That would be "amusing" further down the line, when Steam will drop Windows 7 support too. And also push something ludicrous like mandatory SSE 4.1 support for their client.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

That would be "amusing" further down the line, when Steam will drop Windows 7 support too. And also push something ludicrous like mandatory SSE 4.1 support for their client.

2025 anyone? Since Steam is cutting XP support in 2019 (5 years after MS ended support), I predict that it will drop Windows 7 support by 2025.

0kool wrote:

Some games do not work at all. […]
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ZellSF wrote:

Um, but they're right? I can't think of many games that can't be made to run under Windows 10 and that are available on Steam.

Some games do not work at all.

And you have to make a distinction between "barely run" and "without issues".

I only tried a few (GTA 4, Flatout 2) and both had serious problems. They run, but not particularly good (you have to tinker to fix Flatout controls and GTA - well, it's one fugly mess). Zero issues with XP.

The quote I responded to said the games worked with tweaks, I didn't object to it being easier to play XP-era titles in XP, just the notion that even with tweaks you couldn't get most of them to run without issues in Windows 10.

I can pretty much guarantee you can get Grand Theft Auto IV running without issues on Windows 10, even if it won't necessarily be easy.

My issue is one one hand you have people with legit complaints about Steam dropping XP support (When this is easily rectified at least from the technical side) and the defenders of Steam dropping support and on the other hand people stating that the games will work if the user fixes the game. Most of these issues aren't rare occurences either. GTA IV and Fallout 3 and New Vegas are the most noticed and easily called out.

Someone should create a filter in Steam for shitty game companies that refuse to support their game and that refuse to remove their DRM so people don't have to see those games in Steam so that their time and money isn't wasted.

You know as well as I that most games appear to work on execution but that's the easy part. Identifying issues after that is much harder and ignored by most people. "The games work fine in Windows 10 dumbass why are you using XP??!!!". Yeah because all you did was launch it and play possibly play a brief bit and probably ignored the glitches.

Yea, there is something highly unpleasant about this cloud-approach.
I don't expect game developers to support their games indefinitely, but there should be some rule that if they stop supporting the game, anyone who owns a legal copy, should be able to download the game files and install and run the game on any OS and environment they please. Sure, without support, but they won't need it.
It should be just like with any machine I've owned since my C64: I can still just insert a disk and play a game, even though it's 30+ years old, and the game company has long gone bust.

Currently it's difficult, if not impossible to get Steam games running under XP, let alone win 9x.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

I cannot find any reasonable reason, why MS released Win 10 in 32 bit

Prescott CPUs without 64-bit extensions...

There are only few of Prescotts, which don't have 64-bit extensions, but supports Win 10 32-bit. NX bit is required for everything past Win 8, and only 5xxJ P4 32-bit CPUs supports NX bit. The other thing is, that anything pre-Cedar Mill doesn't support additional instructions, which are required by 64-bit Win 10, so you still can only use 32-bit Win 10...

But anyway, this is still a bit pointless discussion in my opinion, because P4 and Windows 10? That's something, which I'm expecting to only see on agent_x007 computer, but definitely not even in some offices where they have old PC's. And anyway, I was still talking about other extreme, developing 32-bit system for today's PCs. And I'm still standing by my claim, that for modern age (like now), 32-bit should already die. There's plenty of OSes in past, which can be used for anybody, who REALLY need to use 32-bit apps and OSes. You can see, what relying on backwards compatibility ad absurdum can brings here.

DosFreak wrote:

Someone should create a filter in Steam for shitty game companies that refuse to support their game and that refuse to remove their DRM so people don't have to see those games in Steam so that their time and money isn't wasted.

That's a much more real problem than games not working in Windows 10. Also a ridiculously weird one. There's tons of games that work perfectly on Windows 10 without using any license-problematic workarounds that are being sold broken on Steam (and other digital services). Why can't game publishers find some intern to spend an hour to fix shit they're trying to sell to us?

Scali wrote:

I don't expect game developers to support their games indefinitely, but there should be some rule that if they stop supporting the game, anyone who owns a legal copy, should be able to download the game files and install and run the game on any OS and environment they please.

Only way that happens if is DRM is made illegal. Good luck fighting against the lobbying groups of both the movie and video game industry on that one.

I would say a more sensible path is convincing consumers how bad DRM is for them and opt for content that have less/no DRM measures. But that ship has sailed, consumers just don't care.

Dosfreak wrote:

You know as well as I that most games appear to work on execution but that's the easy part. Identifying issues after that is much harder and ignored by most people. "The games work fine in Windows 10 dumbass why are you using XP??!!!". Yeah because all you did was launch it and play possibly play a brief bit and probably ignored the glitches.

I play a lot of old games on Windows 10, and once you get them running perfectly, I find it's pretty uncommon to run into glitches later on.

It's also worth noting what most people think are compatibility issues with Windows 10, often are issues with something else. People change OS when they get new hardware often. I know it's not particularly relevant to this conversation, but I feel it's an important distinction to make every once in a while.

ZellSF wrote:

Only way that happens if is DRM is made illegal.

Well, I don't see it that way.
What I proposed is basically that DRM may be applied as long as the game is supported.
When the game is no longer supported, it is also no longer being sold, and as such, DRM serves no purpose anymore.
Even so, DRM is not necessarily the problem.
For example, I own an original copy of Crysis, which have Safedisc protection. It will continue to work forever on Windows XP and Vista, with this DRM.
Only certain forms of DRM are problematic for using old games, most notably cloud-based DRM.

Scali wrote:

Well, I don't see it that way. What I proposed is basically that DRM may be applied as long as the game is supported. When the g […]
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ZellSF wrote:

Only way that happens if is DRM is made illegal.

Well, I don't see it that way.
What I proposed is basically that DRM may be applied as long as the game is supported.
When the game is no longer supported, it is also no longer being sold, and as such, DRM serves no purpose anymore.

And when it's no longer being sold, it's usually because the company owning the rights is broke and there's no one left that can remove the DRM.

Once you accept any form of DRM measures it's already too late.

ZellSF wrote:

And when it's no longer being sold, it's usually because the company owning the rights is broke and there's no one left that can remove the DRM.

Not necessarily, that's my point.
If you make it mandatory to have some kind of 'unlock' mechanism in the DRM, then you aren't dependent on the company unlocking the DRM.
For example, Steam could make it a policy that any game that is sold in the store, will come with a patch to remove the DRM. Once the game is no longer being sold, the patch will automatically be sent to all people who own the game, and it will automatically be unlocked.
Likewise, anyone who will download the game again (either because they already own it, or because all games that go out of sale will be available for free to anyone), will get a non-DRM version.

Sounds like a win-win situation for me: the company got DRM as long as they tried to make money from the game, and end-users didn't end up with unplayable DRM-copies of the game once the company shut down and the DRM servers were closed... or whatever the exact reason.

Good idea. Or GameDevs could drop the DRM altogether and rely on Steam in this aspect. This way, once a publisher doesn't feel like adequately supporting his game anymore for whatever reason, Steam could flip the DRM off or something. It's all just wishful thinking of course. I would expects the Rockefellers to drop all their money into the Pacific before anything like this occurs.

Scali wrote:

For example, Steam could make it a policy that any game that is sold in the store, will come with a patch to remove the DRM. Once the game is no longer being sold, the patch will automatically be sent to all people who own the game, and it will automatically be unlocked.

They would also have to do thorough QA passes on all those patches as there's zero incentive for publishers to submit a working patch, but there is an incentive to submit a broken patch (less chance of a leak).

Sounds like a lot of hassle to protect DRM systems that only cause problems in the first place.

The issue is you don't buy a product or item any longer...you purchase a licence to use said software for predetermined period of time defined by the publisher/rights holder.
But most consumers don't care about this detail...DRM is just one part of a much bigger issue.

The day games move to a software as a service / license model (which they actually kind of have with XBOX One and PS4, hence me dropping out of consoles altogether after decades of gaming on consoles) I will stop playing computer games altogether. Until then, I will probably do my best to stick with GOG.com as best I can, and hope Steam does not fuck me over completely at some point. I fully expect Microsoft to buy out Valve and leave me deprived of some 200-odd games sometime down the line though.

I stopped buying games on Steam this year. Shit like this is exactly why.

If I can't buy it and download a DRM free installer from GOG, or as a physical copy. I don't want it.

Neco wrote:

If I can't buy it and download a DRM free installer from GOG, or as a physical copy. I don't want it.

It really bothers me that games such as Sonic Mania Plus and Skullgirls get really nice physical releases on consoles, but PC doesn't get shit. It sucks that for the most part the only psychical releases we get on PC nowadays are for either really big games like Overwatch and GTA V or shovelware spot the difference shit that nobody would ever want. I don't know about all PC gamers, but I absolutely love having the actual packaging and the contents within. That's why I love collecting PC games in the big box or even jewel and DVD-style cases. I mean, I bought the physical PC release of GTA V and the package is really nice with some neat artwork, a full-sized map of Los Santos, etc. Why would you not want that? It's also faster to install from DVDs than via most people's internet connections...

CarlHopkinsUK wrote:

The issue is you don't buy a product or item any longer...you purchase a licence to use said software for predetermined period of time defined by the publisher/rights holder.
But most consumers don't care about this detail...DRM is just one part of a much bigger issue.

We've ALWAYS just bought a license. What's changed is the means of enforcement, DRM and always online.

If you make DRM and online connectivity required in cases where it obviously isn't necessary illegal then the fact that you only buy a license won't really be a problem.

Of course as I mentioned above, it's really practically impossible to enforce this by law and consumers don't care enough to pressure publishers to stop utilizing those methods.

appiah4 wrote:

The day games move to a software as a service / license model (which they actually kind of have with XBOX One and PS4, hence me dropping out of consoles altogether after decades of gaming on consoles)

Not saying there aren't problems with consoles, but I feel they're better than PCs if you're a legit customer. In twenty years I expect to be able to play my PS4 disc of Prey (although without patches), I do not expect to be able to play a Steam copy of Prey at all.

Obviously a pirated PC copy is superior to either alternative.

ZellSF wrote:

Not saying there aren't problems with consoles, but I feel they're better than PCs if you're a legit customer. In twenty years I expect to be able to play my PS4 disc of Prey (although without patches), I do not expect to be able to play a Steam copy of Prey at all.

Dont count on it, dont most games refuse to play on the PS4 and Xbox One if you are not connected to the net and they cant phone home? I thought the PS3 was the last console that didnt "require" an online connection to play?

SME's are being pushed to SaaS, dont be surprised that consumer software is slowly heading this way/model as well... And of course dont forget, we are the minority, most consumers are more than happy with pay to play and subscription based entertainment models (take your Netflix, Prime etc... as an example, and of course mobile games!).

Obviously this probably varies dependent on your territory as well, living space is ever more expensive here in UK - so having physical stuff not always practical ether, and the market knows this.

GOG is great, iv had an account since they launched. But the day they close their servers, dont expect to get your "purchases" anymore so unless you have backups your f**ked. Again you only have your stuff for as long as they grant you access to it.

Rightly or wrongly, we will always have the pirates so there's some hope at least...

I’m not terribly worried at this point, after having distributed hundreds of dollaridoos at Steam, GOG, and Origin. They’re all hanging onto success, even if some may think it’s bad to say they’re “too big to fail”. I’m still waiting for the entire Windows operating system platform to switch their consumer base over to a subscription system, before I ultimately call it quits and jump to something else. Maybe something like that will make the rest of the publishers look long and hard at Linux on the desktop. Seems only Steam has made major inroads in that department.

CarlHopkinsUK wrote:

ZellSF wrote:

Not saying there aren't problems with consoles, but I feel they're better than PCs if you're a legit customer. In twenty years I expect to be able to play my PS4 disc of Prey (although without patches), I do not expect to be able to play a Steam copy of Prey at all.

Dont count on it, dont most games refuse to play on the PS4 and Xbox One if you are not connected to the net and they cant phone home? I thought the PS3 was the last console that didnt "require" an online connection to play?

Switch and Xbox One might have some problems (neither are on the scale of Steam's though), but PS4 definitely is nowhere near an online-required system. Very few (singleplayer) games require an internet connection.