this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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You can still play it but increasingly games are becoming very different from what you bought.
I've started noticing a disturbing trend. More and more games that are older being sold at steep discounts or "free to play" and simultaneously jampacked with invasive telemetry and/or ads/microtransactions. And since Steam won't let you play older versions, those games are effectively dead.
FYI if seems you can access older versions of Steam games, it's just a bit hacky
If I want hacky, I'll go pirate the game. I pay for them so I don't need a computer science degree to play them.
That is what firewalls and sinkholes are for. Stupid telemetry.
Yet I never noticed such a "trend" in direct combination with steam. The whole industry goes to shit, but it's not steam's fault.
That shouldn't be necessary and is beside the point.
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).
They do if the dev makes it available, I'm looking at four different versions of Terraria in the beta menu right now that stretch back four major versions. I'm pretty sure a couple games in my library somewhere have their entire update history in there, though I can't think of one to name off the top of my head right now, that's not a feature I use very often. [Edit: Rift Wizard is one that does precisely this, I knew I had at least one in here]
This is not true of all games, but it could be, either directly by game devs without Valve even having to care, or via pressure by Valve by just making older versions available whether the devs want it or not. I think the latter option is probably the better move, but there's technically nothing stopping the former other than the game devs themselves.
There's also a valid argument that making downpatching very easy would be a huge boon to piracy. This is a reasonable talking point no matter which side of that fence you sit on. It would also probably benefit modding as well, which I think is a more objective good but some game developers or more likely publishers would probably disagree.
That shouldn't be their decision.
Literally never seen that before. I think I see if the dev pushing their 4th update that day and now I have to wait a half an hour to play the damn game.
Not my problem. Guess I'd better just pirate the game instead.
Out of the thousands of games I have, not once have I noticed anything like you describe.
Oh well if you haven't experienced it, it must not exist then 🤷
hmmm that doesn't ring a bell here either. Which games do this ?
The most recent ones I've noticed are Riders Republic and Borderlands 2. Helldivers also introduced a bunch of new microtransactions years after it's launch.
And what there is steam's doing? Borderland's a greedy IP from a greedy company. What do you expect?
So it's the fault of the delivery-device? Why didn't you make a backup of an older version just in case? Besides, last time I checked, you can. With a bit more hassle. All not the case for a "live" online-game. Which borderlands wants to be.
...yeah? Of course it is.
I pay Steam to do that.
Not interested.
That's exactly the problem.
If BL is "exactly the problem". And GOG does it better. Why is it still steam's fault? Use GOG then? Where is it the delivery-device's fault? As BL2 offers online-coop, and is also the major selling point of that game, a fragmented market is impossible.
I have to say I never played those. Do these microtransactions lock content that was previously available out of the box?
I mean, if it’s a trend, you’d think I would have noticed it by now.
And I suppose my experience doesn't count? Or you think I'm making this up?
I don’t know, you haven’t pointed out multiple examples.