So I made a post in steam general forum about steam forcing game updates on customers

[Vuyek]

@ STEAM ALLOW OPTION TO NEVER UPDATE A GAME
Please allow an option to NEVER UPDATE for each game.

Many of us have bought games that we were happy with in their previous versions (examples: Stellaris, Avorion) which the developers "improved", and which destroyed what made those games fun and interesting. This is scenario one.


Now for scenario two.
A particularly evil and vengeful game studio, led by a lawful evil aligned gnome, which and who shall not be named, has made it a point to destroy their previous games when they release a "new and improved" (and more expensive) version of the same game, with same bugs and glitches left over from the older version.

The update of a game by this evil studio, which usually comes after the lifecycle of said game is over (about 4-5 years after it's previous so called "patch"), is designed to DESTROY ALL MODS WHICH FIXED ALL THE BUGS and glitches in the game, and which changed the game to make it much better.



The strategy is, of course, to kill off the previous version of the game (which, with modders' help, was fixed and became an incredible game) to FORCE THE BUYERS TO BUY THE NEW VERSION.



Both of these scenarios are not acceptable to me as a customer.
It should not be acceptable for a manufacturer to "patch" and change a product already bought and paid for by the customer WITHOUT THAT CUSTOMER'S AGREEMENT.

This should be illegal.
Imagine if car manufacturer's acted this way. Imagine if, say, Toyota (random example) decided to out of the blue change the GPS map screen in its cars with a firmware update, which "improved" the map by making the fony smaller and changing colors to make them more colorful (and harder to read).

Which to many drivers would become harder to use and more confusing.
People would not put up with it.

This calls for legal action.

edit:
there is a workaround

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LRRBgLR7sE&ab_channel=PrestonDoesTutorials

[Nasarog]

Hmmm, interesting. Does GoG do this as well?

[CyMonk]

if you learn how depots on the steam platform work and how to navigate the SteamDB[steamdb.info] site, you can download every past version of every game on steam using the DepotDownloader[github.com].

[Vuyek]

fascinating, awesome, will look into it

thank you CyMonk

[Tragic]

come on... tell us the name of this game?

[Vuyek]

Fallout 4

As usual, bethesda and the gnome I mean todd, will release a patch fixing everything (TM) which will not fix anything, add some useless cosmetic, break the game and cause new bugs and glitches, and per usual disable all the mods people have installed.

I love the arguments that people make in the general steam forum.

I think people are REALLY having a stockholm syndrome when it comes to corporations.

[Tragic]

so let me get this strait... your upset that <checks notes> a game developer dose a bug update on their game.

[Frag]

Did it actually not fix anything? The post from Bethesda reckons there's bugfixes, stability improvements and Steam Deck verification. I get it's annoying having updates break mods, half my sixty-ish Mechwarrior 5 mods break every time a DLC launches but claiming it's the intent of the studio to disable community created content seems a bit hyperbolic.

It might be some sort of Microsoft initiative to retroactively release patches when interest in a studio's games might be renewed. Obsidian released some bugfix patches for Pillars of Eternity a few months ago which people speculated was to do with Avowed launching this year. The Fallout TV show just launched, so new people might buy Fallout games.