Why do I play all these games? Because it’s important that they’re played.
Because every game is a story, a world, a moment in time crafted by someone who cared enough to create it.
Because each one teaches me something new—about design, about culture, about myself.
Because in a sea of pixels, there’s magic waiting to be found.
And because, honestly? Sometimes I just want to escape, explore, and lose myself in different worlds.
So yeah. I own thousands of games, and I’ll keep playing them.
Firewalls and especially sinkholes are VERY necessary, far beyond silly game telemetry.
They don’t allow this for a good reason. Imagine 1 million clueless gamers running an older version of their game because they’re too lazy too update. And, of course, then complain about a buggy game and the tech-support will drown even more and review would end up more badly. nothing worse than a fragmented game-world. how should online games work if every Joe and Jane got their “own” favorite version? the average user is a total clueless (pc-wise) person.
Also, you can install an older version. Just with more hassles. Also you could by GUI with many games IF the Dev wants you to be able to. Like a select few versions, if you’d prefer an older state. But, of course, only indie devs do that.
You misread my comment. I didn’t say they weren’t necessary.
Not talking about online games. Besides, the how or why do not matter, the point is the games are gone.
I pay Steam to deal with the hassles. I am not a software engineer.
Valve has the power to enforce this system-wide.
Gog does it, but Gog only offers a mere fraction of what Steam has. Also your example of BL2 is not on gog either. For that reason.
Sure, Valve could enforce that, but…as said…why? They already offer the option for different versions. If the devs don’t use that, they will have their reasons. The biggest one i mentioned before: Fragmentation and the resulting nightmare of customer-support. On steam’s AND the dev’s side. Look at the Android or Windows-market. Someone complaining “my windows sucks”, but still uses Windows Vista. Or people screaming for support because “my favourite app doesn’t work” and use android 10.
Don’t get me wrong, personally I’d value the freedom of choice. But the vast majority of people are clueless (and still use those devices) and need to be “guided”. Every system gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. That’s why apple does so well (besides the “brand”-shit ofc).
And that matters for the purposes of this conversation why?
I explained why in my first comment. It’s why we’re talking in the first place.
I don’t see it. Neither of them have to support old versions.
No they don’t. If people are clueless, they don’t need to utilize this feature. It’s call an “option”.
Just because YOU don’t see why support on both sides hate fragmentation, doesn’t matter. They do nonetheless for very obvious reasons unless you are very alien to tech.
And yes, people do need guidance. If they’re not forced to update, they rarely do. And then they complain shit’s not working. People don’t read manuals, FAQs, guidelines and also they don’t update unless forced to (or strooongly motivated or just nagged to death). I’ve been in this industry for nearly 4 decades now. From all sides. The average Joe or Jane is the worst.
And yeah sure, it doesn’t matter at all for some games. You play the version you want and it’s all fine. But either you offer this option (which steam does BTW, as mentioned before) or you don’t. If you don’t, maaaany devs would be going to use another platform. Maybe fucking EPIC. That’d be grand.