this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Everyone just loves untested forced updates. /s

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[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 187 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Funny, on release day, I got downvoted for pointing out they pulled a Blizzard/Overwatch 2.

Half-baked release with missing content and no new content? Check.

Release removes previous release, a game that was at one time a paid game? Check.

I feel like Valve gets way too much of a pass here on this for just being Valve.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 101 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Because it's nowhere near the same. Is it a bad release? Yes. Is it overwatch2 bad? No, not even close.

For the example: even tho it's true that CSGO used to be a paid game, it had been free for 5 years and before that it was 15$, not 40 or however much was ow.

Cs2 comes with a whole new engine which changes a bunch of things, unlike ow2 which is just an upgraded version of the same stuff; same errors, same stuff, basically.

OW2 also made everything in the game more expensive to buy. Etc.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

For the example: even tho it’s true that CSGO used to be a paid game, it had been free for 5 years and before that it was 15$, not 40 or however much was ow.

I think you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the price point was. People paid for these games. The game going "free" isn't a valid justification for being like "its okay this product you paid for is being taken from you."

Would you feel the same about any other product in your life? Why is it justified when that something you paid for being taken from you is "a game."

Cs2 comes with a whole new engine which changes a bunch of things

Yeah, a lot less content than CS:GO and no new content. Seems like they could have let it bake longer before release.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So at what point (in your opinion) does it become okay to discontinue a paid game? Are they supposed to still be running servers for games from 1997, so the 2 people who still remember it can occasionally log into the dead matchmaking service for nostalgia? Obviously this is a ridiculous example, but if your answer isn't "Yes, they should", then that means there's a point somewhere between that and now when it's okay to shut down the service, so where is that line?

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

They could have just left it in people's libraries with the option of people using community servers, something that a lot of gaming companies have traditionally done. They give the server software to the players, who then spin up community servers and keep the game going. There was literally nothing stopping them from just leaving a game that no longer functions in the Steam library.

You can still buy Titanfall on Steam and have it in your library and last I checked, multiplayer for that game hasn't worked in years. EA isn't pulling it from people's libraries because of that.

[–] sane@feddit.de 28 points 1 year ago

That is literally what they've done. The default is CS2, but you can select a beta version in steam which enables CS:GO again. Matchmaking servers are all migrated to CS2, ofcourse, but community servers still work.

The reason they replaced CS:GO with CS2 instead of creating a seperate game is to not split the playerbase. Back when CS:Source released, the playerbase was essentially split in half, with many choosing to remain on CS 1.6, and it took a lot of effort to make CS:GO the standard.

[–] UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gamers: everybody expect steam is terrible

Steam: does the same shitty practices as the other companies gamers were complaining about

Gamers: no this is actually a good thing

[–] pfannkuchen_gesicht@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You now somone got hurt by a coment wen they resot to correcting someone's speling

[–] Maven@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Companies don't need to run servers for old games nobody plays but it is a crime against art and the people who worked on and enjoyed any of that material. All of the wonderful content made specifically for these games is just dead now while the company could've just released a way to self host the game. There is NO reason any game ever should die and any excuse otherwise is just feeding into the pockets of companies that want to kill history.

[–] CluelessLemmyng@lemmy.sdf.org -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So games should never go free or even discounted because someone else paid full price ten years ago? That's just stupid. Let alone, CS2 is essentially a new game that's being released for free. Your only valid complaint is the content, maybe. Maybe they plan on releasing content and had focused more on quality during development.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So games should never go free or even discounted because someone else paid full price ten years ago?

That's an intentional misreading of what I'm saying. The issue isn't that it went Free to Play. The issue is that before that, a number of people paid for the product and then later that product that they paid for was removed from their library entirely.

Being replaced with a game that's Free to Play from the get-go isn't the same thing. It's simply not the product that was paid for.

Would you feel similarly about a physical product that a company took away from you because they were changing it? Not because the product caused any danger, but because they were giving you a newer one, with fewer features, but looked nicer? You wouldn't feel like losing access to things you paid for in the original was a problem? Why is it justified to take away something that was paid for when it's a game?

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I stopped playing CSGO when they added the r8, which I felt changed the game in a way I didn't like. Why weren't you mad then, the game was certainly not what I paid for? It's almost like you paid with the expectation that the game would continue getting updates, they have the right to change the price in the meantime.

Also you can absolutely still play CSGO if you want.

[–] ThunderingJerboa@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

Also you can absolutely still play CSGO if you want.

Yeah if you want to use an obscure feature like steam console to get the latest verison or using beta to get an older verison, instead of you know releasing a fucking separate steamid for a game that is reporting itself as a "Sequel" and don't get me started with them piggy backing off of CSGO's reviews. Imagine if some game like Supreme Commander did that bullshit. Where you had the beloved first game and welp with the sequel out we should all replace it so it can use the same reviews even though the 2nd game was universally panned. This is so assbackwards and noone should stand up for this behavior. Valve is mostly awesome but they botched this release and did it in one of the worst ways possible. People fucking play CS 1.6 and Source still would it be right if they were just disappeared as well but able to be pulled up via download some obscure Steam depot. Hell I have an even better one Half life 1, very loved game but Half Life 1 Source an apparently upgrade that was fucking garbage at launch and still garbage to this day. Would it have been right for Valve to say if you bought the default way to play Half life 1 now is via source only. Noone with a working brain would want that.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How is the game becoming f2p equivalent to it being taken away from you?

Do you feel the same every 2 years when the new wow expansion releases and the previous one becomes free?

Do you feel the same whenever a product you bought for full price goes on sale?

[–] skulblaka@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is the game becoming f2p equivalent to it being taken away from you?

Oh, it's not. The game being removed from my library is equivalent to it being taken away from me.

[–] Skeletonek@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not removed. You can still access latest CS:GO version via beta tab in game properties. Is it inconvenient? Yes. Is it shit that achievements for CSGO were removed? Yes. But you can still play it, and play on community servers.

[–] UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey so results online say that you can only play against bots in that game? Can you refute that only cause im going to base my full opinion on your answer

[–] Skeletonek@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

From what I've saw, Valve servers are offline so no official MM. You can play with bots, and play on community servers, but you have to connect via "connect" command in console, because community server browser is broken.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's literally not the same product.

Going Free to Play is fine. Going Free to Play and then outright removing it from the library of someone who paid for it is not, in my opinion.

[–] ChronosWing@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

Don't know how much this has to be explained to people but it wasn't removed. You can still play it by enabling beta clients in CS2 settings. You just can't use matchmaking but community servers still work.

[–] bentropy@feddit.de -3 points 1 year ago

Im feeling the same for every product the broke at one point in my life, for every food I have digested and for all the DVDs I bought in the early 2000s... things change and to have played $15 10 years ago for a game that is now f2p is nothing to cry about. Especially because you can still play it.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it a bad release?

Uh is it? It literally has the 2nd highest concurrent players of any game on steam ever. it made what, 40mil in a few hours. Sure some old players are a little mad, but that is literally unavoidable, and I don't think they are dropping the game, just complaining.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

There's a difference between bad and unsuccessful. It's still a good game because despite all the people complaining about all the lost shit, most of it wasn't being used that much anyway. Plus, unlike OW2, cs2 will get back all the stuff lost back and then some. So yeah, it's gonna be fine.

[–] StarkillerX42@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 year ago

By your own argument, CS2 is worse than Overwatch. CS2 removed over half of the maps, features, and the gameplay is way worse. Overwatch gameplay was pretty similar, although switching to 5v5 has its problems. It ran the same on the same hardware. The biggest change was the economy which doesn't affect gameplay. I feel like I completely lost access to CS, but I played OW2 for months until the gameplay problems with the meta became more apparent.

[–] FunkFactory@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Funny I consider OW2 a better upgrade than CS2. But maybe because OW1 had a worse starting point. The game needed a total rebalancing and that was what OW2 was about. Yes it's not something they needed a "new" game for but it still made the game 10x more fun for me. CS2 doesn't seem like it's provided any rebalancing at all, feels basically just like a visual update (which OW2 also had). As a super casual player that only played a couple hundred hours years ago, I can't really tell the difference with the new engine (besides smoke mechanics) so the changes feel way less dramatic. But I'm definitely having fun revisiting CS. Also I can see why people would be more mad about OW2 monetization because CSGO has always farmed people for money whereas OW1 gave a ton of free skins. Now they kinda feel like they're at the same level 🫤

[–] venji10@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

OW1 was better in every single aspect. A lot of new interactions make no sense, there are way too many animations now with the new heroes and the matchmaking and ranked system is broken. That is on top of the completely asshole move to F2P with the deletion of the objectively better paid predecessor for players who paid for it..

[–] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 34 points 1 year ago

CS:GO is still there btw, under the beta options

[–] aplomBomb@midwest.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been having a ball with CS2, and I think releasing at it as a separate game to CSGO would only fragment the player base.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Sure, but a fragmented player base impacts Valve's bottom line more than anything else, so I don't understand why this is an argument.

Oh no! A few thousand players will stay on the old game while the new one will still absolutely dominate the charts because people like new and novel.

Genuinely, who would that deeply affect outside of Valve trying to make sure the player base is all on the current game to make the most money? Why are we defending business practices that are clearly aimed at making the most profit at the expense of customer service?

Weren't we all supposed to be Valve fans because we expect better of them?

[–] dm_me_your_feet@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Its not true. A fragmented playerbase hurts everyone. I was there in the Source vs CS 1.6 days. Source and 1.6 were basically completely seperate communities, which were only really unified when CS:GO came out.

Imagine getting the new CS only to find out all your friends refuse to move to the new game, so you have to go there too if you want to play with them and learn everything anew just when you learned the ropes in the new game. A terrible new user experience, which hampers growth, which leads to a dying game.

Updating a hugely successful game is always difficult. Should you cater to the "old guard"? Absolutely. But when they are a contentious bunch who hate change, you just have to force them, or they will paint themselves into a corner, completely isolating themselves from new players. They would probably see this as a win too: no annoying "n00bs".

This would be exactly the situation that developed between 1.6 and Source.

[–] MJBrune@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago

If you look at steam charts you'll see that it's not the case that everyone switched to CSGO when it released. Most states on 1.6 or CSS. The player base was so fragmented that they had folks from 2 games migrating slowly.

[–] Ravaja@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ritchie@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago

It does not work for me. It downloads the update, but still starts CS2. There are no launch options.