Favorite – OfdmFORUM

There used to be a game called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. You might’ve heard of it—one of the most popular games of all time, played by hundreds of thousands of people every day for over 10 years, the reason every shooter has gun skins now. Anyways, Valve deleted it last month and replaced it with Counter-Strike 2.

That is absolutely wild to think about. One of the biggest games of our time has essentially been swept under a rug, or more accurately, banished to the properties tab of CS2 with broken matchmaking and nothing but community surf servers left to maintain a pulse.

Years of living in the live-service era have conditioned us to embrace change in our favorite games. We herald the arrival of reworks that transform how games are played, celebrate when longtime bugs are finally squashed in patches, and sometimes have to accept the permanent removal of features we like.

Sometimes we’re happy about changes, sometimes we rail against them. But what happened with CS:GO and Overwatch—entire games being swallowed up, diminished, or outright deleted in favor of a sequel—is not good for anything, except keeping costs down at some of the biggest and most successful publishers and developers. It’s a nightmare for PC gaming preservation and a huge disappointment for the dedicated players who keep these games funded in the first place.

Some of the biggest games of our time are being wiped off the internet for no good reason, and it’s time to raise the alarm.

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The worrying trend of throwing games into the virtual incinerator once their sequels come around began with Overwatch 2. Blizzard spent three years failing to accurately explain what a sequel to its live-service FPS would look like, which in retrospect probably happened because Blizzard itself wasn’t quite sure either. At first, Overwatch 2 was to be a completely separate full-priced game with a singleplayer campaign, co-op missions, and multiplayer backwards-compatible with Overwatch 1. We all know how badly the PvE stuff went down, but as we learned more about Overwatch 2 over three years, Blizzard began to indicate it saw no distinction between Overwatch 2 and its predecessor.

Overwatch 2 character Moira wearing Lilith skin facing camera with her hands held up — (Image credit: Tyler C. / Activision Blizzard)

It happened slowly:

November 2019: Overwatch 2 is announced as a separate game that would coexist with Overwatch 1.
November 2019: In an interview, then-game director Jeff Kaplan says Overwatch 1 and 2 will eventually merge to maintain competitive parity. This does not come up again for years, and Blizzard continues to market Overwatch 2 as its own product.
March 2022: Blizzard changes its mind, decides to decouple Overwatch 2’s PvE and PvP content so it can release the game sooner. This confuses everybody. It’s still not clear which parts of Overwatch 2 will be paid content, and if all PvP content is compatible with Overwatch 1, what is the point of having an Overwatch 2?
April 2022: Overwatch 2 holds its first PvP beta, and we notice that not only does Overwatch

When the Steam Deck handheld gaming console launched last year, it was tough to tell whether the device was a portable PC or a Nintendo Switch competitor. It was also unclear whether the Steam Deck would succeed or fail.

Preorders took months to arrive, software support and compatibility were shaky, and the battery life was (and still is) decidedly unimpressive. But after a year of effort and updates, this little $400 device has become my favorite way to play games, and I’d recommend the Steam Deck to anyone who likes to tinker but doesn’t want to build a gaming desktop.

I’ve always been drawn to handheld gaming gadgets, starting with chintzy Tiger handhelds and moving my way up through several Game Boys, numerous Nintendo DS units, the PlayStation Portable, the PlayStation Vita, and a whole host of Android-based emulation devices. I find playing games on a handheld console, even with a small screen, to be more immersive than playing on a giant television or monitor. Like reading a book, using a handheld feels like a private moment, just for me. The Steam Deck is the current embodiment of everything I’ve been looking for.

The Steam Deck is a handheld PC, or a PC-based portable console, made by Valve, a company that was once known for games such as Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, and DOTA 2 but is now more known for its digital PC game store, Steam. The Steam Deck runs a custom version of the Linux operating system called SteamOS (though the device can also run Windows, if you choose to install it).

The Steam Deck has a lot going for it. The machine’s portability gives you the flexibility to play anywhere. It has a massive catalog of games, so you can easily find something to play. It’s built on an open-source operating system, so you can tinker with it for hours on end. That openness comes at the cost of usability—it’s not as plug-and-play as, say, a Nintendo Switch. But it’s also not as complicated as a gaming PC, and because it’s repairable, you can extend the life of the device for as long as its software is supported.

The Steam Deck, show in front of a light blue background, with its screen displaying its game library menu. — Photo: Dave Gershgorn

I was skeptical when Valve announced the Steam Deck in July 2021. At that point, the device was only available for preorder, with the first batch of deliveries scheduled for the following February. Valve has a history of releasing underperforming physical products, ranging from a more traditional console-like computer to a controller that didn’t sell well. Before the Steam Deck, countless companies had tried to pull off a handheld PC with mediocre (or just really expensive) results. And when the Steam Deck shipped, early reactions seemingly validated my initial skepticism. Reviewers were lukewarm on the Steam Deck’s Linux-based software, and although most people still saw some promise in the device, getting over the compatibility issues and software quirks that early adopters faced was a difficult hurdle. At the device’s launch, many

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The new worst gaming trend: killing our favorite games to replace them with sequels

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The Portable, Powerful Steam Deck Is My Favorite Way to Play Games