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 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 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 0 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.