To the twentieth anniversary of the HLTV portal

April 11, 2022 marks exactly twenty years since the founding of the HLTV portal - without a doubt, the main eSports portal for all Counter-Strike fans. In honor of the memorable date, we recall the main stages in the formation of the resource as the main source of information from the world of CS.

History reference

HLTV was founded on April 11, 2002 by Per Lambek and Martin Rosenbeck, two students looking for a solution to a problem: finding an easy way for the growing Counter-Strike fanbase to watch the best teams on the planet.

Interestingly, initially the portal was engaged in the coverage of both Counter-Strike and Half-Life. And the abbreviation itself is directly related to the main brainchild of Valve - Half-Life Television.

Today it is one of the leading sites in the Counter-Strike community with over 4 million unique visitors every month. HLTV covers professional news of the CS:GO esports scene, tournaments and statistics, reports from the main championships of the discipline, compiles annual ratings and rebroadcasts key matches.

Since 2010, HLTV has ranked all professional Counter-Strike players based on performance. Since the end of 2015, HLTV has been ranking teams based on its own rating system - 2.0. In addition, HLTV awards MVP awards to the most valuable player in every tournament.

In 2016, HLTV launched dust2.dk, a website dedicated to the Counter-Strike esports scene in Denmark. In 2017, they followed suit with the launch of dust2.us, a local website for the Americas. Data such as professional scores are transferred from affiliated websites to HLTV.

In 2020, HLTV announced that it and sister site dust2.dk were acquired by Better Collective, a betting company based in Denmark.

The beginning of a journey into the world of Counter-Strike

In 2002, thanks to the rapidly growing interest in Counter-Strike, two students created a website from scratch that became known as HLTV. Initially, the portal toolkit was a hub of IP addresses, which at that time was the most reliable way to watch a match. At the same time, the editorial department began to publish the first news from the world of CS.

The following year, the functionality of the portal expanded, as a result of which a section with demo recordings appeared on HLTV. In addition to looking up IP addresses, during this time, users could book HLTV servers for their own games to allow others to watch them.

Rapid growth

In 2006, the portal underwent its first visual changes. At the same time, the first photo galleries from local championships from Denmark began to appear on HLTV.

Three years later, a landmark moment for HLTV comes - the appearance of a statistics section. From that moment on, the portal begins to take on familiar shapes that are known to all Counter-Strike fans today. The first data came from the Extreme Masters III Continental Finals, from which player, match and team data was integrated.

In the same year, HLTV launched its own YouTube channel, which over the next years became one of the main guides to the world of esports CS.

In 2010, HLTV launched its own statistical metric to measure player performance. At the end of the same year, the first ranking of the top 20 players was presented, which reflected the direct contribution of esports players to the development of the scene.

Becoming the main guide to the world of CS

Over the following years, HLTV improved the existing functionality, supplemented the statistical sections, and also gradually integrated into the Counter-Strike esports ecosystem.

In 2016, the portal began to award MVP awards, which to this day are given to the most valuable players in each tournament. The following year marked an important milestone in HLTV's history with improved statistical metrics. The 2.0 rating now includes more statistics to determine if a player has had a good or bad performance, including KAST, ADR and an updated impact calculation.

What will happen next?

HLTV does not stop there. In the future, the portal intends to develop the existing functionality, open new spaces for certain regions (for example, dust2 sites), and also develop its own initiatives, including the Award Show. However, there is no doubt that HLTV was, is and will be the main portal for all fans of the Counter-Strike esports scene.