah, they’ve made $1 million, $2 million, hundreds of thousands of dollars or whatever, but the reason why people are eyeing it is because it is, quite literally, going to make these people who earned $1 million, $2 million in the five years they played, it could make them that in a year. Like, you could see Valorant pro players, in the next year or two, making a million or two in a year, that’s just a fact. You could see that, it could happen.
The former CS pro further noted that he’s always wanted to see a game similar to Counter-Strike take its full potential for players, and Valorant is doing that. “It’s going to be f**king nuts,” he added.
In terms of s1mple switching, he’s at the top of the mountain in Counter-Strike, and there’s no real need to make the switch, unless money is the motivation. There’s always going to be CS teams begging for his services if he wanted to make a change.
