I'm just a little surprised there's not more pushback considering that Valve just did with CS:GO and CS2 almost exactly what Blizzard did with Overwatch and Overwatch 2.
CS:GO literally disappeared from my Steam Library and was replaced with CS2. I get that CS:GO's servers were already down, but it still feels wild to just wholesale remove it from people's libraries this many years later. I felt similarly about Overwatch 2, but Blizzard caught a lot more heat for that than I've seen from the Valve fan community so far.
I know CS:GO has been Free to Play for a long time, but seriously, this is kind of a big fuck you to any archivists who wanted to keep a copy around for history's sake.
I don't think this is really a fuck you to archivists any more than a simple update to the game is at any other point. I do agree that it's similar to what Blizzard did with overwatch only Valve didn't overpromise and underdeliver
Valve just did with CS:GO and CS2 almost exactly what Blizzard did with Overwatch and Overwatch 2.
Except that Overwatch 1 was a paid game replaced with a version with broken promises.
I know CS:GO has been Free to Play for a long time, but seriously, this is kind of a big fuck you to any archivists who wanted to keep a copy around for history’s sake.
You had half a year to archive CSGO. Don’t act as it came as a surprise or something.
For someone who isn't huge into CSGO, it actually did come as a surprise for it to disappear from my library today. Sorry not everyone spends their time making sure they know what's going on with every single game in their library. I'm literally finding this out for the first time today.
In all the reports of CS2 being released, this is the first I've heard that the new game would fully replace the old. Once again, I knew about that with Overwatch and I don't even play Overwatch because people were complaining about this before Overwatch 2 was even released. I was well aware it was getting replaced before release, simply because it was discussed and reported on a lot. There were numerous front page posts on reddit about it, months before release.
The same can't be said for CS2. It wasn't talked about a lot by anyone. I only was able to find one specific news article about how it was replacing the old game, after searching today.
Perhaps Blizzard is generally under more scrutiny than Valve. Not to mention, isn't it still possible to just download an older steam depot and archive that? Sure, it not being readily available via Steam's basic library makes it difficult to archive, but releasing this as a new game entirely may have caused more issues than it would have this way.
I agree with all your points. I guess, to me, it's just a little silly that they're under less scrutiny for doing the exact same thing. If Blizzard received scrutiny because it was a anti-consumer choice, it doesn't stand to reason that people should ignore Valve doing the same.
I've been a big fan of Valve for twenty years or more, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to ignore when they do anti-consumer things.
I was excited until I realized that the original was replaced with CS2 in my library. If it is different enough to warrant a new title, it should be entirely separate rather than being treated as an update to an existing game.