• Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Honestly, I have trouble seeing these “sequels” as new games. I mean Overwatch 2 was mostly a heavy balance patch, graphical patch, and pivot to F2P.

    These are just large updates where they incremented a number in the name. With that in mind, this isn’t a “trend”, it’s been going on for as long as these service-style games have existed. Fortnite’s pivot from Save the World into Battle Royale, for example. Or going further back: Remember Star Wars Galaxies?

    Yes, these mega-updates are often regressions… again, that’s not news. The only thing “new” is realizing “oh, we should increment the number to get some hype going”.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Well, for CS there are other versions still on Steam still with active communities. The issue with CS2/CSGO is skins. That’s the reason they had to kill CSGO. They couldn’t have skins carry over, be tradable, have the new features skins can make use of, and be able to be earned in the old version and new.

      • Ender of Games@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        They didn’t really “kill” CSGO, though. You can still play it. Just no matchmaking.

        Asking people to give up their skins in CSGO and go to a new game was never going to happen. Instead they made a patch and generated hype for the game as a new name, while supporting Source 1 servers. To think that if they didn’t do a name change, people wouldn’t be whining so much.

    • Sordid@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Or going further back: Remember Star Wars Galaxies?

      The game that was shut down less than a week before Star Wars The Old Republic released? You’re not wrong about the other stuff, but this one definitely wasn’t just a big patch.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        No, I’m referring to the New Game Enhancements update that completely reworked SWG to play more like WoW. That was a much larger gameplay change than Overwatch 2 or CS 2.

        • scottywh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Man… I miss SWG sometimes.

          My Steam avatar is still to the day my SWG character.

          It’s the only MMORPG I ever paid a monthly subscription to play.

  • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    CS:GO is over a decade old and certainly isn’t “killed”, does the author just not want new games to be released ever? I feel like everything posted nowadays is ragebait.

    • Stuka@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I mean CSGO turned into CS2 in my steam library.

      So CSGO effectively doesn’t exist anymore. I say ‘killed’ is accurate

      • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        It was a free update/upgrade for CS:GO. That’s like saying v2.0 killed v1.9.

        Also, major upgrades for free ten years after release is frankly unheard of. This isn’t a “trend”

      • PoppyJalopy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can still open csgo by selecting it from the beta tab on CS2. Can still join community servers on there through to the end of the year iirc

        Doubt valve will have ironed out this forced open beta by then though

        • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          They won’t shut down the game at the end of the year. They just said they won’t be maintaining it / ensuring compatibility

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      does the author just not want new games to be released ever?

      It is impossible to give this an appropriate answer in any forum that demands “civility” over honesty.

      The censored version is: no. And you fucking know better.

  • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I mean, EA started doing this as soon as they thought they could get away with it in the franchises that are the most obvious fit: sports games. Madden, NBA 2kX, PGA whatever…

    At first, gamers would just feel left behind because there was a new title out to match the new season’s roster of teams and players. No one batted an eye because that echoes how live sports keep up annual appeal. But over time, the publisher started taking the servers offline for the older sports games, so if you wanted to compete then the only option was to play a newer title.

    I’m not saying that’s inherently evil, and not to make a slippery slope argument, but it’s not really hard to see how the lure of steady recurring revenue would drive the industry to do the same for as many franchises as possible. And here we are today where IIRC you can’t play titles like Diablo IV offline even as a single player.

    IMO as gamers, we need to collectively draw a line in the sand. But we’re such a diverse group with different tastes and expectations, so I don’t really see that happening.

    • sab@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Speaking from experience with open source, there’s literally no way in hell the average consumer is going to make even minimal effort in order to improve anything at all, even if you manage to make them understand the problem. Ask any idiot still on Twitter.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      But over time, the publisher started taking the servers offline for the older sports games, so if you wanted to compete then the only option was to play a newer title.

      I’m not saying that’s inherently evil

      As someone who remembers when games used to ship with the server code so you could host your own multiplayer, I am saying it’s inherently evil!

      • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Well damn, I remember that too and it’s a good point. You changed my mind, shutting down the only servers is shitty and evil and game companies should go back to allowing community servers.

  • Virkkunen@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    How is this a trend? It happened with two games and you can still play one of them (CSGO).

    EDIT: it happened with 4-ish games, actually, and the Blizzard games are the only ones we cannot play anymore.

    • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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      1 year ago

      How do you mean you can still play CSGO? There are no official servers and even installing and launching it is not straight forward at all? I’d akin that to saying you can still play Vanilla WoW and point to private servers, which is not what anyone means.

      • Virkkunen@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You can absolutely play CSGO and it only takes a few clicks from the CS2 entry in steam. You still have community servers, which were always a big thing in CS.

        You cannot play Overwatch 1 or old Warcraft 3 at all, doesn’t matter how many clicks you try.

        • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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          1 year ago

          Eh. If you count CSGO when there are no official servers I think you need to count WC3 unofficial servers as well. There are workarounds to playing old WC3 online, just not through battle.net.

          • Ender of Games@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Steam still connects you to custom servers, and Valve still allows you to download the server hosting software. The part that went offline- rather, moved to CS2, was the matchmaking client.

            The workarounds to WC3 require you to leave Blizzard designed software to third party support. I don’t recall WC3 ever having matchmaking, but the server browser and hosted game list were taken completely.

            So, not for lack of trying on Blizzard’s part.

        • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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          1 year ago

          I was under the impression that they’re all on Burning Crusade now and soon Wrath of the Lich King, but I don’t really follow that scene anymore. But even Blizz vanilla WoW wasn’t truly vanilla but I guess that’s pretty moot.

      • ezures@lemmy.wtf
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        1 year ago

        Same with the gta 3 trilogy, but R* backtracked after the backlash for the awful remasters

        • Stelus42@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          In the context of remasters, the same thing happened with Dark Souls 1 and its remaster.

  • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    You wouldn’t subscribe to a service like Netflix if they required you to pay an additional fee to unlock each piece of content, nor would you pay money for a Netflix app that’s useless without a subscription, but that’s essentially what you’re doing when you “buy” a live service game. Don’t do that! Either pay once for a game that’s fully playable offline, or pay monthly for a subscription to a live service game where the software to access it is free.

    The publishers are being greedy assholes, but they couldn’t do it if people didn’t pay for the privilege of being scammed.

    • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Not a bad tipp for individuals. Won’t solve the problem though. The few individuals who actually go through with this dont make a dent while children and their parents will gobble up this stuff because marketing. We need policy for shit like this.

      • Sordid@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        You’re not wrong, but if you want to use policy to regulate business models that exploit dumb consumer choices, there are way bigger fish to fry than videogames.

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          I know. It is a pattern. It’s roughly summarized under anti trust. You know, the stuff that has been dismantled in the US over the past couple of years.

          Same goes for europe but not as brutal. When these laws were made, there were no insanely fast growing international conglomerates with a product that changes shape like a chameleon. No wonder they didn’t keep up but now we‘ve got homework. We gotta push politicians to revise laws and change the status quo.

          We need to balance the scales so consumers get the info they need (instead of constantly changing terms and conditions, 10+ pages long), the power to actually change stuff (be able to sue if apple does not let you mass extract your fkin passwords if you dont own a mac) and keep new transgressions from happening by putting long jail terms on anti competitive behavior.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        I have mixed opinions on whether regulation is needed. Maybe just more transparency in marketing would be enough, and I’d be happy to see that, but an outright ban on the business model seems heavy handed to me, given that it’s a problem individuals can simply choose not to participate in if they’re informed of the risks.

        I wonder how many people would buy a game where the piece tag says something like this:

        $60 + $10/month. Not playable without a subscription.*

        And then in the fine print:

        *The publisher may discontinue all subscriptions at any time after 1/1/2025. If that happens, it will no longer be possible to play the game.

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          It’s a very good idea. But I‘m sorry to inform you that this is regulation. It is a very nuanced piece though. Much better than banning it outright, at least to try first.

          • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            I know it’s a regulation. I’m just saying I prefer less intrusive regulations when they’re enough to get the job done.

            • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              Makes sense and will be taken more serious than a black and white approach. I‘m with you there.

  • EfreetSK@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I mean … Pikachu face? :)

    So people switch to service based solutions for movies, games, music, … where they own literally nothing because the actual owner is the corporation which sort of ‘rent it’ to them. And then they’re surprised that provided stuff gets demolished by ‘landlord’ because it doesn’t bring enough money to the landlord

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah it’s totally our choice, it’s just that simple. /s

      I remember when I bought half life 2. A hard copy in a store. Then, suddenly, to play it I was required to use some thing called steam. According to you, by playing that game, which I bought normally, I brought this on myself. According to reality I was just trying to play a game. For years I hated and resisted steam and all that did was make playing games harder. I finally gave in and life is honestly much easier because of it. I’m still bitter about being strong armed and the potential for steam to fuck us all over, but I never really had a choice if I wanted to play certain PC games, namely half life 2.

    • itsonlygeorge@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Hey, I have an idea let’s cancel the old game and market in the new game which is exactly the same as the old game and they have no choice because we deleted old fame.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I mean all they have to do is add a 2/2/2 mode using the weaker open-queue tanks into the Arcade to say “look we’ve got OW1 as an arcade mode!”

    • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      In what way? 6v6? Generous loot? Immobile Orisa and Bastion? Uglier graphics?

      That’s basically the trick of this - these aren’t really sequels, they’re just large updates being marketed as sequels. In the case of OW2, the biggest loss is how prohibitively expensive the new monetization scheme is.

      • verysoft@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        If the game was reverted, it would feel like a breath of fresh air, they fucked it on all fronts.

      • ADHDefy@kbin.social
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        1 year ago
        • 6v6? Yes please.
        • Generous loot? Yes please.
        • Immobile Orisa and Bastion? I was an Orisa main and a Bastion main before that. I (mostly) miss the old meta. Yes please.
        • Uglier graphics? If the graphics must suffer for the game to be fun again, then so be it.
  • DancingIsForbidden@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As someone who mostly plays offline single player games, I don’t really care what they “kill” by creating new enshittified versions of things. I already cultivated a save version of the game I like, it’s installed on a pc that rarely or never goes online that you can’t access and deactivate, and since you spent my 40 bucks already as per our agreement, I’ll enjoy it whenever I want forever without your input or any future consent required from your company. Cope.

  • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Overwatch got significantly worse for me but I love all the changes to CSGO, so it’s a mixed bag for me so far.