A combination of the game being more balanced for all players,
and the fact that most of those players are getting older, has
an impact. That's in addition to changes in Internet, gaming,
and security-related network technologies.

The school year starting used to mean an influx of players who
could not normally play from home on dialup, for instance. Now
school signals a decline in players, as the younger players
still in school play video games on the school or dorm LANs or
are foiled by network administrators trying to secure their
bandwidth and summer brings the players in.

Spouses, houses, children and jobs are going to continue to
siphon off some of our older players and Counterstrike and
its ilk will continue to nip at our heels. Maybe some day
we'll turn a blind eye to the cheating that the cheaters
don't consider cheating, but I can't see that point from here.