Steam is dropping support for Windows 7 and macOS Mohave (and older), which could break or prevent downloading purchased games

[ReanimationXP]

2 hours ago, Mihle said:

@ReanimationXP Take things one step at the time, even if they drop support for Windows 7, "may remove windows 7 games from steam libraries later" is not and valid argument against it, other things you mentioned is, but not that one, as it's a seperate thing. Complain and range about that, if it happens.

 

I have an online only game in my steam Library that has been unplayable for years because developer shut it down, it's still in steam library and I can still download it.

The developer shutting down a game is a different story.  It's always possible someone might spin up a private server that emulates the official one, and at that point you might need to download your game again, so of course they wouldn't delete it unless the dev asked them to or something.  If it is impossible to download or run a game due to OS's the DRM supports, there would be no sense in it being around. Even if you could download it, it can't launch.  I'm not saying it's currently a problem, but it makes sense that it might be in the future, and I suggest we get out ahead of it.

[Forbidden Wafer]

On 12/2/2023 at 1:24 PM, Sauron said:

No... if those games only work on 7 then you can't play them any more.

And this is the use-case for Wine on Windows.

 

e.g. WineD3D to fix old game glitches on modern windows. https://fdossena.com/?p=wined3d/index.frag

[demonix00]

On 12/2/2023 at 4:20 AM, ReanimationXP said:

It's about having no way to install something you paid for. Retro computing is a thing.

As has been recently demonstrated by sony you don't own any digital product, you only own a license to be able to access said product as long as the distribution platform has the license to provide said item meaning that you own NOTHING.

[jagdtigger]

1 minute ago, demonix00 said:

As has been recently demonstrated by sony you don't own any digital product, you only own a license to be able to access said product as long as the distribution platform has the license to provide said item meaning that you own NOTHING.

I hope they will pay dearly for that in court...... And these same scumbags whoy cry about piracy non-stop, guess what. Taking away the paying customers stuff is not a good idea when piracy already provides a better service than any paid option.

[WhitetailAni]

15 hours ago, htimsenyawed said:

 

I tried to run a piece of software that supported up to 11.x and it wouldn't even load on 14.x - it's not even that different. Maybe. I'm not a developer.

It is quite different. Apple changes, removes, and replaces libraries every year - so unless you rebuild an app for newer macOS, it's not guaranteed to work.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

And this is the use-case for Wine on Windows.

 

e.g. WineD3D to fix old game glitches on modern windows. https://fdossena.com/?p=wined3d/index.frag

Cool, although it shouldn't be up to volunteers to find some workaround for this

[Forbidden Wafer]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Cool, although it shouldn't be up to volunteers to find some workaround for this

Yup. Valve could end up doing that with Proton if there is enough demand. 

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

Yup. Valve could end up doing that with Proton if there is enough demand. 

There likely isn't much demand at all but as a matter of principle they should be on the hook for making sure games you bought from them don't stop being playable for reasons unrelated to the games themselves

[Forbidden Wafer]

40 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There likely isn't much demand at all but as a matter of principle they should be on the hook for making sure games you bought from them don't stop being playable for reasons unrelated to the games themselves

I do agree, to the extent that if they can do it, they should do it. But they can't fix each and every game. 

 

e. g. My ROG Ally, for example, can't play agents of mayhem (which sucks, but I quite like the grind). Apparently due to the disk cluster size they chose to format the windows drive causing a bug on the game engine.

 

I would need to reformat the drive and reinstall everything from scratch to be able to play it, but I have better stuff to do other than doing that. 

[Forbidden Wafer]

11 minutes ago, htimsenyawed said:

Interesting. Like I said, I’m not a developer. I didn’t think incremental updates would change that much underlying code. 

It generally doesn't need to change that much. And in case you want to be backwards compatible, you can do like GLIBC and MSFT dlls that version the symbols. Even if the implementation is completely changed, older symbols should in theory expose the exact same old behavior (as long as their test suites are concerned).

 

Apple just doesn't give a damn to backwards compatibility. It is more like "-If you don't update your software, you don't get paid. So you better do it."

[WhitetailAni]

3 hours ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

Apple just doesn't give a damn to backwards compatibility. It is more like "-If you don't update your software, you don't get paid. So you better do it."

It's even worse - apps to be published on the App Store must be built with the latest major version of Xcode - currently, Xcode 15. That requires iOS 12.0 minimum or macOS High Sierra minimum. Want to support anything older? Too bad, you can't!

[AlwaysFSX]

13 hours ago, Mihle said:

I have an online only game in my steam Library that has been unplayable for years because developer shut it down, it's still in steam library and I can still download it.

The absolute sadness I have seeing Orcs Must Die: Unchained in my library.

[Middcore]

1 hour ago, AlwaysFSX said:

The absolute sadness I have seeing Orcs Must Die: Unchained in my library.

 

I have Nosgoth in my library still. 

[Spotty]

I'm trying to wrap my head around whether or not this is actually a problem. Is there a list of games that will be left unplayable due to Steam dropping support for Windows 7? Reading through the thread the only game I've seen mentioned is Diablo 1 - A game which is not available on Steam anyway...

[Forbidden Wafer]

8 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Reading through the thread the only game I've seen mentioned is Diablo 1 - A game which is not available on Steam anyway...

And for diablo 1, you can get a working copy from GOG.

 

Red Alert II also sucks o anything newer than 7, but also isn't sold on steam. And it's now it's playable via the browser. Which is absolutely bonkers IMHO. https://game.chronodivide.com/

[Sauron]

12 hours ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

I do agree, to the extent that if they can do it, they should do it. But they can't fix each and every game. 

 

e. g. My ROG Ally, for example, can't play agents of mayhem (which sucks, but I quite like the grind). Apparently due to the disk cluster size they chose to format the windows drive causing a bug on the game engine.

 

I would need to reformat the drive and reinstall everything from scratch to be able to play it, but I have better stuff to do other than doing that. 

It's not about fixing any games - the issue here is exclusively steam's drm no longer working on windows 7 (and prior). The games would run, were they not locked in to the drm. So ensuring said DRM keeps working on old systems is entirely within valve's power and likely wouldn't require much continued effort, after all it's not like the DRM client within the games is changing.

[kirashi]

22 hours ago, Vishera said:

The thing is that you won't be able to play games on the platform they were released for.

This is messed up.

Oh, I don't disagree, however, you don't actually "own" digital products - you purchase a license to use them. Again, I think this is just as shitty for the consumer as anyone else, but unless the license guarantees perpetual functionality of the digital goods, it's unreasonable to go after Steam for this.

 

Instead, governments should mandate some kind of regulation that guarantees the same functionality (or better) of any digital goods you purchase under a digital license as when they were originally released, up to and including workarounds developers must provide for a minimum timeframe.

 

Unfortunately, given that we're still using copyright law from the 90's (based on even more archaic laws from years prior), I'm not holding my breath that modern day governments are even capable of understanding how to "govern" anything in the digital realm.

[Ulvhamne]

And as a programmer, I can say that the reason you drop support for out of service OSes is that it makes your code better, your testing significantly faster, and reduces time for development by a lot. 

Keeping support for old OSes around is anything but free. And if the total number of affected users for an OS version is 1.2%, compared to the a lot larger later versions, then that might be a good financial and strategic decision. 

 

And then there's the thing about how big of a problem it actually is, how many of the games that target win7 can't run on win10/11? How long can you keep a steam installaion offline without it complaining and refusing to work?

In general I do think that DRM is a plague on the world, but Valve really does make one of the least bad, in my opinion. 

[Obioban]

The need for, and utility of, piracy continues to increase.

 

Lots of shows/movies which can't be streamed anywhere. Streaming services continue to get shitier, with ads, etc. Official support for old games continues to get worse.

 

Fuck it, piracy it is.

[Avocado Diaboli]

Nevermind, should've read more closely, I'm a dumbass

[Kisai]

15 hours ago, Spotty said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around whether or not this is actually a problem. Is there a list of games that will be left unplayable due to Steam dropping support for Windows 7? Reading through the thread the only game I've seen mentioned is Diablo 1 - A game which is not available on Steam anyway...

 

There are ways of removing steam from steam games if it comes down to that, but I'm sure game developers would prefer their games still being played on steam, so either they will recompile games as 64-bit for Windows 10/11 or they will resort to putting the game on GOG as-is if this is too hard and wrapping it in a DXVK wrapper or WineD3D something akin to resorting to ReactOS in a VM.

 

Diablo 1, was infamous for it's DRM only working on Windows 98, but not 95, which is what caught pirates with their pants down.

 

Games that old tend to have problems that come directly from how their DRM was implemented, and 9x-era DRM was basically hopeless garbage. As an example Ultima IX on GOG, simply doesn't work on 9x, but it will work if you install a XP VM, and won't work at all on anything newer. This still requires a Glide wrapper because the DX mode doesn't work. This is the most broken game I own. But that's not on Steam.

 

Most of the old stuff you'd find on GOG, already isn't on Steam, or hasn't been updated on steam for years, while it's been updated on GOG to not have DRM.

 

 

 

[AlwaysFSX]

On 12/3/2023 at 6:31 PM, Middcore said:

 

I have Nosgoth in my library still. 

Worst achievements to get at the end of that game's life.

[Lunar River]

Wait there are games on steam without drm, wouldn't this be the fault of game devs and not steam/valve? I can't imagine valve would be allowed to remove drm without the devs ok, even if its their own since it would open it up on all other os's

[ReanimationXP]

On 12/3/2023 at 2:51 AM, Vishera said:

I am prepared for Doomsday

I modified the steam client to not update and removed the annoying red message that warns you of "End of Support".

I also made an installer with these modifications for use on other Windows 7 installations.

I'd be interested to see what you did here.  If it truly doesn't update on install then that would help with one part of the problem.. now we'd just be waiting to see if and when logging in with it breaks.  But here it begins, trusting a stranger on the internet to give you an old copy of Steam.. lol.

[ReanimationXP]

Quote

ReanimationXP said:
Applying this to another sector - imagine if you could no longer access your bank account or your stocks unless you purchased a new Mac at minimum every 7 years, and even then, possibly had to spin up a VM to do so.

 

On 12/2/2023 at 4:54 PM, thevictor390 said:

This actually happens. Eventually your old OS does not support modern browsers, which means it does not support modern encryption standards, which means it cannot access modern websites. Already Windows Chrome is releasing no more versions for Windows 7.

 

As others pointed out, there are fixes for such things.  The means of access to those accounts isn't controlled solely by one company or piece of software, with DRM in the mix.  Other browsers could be used.  The OS could be patched by third parties to add needed ciphers.  I've done as much on both old Windows and Mac systems.  Entire channels are dedicated to getting new things running on old OS's and hardware.. that's part of the fun for retro computing enthusiasts like me, and yes there are lots of us.  I often have more fun getting new things working on old systems, or old things working on new systems than playing the game itself.. but with something like Steam you don't have a lot of options.  Stripping the DRM would be one option if such a tool exists and works universally, but that doesn't solve the problem of obtaining it in the first place.  The easy answer is "piracy", but just like the Sony debacle going on, both they and Valve should be obligated to provide what was paid for, whatever that manner might be.