what about 10 year old games like Magicka that don't work anymore?

[McGarnagle]

think there will ever be a way to recover old games that devs do not support anymore?

[B-o-B]

Explain more. Recover is a bit vague.

If you mean release them/older games here then you should do a search since that subject has been suggested and discussed many times.

[Spawn of Totoro]

What about them? There are many games that do not work after 10 years, some even sooner then that, with far more developers who have stopped supporting them (can't expect them to support a game forever) for one reason or another (moved on, closed down, ect).

[McGarnagle]

i mean do you think steam will ever support / recover these games in a gog-style fashion perhaps?

[RedLightning]

I'm certain that it was patched well after 10 years.. one of those patches caused it to crash constantly for me. Waste of money that used to work and no longer does.

[Reggaejunkiedrew]

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

i mean do you think steam will ever support / recover these games in a gog-style fashion perhaps?

Extemely unlikely. Way better chance Paradox does it themselves or just makes a remaster.

Oddworld Muches Odyessy and Strangers Wrath got free updates that made previously not great PC ports amazing, sadly that kind of thing doesn't happen very often.

[Insomnia]

I just checked Magicka as I used to love it back in the day. Working fine for me. At least on the first level. Windows 10. It crashes later on or something?

[McGarnagle]

multiplayer is a mess and chapters don't load properly
would be nice if digital games were as reliable as old hard copy games
kinda sad to think my ps1 from 1999 still works but this doesn't

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

i mean do you think steam will ever support / recover these games in a gog-style fashion perhaps?

Why do you think Steam does anything other then sell them? Steam exists to be a DRM method and store-front for publishers to sell games. Kinda like a virtual Walmart. Would you expect Walmart to support the physical games they sell?
GOG is a niche market for older games. They had to work with publishers to get the old games to work or they would have nothing to sell. If you want support for older games then buy from GOG over Steam.

[Paratech2008]

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

multiplayer is a mess and chapters don't load properly
would be nice if digital games were as reliable as old hard copy games
kinda sad to think my ps1 from 1999 still works but this doesn't

There are plenty of PC physical copy games that won't work thanks to DRM. Also Win 10 issues...64 Bit issues...

I can't run my Atari 80 in 1, Activision 2600 packs, Taito Legends 1 and 2, and other physical games on my PC.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

i mean do you think steam will ever support / recover these games in a gog-style fashion perhaps?

No. For GoG it was the business model when they started. One that seems to be not their primary focus anymore.

Steam is just a store (well, marketplace more) and launcher and Valve don't show any signs of wanting to change that.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

would be nice if digital games were as reliable as old hard copy games

Rose-tinted reminiscing glasses.
Old hard copy games could wind up unplayable, if you got the impatience to buy the first release.
Old hard copy games had the tendency to not work just as digital do. Hell, I recently installed my old HL disc for ♥♥♥♥♥ & giggles, it was a rather crappy experience, to be honest. But it at least installed, there's discs from the 90s that simply won't install on a modern system (without jumping through a bazillion of hoops or at all).
Old hard copies of Doom can't even be installed on modern PCs anymore due to the lack of floppy disk drives.

Physical things can break. Ever had lost your legit bought copy of the game to scratches? I have. Sucks. Lending games poses a danger as well due to the very same effect. ROM cartridges are breakable as well, just sayin'.

While digital distribution got it's perils (i.e. games being forever lost if the compnay decides for them to be lost), that rose-tinded past you're painting doesn't exist and didn't exist back then either. On the other hand, today's the best time for fan patches there has ever been. And incredible those patches are! Comparing Aliens Colonial Mariens vanilla with the fan-overhauled version, you get two different games!

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

i mean do you think steam will ever support / recover these games in a gog-style fashion perhaps?

No, I doubt it. As it always been up to the community to making effort to getting games to work again, even on Gog there few games that don't work correctly that rely on the community fix.

Originally posted by McGarnagle:

multiplayer is a mess and chapters don't load properly
would be nice if digital games were as reliable as old hard copy games
kinda sad to think my ps1 from 1999 still works but this doesn't

PC and console don't translate same thing for support. The issue for PC is that as we move forward causing instructions either not stable to support, or become broken where game call for one thing on newer version of the instructions that doesn't play nice with older games, or that the instructions not there, and breaks the game, this can be due to hardware, or software issue.

Linux is basically a solution to this problem for old games for using proton, but the issue still come down base on the compatibility layer, and instructions.

Now there is community that make effort for a lot of games to provide working support for them, that why you see guides, or patches provides by the community.

Gog good example that do their part for old games, but issue can vary on the game from putting some effort, to barely any effort where still have to rely on community fixes.

[crunchyfrog]

Depends entirely.

PC games by nature have ALWAYS been prone to this. It's a baked in thing. No differnt just because you no longer buy a disc.

But it's not really that much of an issue to be fair. I'm an older gamer, so a fair number of my games are older games (in fact there are just 2 from this year on my account). Of all of these I've found just 1 that no longer works currently (All Zombies Must Die). Killing Floor didn't work for a while, then I tried it a few weeks ago and either a Windows update or something fixed it for me.

So I doubt it's THAT Much of a problem bearing in mind I have over 1300 games.

That said, it tends to come and go too. Older games rise and fall in favour, get re-released too.

So you have a game that won't work today but might work tomorrow (as with Killing Floor), and vice versa. But here's the kicker - if YOU suffer this issue, chances are others will and so if it's a general problem a quick nose at the forums (or a Google) normally finds another user suffered the same and patched it themselves.

So yeah not much of an issue to be told. If you REALLY get stuck though, and you have an old games that falls into that sorry state of not being operational AND not being popular enough to warrant any fix (or one hasn't been found) GOG is often a workaround. As when games are re-released there they tend to be as stable as you're going to get for modern systems.

[crunchyfrog]

Also, just booted up Magicka to see what's what, and it worked flawlessly, so if you're on Win 10, then it's not the game really that's an issue but more likely some conflict your end.

Did you actually check the discussions page for the game?

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Also, just booted up Magicka to see what's what, and it worked flawlessly, so if you're on Win 10, then it's not the game really that's an issue but more likely some conflict your end.

Did you actually check the discussions page for the game?

The issues with Magicka are in the co-op/multiplayer. It crashes randomly. Singleplayer works flawless indeed.

The notion "It doesn't work" is highly incorrect in that aspect, yes.