GOG-Styled compatibility system for older steam games

[CharlieDoesStuff]

title

[xBCxRangers]

Yes, that would be awesome.

[Brian9824]

I mean the issue is there is no profit in it. GoG works with some developers on patches, but thats about all they do. It doesn't guarantee the game will run on a new OS. It's also one of the many reasons that GoG is just not very profitable and remains a niche store that the majority of games aren't released on.

The overwhelming majority of games already work on newer OS's, and developers already can release a patch to make them work better if they want, the demand for it however doesn't justify the cost in most cases.

[nullable]

Yeah, I gotta agree with Brian. Old games aren't a huge cash cow. And if Valve wanted to keep all old games running on their platform they'd already do it. However Valve doesn't generally involve itself with other developer/publisher projects. And if the developer/publisher wanted to make updates to an old game, they already can do that, so if they don't, kinda seems like they made a decision.

Plus before GoG, old games either still worked, or the user had to tinker around and get it working on their own. If the old game is that popular there's bound to be resources to accomplish that. And if there's not, the old game may not be worth the effort from the dev/pub perspective.

And there's thousands of games GoG hasn't updated for compatibility yet too, and in those cases the user is still left to their own resourcefulness.

I'm not arguing against compatibility work, but that's on the dev/publisher ultimately and not the responsibility of anyone running a store. GoG does what it wants and that's great. But it doesn't create a responsibility for any other stores to copy. And most stores don't because it's not worth the effort to them, they'd rather focus on other things. However the upside is GoG has a lock on that niche and that should help keep them around and I think that's great too.

[Crazy Tiger]

GOG runs a different business model. They negotiate rights to modify and distribute the games. Nothing Valve does.

Don't expect Valve to go that route, as said there is little profit in that. There is a reason GOG doesn't do it a lot anymore nowadays.

[Haruspex]

Diposting pertama kali oleh nullable:

Old games aren't a huge cash cow.

I do you one further. Old games are competing directly with new games.

Developers don't want people playing old games at all. They want people buying into the new games with that whole ecosystem of microtransactions, battle passes, and loot boxes. In the minds of publishers, everyone playing and enjoying some game from 2008 is someone who isn't roped into the skinner box they created to extract maximum value out of you.

[nullable]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

Diposting pertama kali oleh nullable:

Old games aren't a huge cash cow.

I do you one further. Old games are competing directly with new games.

True.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

Developers don't want people playing old games at all. They want people buying into the new games with that whole ecosystem of microtransactions, battle passes, and loot boxes. In the minds of publishers, everyone playing and enjoying some game from 2008 is someone who isn't roped into the skinner box they created to extract maximum value out of you.

I understand the logic of this. But it's not quite so simple I think, after all if a developer/publisher didn't want you playing old games at all they'd delist or never re-publish old games. And I think everyone realizes that limiting access to older titles doesn't guarantee people will settle for the newest title, so why not make $5 off an old game vs $0 off a new game for that demographic "never going to buy" demographic?

It's not a huge cash cow, not enough to revolve the whole business around. But it is going to be additional revenue that for the meager effort of publishing the game can generate revenue for years without additional effort. Let's say it's better than a poke in the eye.

You're not wrong wrong, but I think the reality is a little bit fuzzier and greyer than an absolute statement suggests. I'm sure not everyone within a particular developer/publisher agrees uniformly either over what to do or how much attention to pay to older games.

[Start_Running]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Crazy Tiger:

GOG runs a different business model. They negotiate rights to modify and distribute the games. Nothing Valve does.

Don't expect Valve to go that route, as said there is little profit in that. There is a reason GOG doesn't do it a lot anymore nowadays.

The fact that the publisher can then just yoink the game off the platform at any time is a bit of a gvetch.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

Diposting pertama kali oleh nullable:

Old games aren't a huge cash cow.

I do you one further. Old games are competing directly with new games.

True. But does it matter which game draws the money in so long as the money comes in?

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

Developers don't want people playing old games at all.

Some do, some don't. The very existence of GoG is tyestament that qwuite a few don't mind monetizing their old stuff. I mean from their perspective it's basically free money.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

They want people buying into the new games with that whole ecosystem of microtransactions, battle passes, and loot boxes.

Some do. Some don't.
Not every dev is jumping on the liveservice bandwagon. Heck many choose to monetize their old stuff as an alternative to that ♥♥♥♥.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

In the minds of publishers, everyone playing and enjoying some game from 2008 is someone who isn't roped into the skinner box they created to extract maximum value out of you.

And in some publishers irts more like everyone playing games from before 2008 is essentially paying them for stuff that had already passed it's break even. So every dollar in is pure profit for basically no extra work.

There's a reason many of the larger publishers have literally made a business model out of releasing their old stuff in collections. Capcom has been doing this with many of their franchises. Same for Konami, Sega, EA, and many others.

[Haruspex]

Diposting pertama kali oleh nullable:

I think the reality is a little bit fuzzier and greyer than an absolute statement suggests.

True. This is pretty much always the case with everything.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Start_Running:

Some do. Some don't.

You're fundamentally right. I was largely speaking in generalities aimed directly at the heavily corporate, AAA gaming industry, though even they sometimes find the time and resources necessary to bring back some old game from their back catalog. Just look at the remasters for Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver.

I get a bit jaded sometimes when it comes to this stuff, and even when some old game gets promoted or otherwise re-released in some capacity, I can't help but suspect they're only doing so to generate hype and funnel more people into their real cash cows.

At the very least on a PC once we buy that old game on Steam, we have it. Even when the old versions are removed by the publisher in favor of a remaster or other new game, if we already bought it it's not taken from us.

In my headcanon though, corporate types in games publishing hate when an old game is played instead of whatever modern slop they want us to consume instead.

[Start_Running]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Haruspex:

In my headcanon though, corporate types in games publishing hate when an old game is played instead of whatever modern slop they want us to consume instead.

Generally, they don't care. Money is money and they don't care which game is contibuting to the bottom line so long as the number goes up. Hence why Companies luike Bethesda, Capcom, EA, Konami, Squeenix, etc, have been putting a fair amount of effort in re-releasing their old game.

When they don't it usually has to do with licensing issues.

[WhiteKnight]

Yeah like expecting Valve to do anything lol.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

I doubt this for number of reasons.
1. Steam doesn't manage 3rd party games, nor do they want to spend time & money on something that might not be worth to them, and not just Steam, there Epic, Microsoft, and many more that has no intentions of putting same effort as Gog, either because not enough money to convince them to do it, or they don't see enough demand for it to even be a thing for the future for their investment down the road.

2. Platform like Gog, Zoom-platform, or etc they make deals with IP holders, or devs for their OLD games which either they offer money to the dev to create the patch, and put it on sale, or do the work for them if dev provides them the source to make the patch themselves, which going to be time & money as that what Gog, and etc does as again not enough money to convince people to be doing this really, or else this would've be a problem to begin with.

3. The problem repeats itself down the road in the future if there changes by Apple, or Microsoft or even the hardware for support of said games to break again, or have problem, which ultimately I say just switch to linux, I know some people don't want to hear this repeated thing, but it's the truth if want old game support, just use linux, as things improved so much thanks to Wine, Valve proton, and Lutris this just keep singing over & over more truth repeating itself for old games.

There far more games then people might nor realize that made before DX9 which is most common problem games people want support for that need rework, or patches to fixing the problems.

[Start_Running]

FOr games before dx there's dosbox and vbruntime. FOr games dx7 and up there's not much problem. The games between that though...that's where it's a ♥♥♥♥♥.

[Komarimaru]

Get doxbox. Get this.
https://github.com/otya128/winevdm
Learn how to emulate securerom and safedisk.
You'll play every game to exist.