Maintain OSX 10.6.8 support in Steam

[Varner]

After updating Steam today, there is a pop-up saying that 10.6 support will terminate in November 2015.

To Valve: I expect to maintain the ability to access the library of games I've paid for, and which currently work perfectly well, on this hardware and OS. Indefinitely.

The laptop I'm typing this on is a late-2010 Macbook Air. Despite being 5 years old, it still plays Source games perfectly well with settings low (e.g., Portal 2), as well as other titles such as Risk of Rain and Crypt of the Necrodancer. My only use of Steam on this hardware is to play these games with my fiancee while I'm on the road.

Yes, this laptop is still running 10.6.8. To all those about to say "it's free, just update" - not an option. My workflow requires non-broken Spaces, and I standardized my OS version upon purchase so mission-critical software continues to run. To be clear, I have a number of applications which did not make the Carbon/Cocoa transition and will not function on 10.7+. Upgrading my OS is not an option; leave that out of the discussion.

I have no problem with Steam as a platform, phoning home for authentication etc., for the price of convenience. I most certainly do have a problem if this termination of support will mean I can no longer access my library with no technical reasons for this.

Please provide additional details - about how this will work. The only acceptable outcome I see is being able to decline updating Steam and maintaining access via an older, 10.6 supported client

[Ferazel]

I believe I understand your argument. You have a working setup, and you're unwilling to change to a modern OS or hardware configuration because you are unable to adapt to new workflows. Consumers like you are technological isolationists. Sure it works, but you can't complain when you can't interact with the rest of society who isn't as unwilling to move forward as you seem to be.

This is not a very Apple frame of mind. Apple moves much faster than Microsoft in terms of deprecating their software and APIs. Software providers for OS X respond in kind. Blizzard, for example, deprecates older OS X operating systems with every annual OS X release. Blizzard, had the same complaints when they started this model that you're arguing here. However, like other OS X software developers they have two choices. Either stop supporting their software for new OS versions or keep them updated and drop support for old versions. Keeping two versions active for a market that is as small as the OS X market is not financially logical. OS X 10.6.8 represents less than 1/10th of 1% according to the Steam hardware surveys (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey). Even if you never purchase another Steam game again, the financial support required to support this backwards compatible server/service is not a reasonable demand.

You also have no legal rights to the software provided via Steam according to the Steam subscriber agreement you agreed to when you signed up for a Steam account. http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

Sorry to rain on your parade, but maybe you should have more realistic expectations of a company whose sole purpose of providing this software is to make profit. So at this point your demands don't mean a whole lot either legally or financially to Valve. However, now that is out of the way, you can try a couple things.

My recommendation to you is if you wish to remain isolated contact the makers of the games you still play and ask to get a standalone DRM-Free version. However, first see if there is any DRM at all on the game in the first place. A lot of indie games can actually just be directly launched from their folder and work fine (depending on how much they integrate the Steam API). That way you can continue to work and play isolated from the rest of society on hardware and operating systems that will never change.

If you're curious on just what exactly will happen in November when they stop supporting 10.6 you should contact Steam support directly (https://support.steampowered.com/). My guess is that you will no longer receive access to updates to the Steam application/network and games that you have installed will no longer update to newer versions (a benefit in your case). However, if any of your games use the Steam API those call may cease to function correctly in the future. If you find out specifically, please share here, so that others who may have the same question will have this information available.

Regardless, I hope that you do decide to be a little more adventurous and brave about the world around you. Sure, there will be problems, incompatibilities, and things you don't like. However, that is part of the human experience and being able to continually adapt and learn new processes and systems (as well as letting go of the old) keeps your skills and knowledge relevant.

[MuskratFarms]

This keeps popping up, and as the poster above said, Valve isn't under any obligation to support legacy software, it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. Personally, I'd be much more concerned that you are not getting any of the latest security updates to your system.

[причина тряски?]

Rrr

[Spazzard]

Why don't you just run a trimmed down Snow Leopard Server on fusion with either Mountain Lion or El Capitan as your OS? or even god forbid, boot into Windows? Replacement SSD's for the 2010 MBA are trivial to fit if you don't have the space already. If you have any software that is old enough that it doesn't even have a universal binary, let alone 64bit only build, you won't notice much slowdown, even on a MBA if you have at least 4gb Ram on a stripped down SLS.

Also, I still own the 3rd Macbook Pro, from 2007, that came with Tiger. It has Dual boot Snow leopard & El Capitan and runs fairly well, with 8Gb ram and 2 SSD's but there's no way I would expect anyone to support it still, not even Apple.

[Varner]

As I clearly mentioned in my post, there are technical reasons beyond my control requiring this laptop to remain with 10.6.8 on the metal. Running in a VM is not an option. It's much more than just Spaces, and far from an isolationist, I'm usually an early adopter. I didn't buy this laptop to enter the "Apple frame of mind," I got it because it was by far the best option on the market in late-2010 with *NIX support for development. This was before the era of the Ultrabook. Let's leave the condescending attitudes at the door, please. If it were an option to move to 10.10 I'd do so.

I'm quite aware of what Blizzard has done. Blizzard actually has to support an entire game. Steam, at its core, is a wrapper. Steam only has to phone home and get a thumbs-up from Valve regarding ownership, which is a very simple API that should be trivial to support. E.g., implement using WebKit/browser standards and you can completely abstract the platform when it comes to support. Unless you work at Valve, you have no idea what kind of support burden this entails. Preaching based on pure speculation really has no place in this discussion.

Regarding the comment "... maybe you should have more realistic expectations of companys [sic] who profit making software" - I most vehemently disagree, this is absolutely a realistic expectation. Before phone-home DRM, no applications ever stopped functioning in such a manner. I have WinXP games which still work perfectly well on an old desktop, and will continue to do so indefinitely. I'm not asking for support, nor testing, or updates. I'm only asking that Valve goes hands-off and continue to give my non-updated Steam client a thumbs-up when I launch a game, so what works right now continues to function. That's all.

[ogro]

.

[Ferazel]

Fixed my typo, thanks.

My main argument isn't that you aren't willing to upgrade. You like what you have and are unwilling to change, fine I get it. My argument is that supporting a 0.1% marketshare on any product is not worthwhile. To me as a software developer it is an easy decision to make. The fact that you're stalwartly defending this marketshare number as something that is worth a company's time to support is an impractical argument.

Steam.app is a piece of software just like any other game. So let's say that let these old games continue to run on 10.6.8 and Valve has to keep a duplicate legacy service for the 10.6.8 games. Then you will not receive any updates to the software because any new updates would potentially break your ecosystem as the update could use an API that is not supported on your legacy backend service. Valve has made deals with these software developers that they will handle DRM for them. If they were suddenly allowed you to play these games without the DRM then the contract may be void.

Regardless, you can find other services (see GoG) that will allow you to download game versions that are not synched with DRM. The developers agreed that they distribute without this version without the DRM. I think those services would be a better fit for you.

Another thing, you "agreed" to the Apple ecosystem the moment you bought the hardware and decided to only use their operating system as your rigid computing platform.

I've heard the "this isn't how games used to work" argument before, and you're right. However, computer software is not what it used to be as it was in the 90s. Software and all media is much more like a service today. A service that provides you with entertainment. The market demands dictate how much it is updated to support new OS and hardware configurations before it is abandoned, and to me 0.1% of users is not a compelling reason. You can either accept the change, or live alone clutching your jewel cases until the nuclear apocalypse.

[Frigidman]

People who always ♥♥♥♥♥ against "the person who refuses to update" are just the clueless cattle that jump on every update regardless of reasoning.

There are pure, substantial, and founded reasons some people cannot update certain machines with certain 'new' software. However that is clearly lost on the 'just update!' crowd due to misinformation, applekissassery or lack of any understanding of the issues at hand.

I agree with the OP.

Valve does have lots of money and resources at hand to make an EOL build of Steam for 10.6.8. They choose not too because they do not care about Mac users to begin with. This will happen again. I know it will.

[Alleycat]

Same problem here, I still run some games in a laptop on OSX 10.6.8 for the same reason. I also have a 10.6.8 partition on my desktop for some programs and games that run on that version and haven't been updated to run on Lion or later. What happens to all our installed games? Are we really going to be blocked out of using them at all or if it's all installed will it still run? Because if it wont we should be refunded for the games that haven't been updated to Lion if they will not run or wont run well on the new OS.

[PM-Heavy]

I would say spazzard has a good idea, though if using a VM is not an option you can dual boot. Some benchmarks show Windows having better performance for gaming (most likely due to developers having more experience and underlying API differences). If you can't or don't want to pay for a Windows licence, you can dual boot a newer OS X version. And if you don't have the SSD space to dual boot, and can't or don't want to upgrade the SSD, a second OS X install can be put on an external hard drive, though it won't have nearly the performance of the SSD.

Alleycat, not sure what what type of MacBook you have, but if it has an optical drive that you don't mind taking out, you can get adapters to replace it with a second hard drive or an SSD. Then use an external optical drive if needed.

[vish]

I also agree with OP, he has made valid points. Advice to upgrade is pointless, because almost all the 10.6 users today stay behind by choice or forced circumstances, not by laziness or because they don't know any better. I too am affected by this decision, although I have reduced my gaming on Steam anyway and shifted over to more comfortable platforms like consoles or GOG - I just value my time higher than the money I would save using Steam.

Apart from that, there are some interesting things that one should notice:

First, according to the current Steam survey, the numbers of people on Mac OS X are roughly as follows:

10.11 - 3.42% (supported)
10.10 - 75.03% (security updates only)
10.9 - 12.47% (security updates only)
10.8 - 2.49% (unsupported)
10.7 - 2.48% (unsupported)
10.6 - 1.99% (unsupported)
other - 2.12%

Some points to note:

1) 96% of users lag behind the fully supported OS X version. This may be due to the very fast cycles in releases Apple has done in recent years. One should not upgrade before point release .1, .2 or even .3 is out, but by that time, the system is already half past its time. This increase of speed mainly benefits Apple (hardware cycles, App store commission) and some software companies who can afford to always switch to the latest and greatest version (and charge for the updates accordingly). On the other hand it puts pressure on other developers who need to maintain an ever increasing number of different releases or stay at the lowest common level (that is, ignore all new features that have come out in the meantime). Because Apple has completely left the enterprise market (Xsan, Xserve, expandable Mac Pros, Mac mini server), there also exists no user base that requires long and predictable release cycles like for example Microsoft does. While 14 years for Windows XP seem a bit extreme, a more normal cycle of 2 (consumer) to 5 (server) years with long-term support options of 10 years like many Linux distributions do would certainly help to reduce these problems.

2) 9% of user base are fully out of support, but only 2% will be cut from Steam in November. I think it is only a matter of (not very long) time until 10.7 and 10.8 are also binned. Upgrading like the message suggest will only temporarily help, as those two systems will face the same fate as Snow Leopard (and Tiger/Leopard before it).

3) The user base of Steam is generally much more likely to update compared to other communities. See for example http://update.omnigroup.com/ (productivity software) and https://www.adium.im/sparkle/?graph=bar&forceShow[]=osVersion#osVersion (instant messaging), where 10.6 and predecessors still command about 10% share - more than 10.7 and 10.8 combined. This can be attributed to the facts silvertrumpet999 already laid out. Steam is an outlier, because - Hackintoshes and older Mac Pros and iMacs aside - it is only possible to get better graphic cards by buying a new machine, and this new machine will have the newest system on it and cannot be downgraded.

I suspect the people at Valve will also have done this analysis and concluded that it will not make economical sense to make sure new Steam versions work with the old systems. In that case I have to agree, it is just not a good idea to develop for 2% of people instead of 98%. Normally, this would be easy: a last version would be made that only supports the things up to this point, but works without problems. Anyone who wants new features needs to upgrade to get them, but those who are content with what they have can stay on the older version. The iTunes app store does that (at least since iOS 4), many independent software studios do and even internet-based services like Skype work that way. In theory, there is no good reasons why Steam could not do this the same way.

In practice however, I believe they wont do any of that. I suspect they drop support, wait until the (small) outcry has subsided and everyone is back to normal, until the same thing happens to 10.7, then to 10.8 and so on. This situation shows the ugly side of the whole Steam experience - yes, you can buy and play all your games on all your devices - that is, until we say you can't anymore, then you're screwed, period. Makes you wonder if this is really the future of PC gaming or if we just got too careless along the way of excitement...

Anyway, for us people who are affected arise some questions: how do you keep access to your library? For smaller, lighter games, a virtual machine with Windows seems to be the best choice (or a newer OS X or Linux version if money is tight), but graphic-intensive games won't work that way. Dual booting can be a workaround, but it is really tedious (did that myself for some years) and also not very elegant. Those with money for hardware and the will to experiment might try to build a all-in-one PC with fully virtualized operating systems, where every system has its own graphics card and can run undisturbed from others. All those approaches have in common that they require a Windows system for best performance, which may not be something you want to do or can do for various reasons.

On the other hand it makes you wonder if this is still worth the effort considering something like this may also happen to you Windows machine later on. DRM-free games (like from GOG) or offline-DRM ones (like old and new consoles with discs and also some non-Steam PC games) will work until the hardware breaks and no one can supply spare parts or emulators (which will be, considering the past, probably not happen at all). That is an assurance weighting much greater than anything Steam has to offer, because the user controls the product, not some third party who sold it.

TL;DR: Inevitable, this will happen soon for other systems. Although it should be no problem to work around it, Steam chooses the easy way out and therefore users should ask themselves if the service they offer is worthwhile in comparison to other alternatives who don't take control from them.

[Sedge]

It'd be nice to know what exactly it is they're going to be doing that won't function with 10.68. You know, just to make it seem less arbitrary. At least give me something cool to look forward to.

Hey, Valve, can you spot me $200 so I can go buy an external hard drive, on the off chance that upgrading to 10.7 destroys everything? Looking SUPER forward to all that, just so I can continue to use a single program.

[Alexandre Morin]

For me I just simply can't update my OS. I have a 2006 Mac Pro that, until now, could run any game that was suported fo OSX 10.6.8. But since it's an older generation of mac pro, it does not suport any newer OS. I tryed to upgrade via the app store but it just tells me that the software can't be instaled on my computer.

It realy pisses me off because all the games were running smooth but now I can't play any because of an update that I could not prevent or revert. I would just want the option to go back to the previous version of steam. Now the only thing I can do is get a refund for the games I bought yesterday and wait until I can buy a new computer (witch I will not do just for Steam).

[Puggles123654]

Thats why i've made the warning to mac 10.6 users a day or two ago

[76561198263036262]

HOLIIIII PEPE!!!!