Valve has mysteriously brought back Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam. But that’s not all.
Knoebelbroet found out that the listing is back up and shared a link to it. But the store page comes with this notice:
At the request of the publisher, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search.
Furthermore, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s matchmaking servers remain offline. Players can launch it and play with bots, but this relisting clearly isn’t intended to replace Counter-Strike 2.
Valve won’t explain why the game is back, but we have a theory based on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s.
What makes this game’s virtual economy notorious is the loot box system Valve implemented themselves. This economy led to third party sites offering straight up gambling, and Valve had to intervene.
Valve got sued for these operations as early as 2016, but recently, the New York attorney-general announced that she would be suing Valve for these issues.
So this relisting may be part of an ongoing investigation with the state of New York. Counter-Strike fans may not realize that this is looming in the background, but we may also confirm that this is the case as the New York lawsuit keeps going.
