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Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

nytimes.com

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Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#41

Post by nsilvestri »

mrguyorama wrote: post #30
ViktorRay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but they aren’t wacky or silly

Instead they are a transparent system that enables literal children to get addicted to gambling and valve takes a cut of every payout and they are well aware of this. CS is not a billion dollar game. CS is a fairly unprofitable game with a giant tumor of a marketplace attached, a significant point of which is being a faux currency that escapes most currency controls

"Fairly unprofitable [if you ignore all the parts that generate revenue.]"

I will admit that gambling $0.16 in skins on pro matches when I was 15 was a lot of fun. Maybe I'm lucky to have gotten away (relatively) unscathed, but I do have a little nostalgia for those days.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#42

Post by ivape »

Insanity wrote: post #14
alexjplant wrote: post #9

I started with CS: Source and quickly got into 1.6 because of the more expansive funmaps and modding scene. It was like the Wild West (or literally as was the case with de_westwood) - Nipper's penchant for glitchy drivable vehicles, ridiculously huge maps with teleports galore and weird music, fy_iceworld, gun game... it was so wonderfully weird. The fact that the core of the game stayed the same for so many years wi…

Modding and mapping were what made CS great in my opinion. Since CS:GO, Valve has been quietly killing that scene by making it harder and harder for people to find these game modes. But to be honest, I think it's an artifact of our (or at least my) generation. I've played CS for thousands of hours, same with l4d and cod2/4, and I don't _need_ a battle pass, seasons, constant updates etc. Though when chatting with my…

Quietly? They monopolized the modding community. There is a universe where gamers could sell their weapon skins, but now only Valve sells their own skins. They killed modders.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#43

Post by Melatonic »

zedascouves wrote: post #21

I Started with actionquake (aq2). check it out. Minh “Gooseman” Le, one of CS’s creators, was a fan of AQ2. Counter-Strike (first released in June 1999 as a Half-Life mod) built on AQ2’s ideas but refined them with better hitboxes, buy menus, maps, and more tactical pacing. AQ2 is often described as “the bridge between Quake and Counter-Strike”.

So many good mods back then - "the specialists" I remember being particularly fun as well

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#44

Post by xatxat »

zedascouves wrote: post #21

I Started with actionquake (aq2). check it out. Minh “Gooseman” Le, one of CS’s creators, was a fan of AQ2. Counter-Strike (first released in June 1999 as a Half-Life mod) built on AQ2’s ideas but refined them with better hitboxes, buy menus, maps, and more tactical pacing. AQ2 is often described as “the bridge between Quake and Counter-Strike”.

The AQ2 community perceived CS as way too slow though. No wonder when you are used to strafe jumping through team jungle and urban :-)

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#45

Post by asabla »

Loudergood wrote: post #15

Timely, I was just wondering yesterday (as I was launching the BF6 beta) if there was a current FPS with a mod scene like we had for Half Life and BF 1942. I can't seem to find anything.

Squad, Arma (and especially Arma reforger), Dayz, Battlebit, Heretic + Hexen and thr list goes on.

Arma usually gets the more complex and janky stuff (in a fun way). While the others are more modified experiences.

Like Squad, we're they've re-created star wars battlefront

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#46

Post by GlobalElite »

I grew up with CS1.6 and spent what must be thousands of hours on it before I turned 18. But I can't stand what Valve did to modern versions of CS. The reason? Gambling. So much fucking gambling everywhere. Other games have lootboxes, I hate them, but they are usually "contained" in the sense that you do not see them in every context surrounding the game. But because CS skins can be traded between players, there is now an entire third party ecosystem for skin trading and worse, skin gambling. Lootboxes inside lootboxes. And now it feels like every CS YouTuber, streamer and even teams at lower tiers is sponsored by a skin casino. I remember dropping into a stream of a professional player only to watch him throw $500 (God knows where the money comes from) away playing what is basically a CS skin roulette. WTF.

And there is also the typical sports gambling shit. HLTV the main news source of the pro CS scene is full of gambling ads. Higher tier tournaments often give a segment to gambling people talking about odds between matches. And as you would expect in a scene with rampant gambling there is match fixing. The serious media and the authorities will not look into it because esports is not serious stuff, but people know it’s there. Whenever you see a tier 2 team throw a most winnable match in the weirdest fashion you can see a stream of Twitch chat messages calling it rigged. People know but nothing will be done against it. Check out Richard Lewis if you want more information on that.

https://richardlewis.substack.com/p/prologue-no-one-really-c...

I would love to see a modern shooter with nice graphics and self hostable servers in the same niche as the old CS. But all we got is Valorant and its kernel spyware (oops I mean anticheat). Guess I should just keep player CS1.6 until I die shrug

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#47

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

Something that wasn't mentioned in the article is that Counter-Strike spawned the creation of the most iconic FPS map ever: de_dust2. If an FPS supports custom maps, it's inevitable that de_dust2 will get ported to it.

There's actually a mini-documentary about the creation of de_dust2 [0] which I think will be of interest to FPS fans.

I wonder if de_dust2 is the most played FPS map or if it has been dethroned by something like Fortnite or some other shooter map.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWWhxfGq_yk

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#48

Post by snapcaster »

y-curious wrote: post #35
dominick-cc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer versions of counterstrike have skins/loot boxes

It's not pay-to-win and the skins are de facto NFTs (with resale value). It's a loot crate system done right IMO

>loot crate system done right

Would advise looking into why those skins are so valueable. spoiler: money laundering and hooking kids on gambling

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#49

Post by bob1029 »

jcalx wrote: post #18
alexjplant wrote: post #9

I started with CS: Source and quickly got into 1.6 because of the more expansive funmaps and modding scene. It was like the Wild West (or literally as was the case with de_westwood) - Nipper's penchant for glitchy drivable vehicles, ridiculously huge maps with teleports galore and weird music, fy_iceworld, gun game... it was so wonderfully weird. The fact that the core of the game stayed the same for so many years wi…

You'll probably like this short series on fy_iceworld if you haven't seen it already: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-legacy-of-fy_iceworld-c... But yes, I was never really a 1.6 player but I felt the same way about Garry's Mod maps. Joining a random server and seeing the maps and assets download and never really knowing what you were going to spawn into... it was wonderfully weird in a way that reminds me of th…

I think there is still a huge market for this stuff.

An entire shooter based solely upon the principles of fy_iceworld & gun game would wipe the floor with most other AAA titles on offer right now.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#50

Post by Insanity »

ivape wrote: post #42
Insanity wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modding and mapping were what made CS great in my opinion. Since CS:GO, Valve has been quietly killing that scene by making it harder and harder for people to find these game modes. But to be honest, I think it's an artifact of our (or at least my) generation. I've played CS for thousands of hours, same with l4d and cod2/4, and I don't _need_ a battle pass, seasons, constant updates etc. Though when chatting with my…

Quietly? They monopolized the modding community. There is a universe where gamers could sell their weapon skins, but now only Valve sells their own skins. They killed modders.

Actually that's a really good point on the skins aspect. But I think the community might be in a better shape if the dedicated servers were easier to find.

I miss surf_greatriver and its variants :(

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