masterspace@lemmy.ca 15 hours ago
The author of this article reflexively and illogically defends Steam (like usual):
But at least some of what Kaldaien complains about isn’t necessarily on Steam’s shoulders. It’s well within devs’ powers to provide players with access to older game versions on Steam (KOTOR 2, which I recently replayed, lets you access its pre-Aspyr version via a beta branch, for instance), but many of them elect not to. That strikes me as an issue with individual devs rather than Steam as a whole, and as for Steam Input? Well, again, if there’s a problem there it’s with developers electing to use that API over OS-native ones that’s the issue.
He literally completely misses the modder’s point. Steam itself will not run on the original machine you purchased KOTOR 2 on. You can buy a gaming machine, purchase a game through steam and 6 years suddenly no longer be able to simply because Valve has decided that the version of Steam that you bought the game through is no longer ok and now you need to upgrade your hardware and OS to play the same game you’ve been playing for years.
In my opinion, that’s not on Steam to support their client on a long past EOL operating system. Not withstanding the added development workload and costs, there is also significantly more risk associated with supporting an OS that isn’t receiving security patches.
Not to mention the modder’s example Windows fucking 98. Steam still supports Windows 7, which was released in 2009. Your 6 year old PC will be fine.
In my opinion, that’s not on Steam to support their client on a long past EOL operating system.
It is on them since they “sold” you a game. They didn’t have to build a business model that popularized always checking in DRM, but it was more profitable for them to do so.
but wait a minute. when, and how did exactly valve popularize always online DRM?
you know that they have nothing to do with denuvo, and steamdrm is not always online, right?
Steamdrm requires periodic online check-ins, which is the same thing for the purpose of this discussion about them forcing system upgrades.
I’m not sure valve deceived you. It’s not fair that we can’t run purchased old games on the OS they were built for. they could really show instructions on how to make them run on that OS, maybe even make a simple but official lightweight client that can download it for you, on that old OS.
but if you are on windows 10, what can they do with a game they sold you that won’t work correctly on anything beyond XP?
yes, the above things they could, and should. but even today you are not locked out: copy the game files to USB, drop in the goldberg emu, and play the game on your XP machine. It’s a single file, not eben needs internet.
if the game had DRM? I am not sure that’s the fault of valve. didn’t the devs put it there?
and if you accept the “solution” to drop steam, and start renting your games? you won’t be able to do even this. you are literally locked out both if you stop paying, and if the service stops making that game available because their license expired, politics, or whatever. and you literally can do nothing about that.
I’ve been running steam on an unsupported OS (osx 10.13.6) for almost a year and a half now, and the only issue is a banner at the stop claiming that steam will stop working in 0 days.
I don’t remember what if anything I did to make this happen, but I’ve had no trouble buying, downloading, or playing games in that time.
Godort@lemmy.ca 15 hours ago
This issue has multiple facets and the answer changes depending on the end result you want.
The author of the article sees the problem as “Old games you bought on steam are unplayable on modern hardware”. Kaldaien sees the problem as “Steam cannot run on older hardware anymore, even if the games I bought still work there”. Both people want the same thing (To be able to play the games they bought) but are looking at it from different angles.
Ultimately, Steam is a DRM tool that has a very good storefront attached to it. If you want true ownership of the software, buy the game in a way that will let you run the software by itself. Valve expects that the overwhelming majority of its users will keep up with semi-modern hardware (In this case, a machine capable of running windows 10/SteamOS) which I don’t feel is is an unreasonable ask. However, expecting Valve to retain support for an OS that hit end of life 20 years ago is unreasonable.
I agree with the opinions of the article’s author. It would be far better to ensure that support for the old titles you bought are accessible on modern hardware rather than making sure Steam is still accessible on a PC running windows 98. This is one of those corner-cases where piracy is acceptable. You already paid for the game, you just need to jump through some hoops to play it on your 30 year old PC.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 15 hours ago
Valve is forcing them to upgrade their software and hardware to keep playing games they already purchased.
It is very reasonable. No one forced Valve to build their business model this way, and they are one of the most profitable companies per employee, ever. It would not be onerous for them to continue supporting a couple of old versions of Windows, they would just have to hire a few more people to do it.
Godort@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
Literally every software company built their business model this way. Go open a support case with any software vendor complaining that their product won’t run on Windows 98 and see how many help you out beyond “Buy a computer from this millennium”
You are failing to understand just how much has changed since Windows 98. It’s a completely different environment that requires specialized knowledge to develop for. They can’t just dust off some old source code and re-release the client the entire back-end has changed. It would be a massive undertaking that would appease about 12 people total.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Literally. People miss the fact that Steam is still a 32-bit app just to support older games. The rest of the world has moved onto 64-bit operating systems and applications. It’s shocking they still support 32-bit in 2025.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
No, they didn’t. I can install the software I bought back in the day on the computers I bought it for, using the license key provided.
Lol, I’m a software developer that started by writing legacy windows software, I know exactly how much (little) has changed.
I don’t care. They have the resources to support it.
Either strip the DRM out and pay whatever you have to to the publishers to do that, or keep supporting the systems you sold your software for.