Counter Strike Global Offensive, while not typically played on Mac, still had a portion of dedicated players on the Apple platform. However, since the free CS2 update, those players who might have spend hundreds if not thousands on in-game cosmetics have now completely lost access to the content.
When Counter Strike 2 was first announced via the Limited Test, there was little in the way of support for MacOSX. Now that it’s been released, it’s entirely replaced Counter Strike: Global Offensive in player’s Steam inventories. While the FAQ clearly states that “at this time CS2 is not available on Mac,” there were plenty of Mac players who were greeted with Counter Strike 2’s Windows executable files being downloaded onto their systems regardless.
It seems as though since CS2 replaced CS:GO on Steam, they forgot to remove OSX compatibility from downloads. This Reddit thread collects Mac user’s reactions to the unfair teasing – with some of them even persisting and trying to use the downloaded files to patch the update to existing CS:GO files.
However, what’s really disheartening to see is that there are Mac users out there who have spent thousands of hours playing CS:GO that are now unable to access the game at all. There’s a few reasons why this is a huge issue.
Firstly, Global Offensive wasn’t always a free-to-play game. In fact, it was not too long ago that it cost a tidy sum to pick it up. While it wasn’t expensive, it still cost money.
Secondly, one of the reasons that the game is so financially successful is due to the loot crate mechanics that drive it. You can purchase ‘cases’ which contain cosmetics. Counter Strike cosmetics can sell for anywhere between a dollar and a thousand, so it’s certainly the case that there’s some Mac users out there that have lost out on a lot of money due to this.
One Redditor has commented “I’ve got 2k+ hours in this game and [spent] a few hundred bucks, it’s really the only game I play anymore.” They continued to add they’re going to be “shopping around for some budget PCs lol,” which seems like a disappointing work-around for the lack of MacOSX compatibility for CS2.
Some players are even – rightly so, might I add – demanding their money back from the content that is now no longer accessible to them.
As expected from responses to the demands, people are dismissing the concerns of Mac users. However, the reality is that if you purchase a product and then access to said product is restricted – you have every right to be upset.
It’s entirely possible that Valve add in support for Mac systems in the future, though for now who knows what could happen.
