Valve just pulled a Blizzard and seems to have gotten away with it.
Valve just pulled a Blizzard and seems to have gotten away with it.
I find it odd there has been very little noise about this. Like sweet its awesome to see that there is a new Counter strike and the features they are adding seem awesome. People were very angry when Blizzard did this same exact thing, where is the anger right now about this?
I'm not here to say Valve should forever support their games, its just seems weird to kill it when there are fundamental differences between the games. Kill the official servers, that is fine since the community will just adjust and host their own servers but basically zapping the game out of existence seems wrong and it continues the worrying trends we have that can revolve around game preservation.
What are you talking about?
Not only Counter Strike: GO is over 10 years old, Valve games can be hosted with Valve's official blessing even when they drop support. There are still people who play Counter Strike 1.6 today. This is nothing like what Blizzard did to Overwatch.
I think he's referring to the fact that Counterstrike 2 literally replaced CS:GO. You can no longer access it in any form.
Alright, I see the issue. Even then that's not technically true. I would say it's not user friendly, but CS:GO is still counted as a previous version of CS 2, and you can access and host older versions of Valve games. Here's a guide for that.
Heck people still play Ricochet today.
Blizzard didn't do the exact same thing.
Blizard took a paid for game with fair microtransactions and transformed it into a predatory free to play game with an unfair battlepass.
Reception to OW2 would have been better if they kept the freely dropped lootboxes and gave some more compensation to the people that bought the game. Also if they didn't leave the game to dry for several years on an empty promise.
Because with Overwatch 2, the changes were so small and meaningless that it could have just been an update to the original game. CS2 is on a whole new engine and has significant upgrades that couldn't have been implemented in a simple update. Not to mention all the promised features OW2 was supposed to have that they backtracked on. That being said, I don't exactly agree that they should have outright replaced CS:GO, but it's not really the same as what Blizzard did. If they had replaced the original OW but had a significant reason to do so like Valve did, people wouldn't be so upset at them.
Do you know what OW2 changed, since you call it small and meaningless?
Imo the gameplay updates with a move to 5v5 were pretty significant. The engine stayed the same, afaik, but some things were overhauled, although I don't know if it was just visual changes.
According to some comments I've read, CS2 feels somewhat rushed. Some game modes and maps are missing, and the subtick server stuff also seems like a mixed bag.
So, why is it fine for one of these games, but not the other? For someone who hasn't played either game in years, it feels like a similar level of change for either game.
OW2 changed the number of players on a team, rebalance some heros and changes some day maps to night and some night maps to day, nothing that couldn't have just been a big update. The only justification for a whole new game was the free PvE mode, which they walked back on and is no longer free. Not to mention that people who've had hands on with it are saying it's not even very good. CS2 on the other hand is on an entirely new engine with significant upgrades across the board, both in the technical aspect and graphical. I played some just last night and the difference between 2 and GO are night and day, no way it could have just been an update. Also it's been brought to my attention that, unlike what I previously thought, CS:GO is indeed still available to run community servers on, unlike the original OW which is lost completely to the world.
I think people's issue with OW2 replacing OW wasn't the inability to get into the old game, it was the irrevocable changes. Like, I think there is more issue with the changes to free loot crates and characters than "but my OW1!"
From my understanding, CS2 doesn't have glaring changes like this.
However, to your point for new games replacing old ones - I'm conflicted. On one hand, there's little point booting up Star Wars Battlefront 1 by EA, but it would definitely have been shitty if EA had replaced it with BF2.
But as someone else mentioned, you can also still boot into CS:GO. So if the issue is wanting to play with friends, that should still be possible. It comes down to how it's done I guess.
Thinking about it, it only seems like some IP's can really do this anyway. Battlefield probably can't, unless they decide to stop using themes for the games. Battlefield 1 just can't exist in Battlefield 5. Call of Duty could probably find a way to accomplish it though.
If CS:GO was preserved as a beta version in the game's properties that would be great. Apparently they are doing that now with some sort of replay player version but it's broken?