Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) has brought out big decisions today. It directly addresses Non-Prime players to prevent hackers who exploit the Free-to-play aspect and directly affect the veteran or new playerbase.
Non-Prime players will now no longer be able to queue into official Ranked Games. Along with that, Non-Prime players will not earn XP, Drops, or Skill Groups, all of these will now be exclusive to Prime Status players.
To tackle this situation, ‘Unraked Mode’ has been added to the game. This will available to all the players, irrespective of their Prime status. Skill-based matchmaking will still be in effect, along with other features from the original Ranked mode. The only difference is that Non-Prime players will not earn a Skill Group, Prime players will have their ranks unaffected and they can lobby up without skill group restriction. The Unranked Mode was previously known as Scrimmage, which now has been removed and replaced with Unrank Mode
For Non-Prime players, their skills and XP will be frozen and they will no longer earn any of those. After June 17th their current XP and skill group will be removed from their accounts. Hence, non-prime players still have a small notice period, wherein if they purchase the prime status before June 17th, they can carry forward their XP and Skill group.
Non-Prime players will still be able to play other game modes, including workshop, casual, Arms-Race, and more. This update was somewhat necessary to the game since hackers had no way to be punished as they were able to create a new account on the go without spending extra money. This update has mixed feedback from the players but most of them are positive, especially from the veteran CSGO players who have invested a lot of time in the game and do not want their games to be intercepted by hackers.
I support this move by Valve COrporation. Some moves needs to be introduced to decrease attempts of hackers, apart from banning their account.