TwilightVulpine

The capability of stupidity to explain things adequately when it comes to business and politics is very limited. In both those fields there are people constantly enacting malicious schemes and playing dumb.

The only reason why I'm not so keen on the conspiracy, is that it doesn't make sense to me that someone so wealthy would have to stake this destruction on his own reputation and take collateral losses on his other business if he was being machiavellian about it. He could tell his puppet CEO to take all those destructive measures and still maintain his tech genius image. It just seems more like a wild ego thing.

But the people who funded his acquisition, this obvious hare-brained idea, maybe they were aiming for its destruction. They should have known that he was paying far more than the website was worth and that its income would never repay it.

I never quite understood what this game is about.

Seems to me anyone rich enough to spend so much on something so stupid might have gotten some other extravagant accessory to replace it already.

If anyone thought an electronic device would become a family heirloom they are really clueless.

A chance to win the access to use a fictional character/weapon that will be revoked as soon as the game closes. Seems like even more of a scam than regular gambling, and that's already pretty iffy.

In principle I agree that it's preferable to have the old game as a visible download on the store but you should understand that it's unusual for evolving online games to offer older versions in any manner these days, nevermind let players host games independently. That Valve provides this possibility at all, even if in a convoluted way, already puts them miles above Blizzard.

CS 2 even allows for players to carry over their whole collection of skins, which is something many players care deeply about and even invested significant money on. Which is itself a questionable matter but I can't deny that this is important for the players. Maybe this is why it was made into a new version of CS:GO rather than a separate thing.

I think it's fair to demand that old CS:GO is added to Steam in a more transparent form, but it's a matter of convenience rather than them taking anything away from the players like Blizzard did.

Some companies still manage to offer regional prices. It's more of a matter of poor implementation or even plain indifference. The latter especially when the platform offers that option but the publisher maintains the prices high.

Eh, I won't speak for that person's habits but for me piracy was not the last possible resort but rather the entry point that allowed me to develop enough interest that I do buy them today.

And when today the "free" options peddle gambling to children, I cannot take the moral argument seriously even for a second. I would much sooner have people pirate than develop gambling addictions, the publishers be damned.

Maybe they've already been buying on sales.

I'm from a third world country. I still buy games as often as I can, but I also get that these price hikes are stretching people thin. A $70 game is like a third of our monthly minimum wage, it's a huge chunk of money that people need to live, and most companies don't bother to adjust it proportionally to our financial situation, even though there is no reason not to do so when it comes to digital media.

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.

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.

Wages haven't keep up with inflation, you need to account for the loss of disposable income since then.

Poverty is also a fact of life. Not everyone can afford every price increase.