What WOULD happen to our purchases if Steam goes bankrupt?

[BFG10K]

While I don't recall him ever saying this, especially considering he started Steam/Valve based on exclusives, those are just his opinions.

Gabe Newell responds to Epic's exclusives

Gabe Newell has said that exclusives are not a good idea for customers or developers. He also mentioned that Steam is happy to provide funds for developers, to help them with their projects so they are less likely to take exclusive deals.

www.altchar.com

Debate Time: Ubisoft Says DRM Is Needed, Valve Says No It Isn't.

It’s not every day you get two diametrically opposed views on DRM from two high profile companies in the video game industry, yet that is what happened recently. While both were speaking to d…

www.techdirt.com

It's also no more opinion then when he said ten years ago Steam would get patched out if it fell over. To my knowledge nothing legally binding has ever been released stating that.

Has there ever been a digital distributor that went out of business? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all of the digital distributors I've ever heard of are still in business.

Plenty of software vendors got purchased by the likes of EA / Microsoft / Ubisoft et al. Not once was the DRM retroactively stripped from their back-catalog, nor did magical torrents appear for free distribution. Instead the games either died or were required to be repurchased on other platforms.

Likewise, were was the mass update to remove Securom or GFWL? Nowhere. Didn't happen.

I honestly don't understand why you have such hatred and distrust for Steam.

I have a hatred and distrust of all DRM. Legitimate customers repeatedly get shafted while pirates paying $zero have no issues.

 

[DrMrLordX]

GabeN also told us DRM is bad.
GabeN also told us store exclusives are bad.

Yet every single Valve game is a Steam exclusive with Steam DRM. So far GabeN's actions are the complete opposite of his statements.

And I can count those exclusives on two hands. Epic probably already has more publisher-exclusive titles on their distribution service than Steam. Valve barely produces any software AT ALL. It's gotten to the point that it's a joke. Their "current" titles are CS:Go, DotA2, Artifact, and TF2 (and TF2 is nearly abandonware at this poiint). Soon-ish we'll have Half Life: Alyx. Over the course of Steam's run, well over 99% of the titles there have not been exclusives. Most of the titles you'll find only on Steam are Steam-only due to the publisher's decision not to pursue other outlets. Which is a shame, since I'd like to see them all co-publish on GoG, but whatever.

In any case, if GabeN said "exclusives are bad", I'd say his track record has been pretty good. Steam is full of non-exclusive titles.

So exactly what evidence do you have, other than "GabeN said so"?

None. And you have no evidence to the contrary.

Except Microsoft isn't stopping me from running my games, Steam is.

Yes they are. MS drops support, and Steam drops support. Real simple. Steam still supports their Linux titles on any version of Linux that can run on a 64-bit CPU. They might even support 32-bit Linux, though 32-bit distros are falling out of fashion now. In any case, if MS still patched and supported XP, then Steam would be forced to support it since many users wouldn't have abandoned it.

And how exactly would I run Steam in a VM running a Steam-unsupported OS? Show us.

You'd have to use an old version of Steam, most likely. Not sure if it would be forced to update itself though. It probably would. You might be better off doing the opposite: run your legacy "OS of choice" on bare metal, and then run Win10 in a VM to play your Steam games. Either way, VMs to the rescue! One of the cool things about Steamworks + VAC is that it can run in a VM, while a lot of anti-cheat software (EAC in particular) barfs as soon as it leaves bare metal.

Microsoft not supporting an OS doesn't stop anyone running it.

Of course it does. Nobody wants to maintain software interoperability with an abandonware OS. MS signaled to the world: "stop using this operating system", and its users do otherwise at their own peril.

Valve not supporting Steam stops people from running it, and blocks their Steam DRM'd games.

Good thing that's never happened.

Imagine DOS also had Steam once. Would you also blame Microsoft if DOSBox can no longer run Steam games? What utter lunacy.

MS-DOS barely even had the technical underpinnings to make a service like Steam work over our glorious 14.4k modems that we had back when running 6.22. Bad example. You'd have to be nuts to support a digital distribution service on a platform like that, especially once MS effectively abandoned DOS when moving to the NT kernel.

So if you had a digital distribution service (lol) and the vast majority of your clients moved to NT-based operating systems like 2k and XP, then yeah, you wouldn't maintain a DOS-era client at all, and you'd rely on compatibility layers to run the old stuff instead (with mixed results). In the end, it would be MS' fault for faulty compatibility with old software. There're many reasons why GabeN flirted with pushing Linux as a gaming OS, and superior interoperability between kernel versions was one of them.

Steam is also selling games with minimum requirements on their store page Valve themselves don't support.

They're old, and the publishers haven't updated the reqs.

It's Valve doing that.

No, it's the individual publishers doing that.

Show us your Valve insider information to back that up, O wise one. Even GabeN never said anything about a torrent system.

. . . seriously? What insider information? It's just common sense. If I put myself in Valve's shoes, I don't want to maintain a bunch of content servers when I'm going bankrupt. So I start seeding torrents and let my users scramble to download their software before the lights go out. Blizzard did it years ago for patch distribution, and it worked. Took a lot of stress off their own content servers for client downloads and patches. Why wouldn't Valve do the same?

You're the one pretending. "GabeN promised a torrent system when he goes out of business!", LMAO.

. . . I never said that. It's just the obvious thing to do. Care to stop misquoting me?

Also show us a single example of a software distribution company who was purchased / went out of business that removed all restrictions from their software retroactively.

See below.

I still don't understand all the hate for Valve. They just aren't as bad as you make them out to be. All this energy you could be directing to support a BETTER distribution service - GoG - is instead wasted on hatred of Valve. You don't know what's going to happen if/when Valve goes down (or sells out) so don't pretend like you know it all. You know nothing. And the same pertains to the rest of us.

Meanwhile, there is a distribution service - GoG - that has better overall sales terms. No DRM, and you can download offline versions of the games you buy. And they're in trouble. GoG recently had to lay off a few people (10% of its workforce, which was only a dozen people or so), and their margins are razor thin. Pushing a little bit of business their way (instead of savaging Steam) might be a really good idea if you're trying to sell the idea of a DRM-free world.

Has there ever been a digital distributor that went out of business? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all of the digital distributors I've ever heard of are still in business.

Total Entertainment Network could count as one, since they had a few exclusives, like DSO. But they barely counted as a distribution service since they had to ship everything on CD if they were to ship anything at all.

GoG will probably stay with us for awhile on the strength of Cyberpunk: 2077 sales. After that? Who knows. They're running a very tight ship. Layoffs are never a good sign.

 

[BFG10K]

And I can count those exclusives on two hands. Epic probably already has more publisher-exclusive titles on their distribution service than Steam. Valve barely produces any software AT ALL. It's gotten to the point that it's a joke. Their "current" titles are CS:Go, DotA2, Artifact, and TF2 (and TF2 is nearly abandonware at this poiint). Soon-ish we'll have Half Life: Alyx. Over the course of Steam's run, well over 99% of the titles there have not been exclusives. Most of the titles you'll find only on Steam are Steam-only due to the publisher's decision not to pursue other outlets. Which is a shame, since I'd like to see them all co-publish on GoG, but whatever.

That's great and all, but it's completely irrelevant. Whether Valve have one game or one hundred, GabeN is full of it. Not a single Valve developed or published game is available without Steam and without DRM. Even the hated Ubisoft and EA have repeated examples of their own titles available on multiple platforms, some even on GOG without DRM.

In any case, if GabeN said "exclusives are bad", I'd say his track record has been pretty good. Steam is full of non-exclusive titles.

100% of Valve developed/published titles are Steam exclusives with Steam DRM. The only thing "full of" something is GabeN.

None. And you have no evidence to the contrary.

Sure I do. I have repeated historic examples of GabeN acting in the opposite of his statements, and repeated historic examples of other companies getting swallowed up for various reasons and their back-catalog never getting mass-updated.

You on the other hand have a figment of your imagination. There's absolutely no precedent to back your claims.

Yes they are. MS drops support, and Steam drops support. Real simple. Steam still supports their Linux titles on any version of Linux that can run on a 64-bit CPU. They might even support 32-bit Linux, though 32-bit distros are falling out of fashion now. In any case, if MS still patched and supported XP, then Steam would be forced to support it since many users wouldn't have abandoned it.

No they aren't. Here's DOS running on an unsupported system:

I can run old DOS games on modern hardware. Doesn't matter if Microsoft supports it. I can do this because DOS games don't have Steam DRM.

I can't run Steam games on XP tho, because Steam DRM blocks it.

You'd have to use an old version of Steam, most likely. Not sure if it would be forced to update itself though. It probably would. You might be better off doing the opposite: run your legacy "OS of choice" on bare metal, and then run Win10 in a VM to play your Steam games. Either way, VMs to the rescue! One of the cool things about Steamworks + VAC is that it can run in a VM, while a lot of anti-cheat software (EAC in particular) barfs as soon as it leaves bare metal.

You don't know what you're talking about. But show us, install an "old" version of Steam on an unsupported platform, and show us the Steam games running. Without any cracks. Thanks.

Also your reverse VM example is nonsense since the whole point is running legacy games on older OSes. So if I wanted to run to run a Steam game on XP because it works best there, running it on a Win10 VM doesn't achieve that.

Of course it does. Nobody wants to maintain software interoperability with an abandonware OS. MS signaled to the world: "stop using this operating system", and its users do otherwise at their own peril.

No it doesn't.

Good thing that's never happened.

So no answer then?

MS-DOS barely even had the technical underpinnings to make a service like Steam work over our glorious 14.4k modems that we had back when running 6.22. Bad example. You'd have to be nuts to support a digital distribution service on a platform like that, especially once MS effectively abandoned DOS when moving to the NT kernel.

Using Examples | Boundless Communications |

Ace your courses with our free study and lecture notes, summaries, exam prep, and other resources

courses.lumenlearning.com

Hypothetical Examples

A hypothetical example is a fictional example that can be used when a speaker is explaining a complicated topic that makes the most sense when it is put into more realistic or relatable terms. For instance, if a presenter is discussing statistical probability, instead of explaining probability in terms of equations, it may make more sense for the presenter to make up a hypothetical example. This could be a story about a girl, Annie, picking 10 pieces of candy from a bag of 50 pieces of candy in which half are blue and half are red and then determining Annie’s probability of pulling out 10 total pieces of red candy. A hypothetical example helps the audience to better visualize a topic and relate to the point of the presentation more effectively.

They're old, and the publishers haven't updated the reqs.

The publishers didn't stop Steam from running, Valve did.

No, it's the individual publishers doing that.

The publishers didn't stop Steam from running, Valve did.

. . . seriously? What insider information? It's just common sense. If I put myself in Valve's shoes, I don't want to maintain a bunch of content servers when I'm going bankrupt. So I start seeding torrents and let my users scramble to download their software before the lights go out. Blizzard did it years ago for patch distribution, and it worked. Took a lot of stress off their own content servers for client downloads and patches. Why wouldn't Valve do the same?

"Common sense" based on what precedent? Still waiting for those official remove-all-drm-then-torrent examples I asked for. Thanks.

. . . I never said that. It's just the obvious thing to do. Care to stop misquoting me?

Obvious to whom? Obvious to someone with an active imagination perhaps? Certainly not obvious to anyone that knows your scenario has never happened.

I still don't understand all the hate for Valve. They just aren't as bad as you make them out to be. All this energy you could be directing to support a BETTER distribution service - GoG - is instead wasted on hatred of Valve.

I still don't understand your defense of Valve. I'm arguing to protect my consumer rights and $investment of my games, and to raise general awareness of game ownership.

What's your return on investment in this conversation? What exactly do you get out of defending Valve?

You don't know what's going to happen if/when Valve goes down (or sells out) so don't pretend like you know it all. You know nothing. And the same pertains to the rest of us.

I know with almost certainty that a mass patch will never be sent out to retroactively strip out Steam DRM from all titles, nor will official torrents appear. Something like that has never happened in the history of software companies being purchased or going bankrupt, ever.

Sure, I don't know 100% the sun will rise tomorrow either, but I'm safe to assume so. If somebody says otherwise the burden of proof is on them.

Meanwhile, there is a distribution service - GoG - that has better overall sales terms. No DRM, and you can download offline versions of the games you buy. And they're in trouble. GoG recently had to lay off a few people (10% of its workforce, which was only a dozen people or so), and their margins are razor thin. Pushing a little bit of business their way (instead of savaging Steam) might be a really good idea if you're trying to sell the idea of a DRM-free world.

You mean like I repeatedly did this thread? https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/the-anti-drm-thread.2552393/

I'll just quote myself from the OP:

The only true competition to all others is GOG because it’s in a class of its own with regards to actual game ownership, so vote with your wallet to support the consumer rights that GOG offers.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@BFG10K

Sorry man, but you've gone completely off your rocker. Steam has like 5 relevant "exclusives" and you act like it's a big deal. Who cares if Valve hasn't published a non-exclusive title? Everything else on Steam is a non-exclusive title. That's what matters. You go to Steam, and you get something that potentially could be had elsewhere - if the publisher bothered to co-publish on another store. GabeN was mostly honest, and he achieved that by drumroll please taking Valve out of the software publishing business in most cases. It's kind of hard to bitch about Valve producing exclusives when they generally publish no software at all. Valve hasn't leaned on other publishers to produce Steam-only exclusives (unlike Epic). Get over it. Everything after that is pure insanity. MS doesn't support DOS. Valve doesn't support DOS. Nobody aside from hobbyists trying to run old software - software so old that DRM didn't even exist in any meaningful form back then - supports DOS. Well GoG sort of does, when the game requires it. But GoG is cool with hobbyists like that.

The entire idea that any part of your argument proves that GabeN was lying or that corporate policy at Valve has changed is complete insanity. It proves nothing. You have no inside information to the contrary. Neither do I. In the absence of any further information, I choose to cautiously believe GabeN because he is less of a raving lunatic than you.

Stick to plugging GoG and stop embarrassing yourself.

 

[JujuFish]

@BFG10K

Sorry man, but you've gone completely off your rocker. Steam has like 5 relevant "exclusives" and you act like it's a big deal. Who cares if Valve hasn't published a non-exclusive title? Everything else on Steam is a non-exclusive title. That's what matters. You go to Steam, and you get something that potentially could be had elsewhere - if the publisher bothered to co-publish on another store. GabeN was mostly honest, and he achieved that by drumroll please taking Valve out of the software publishing business in most cases. It's kind of hard to bitch about Valve producing exclusives when they generally publish no software at all. Valve hasn't leaned on other publishers to produce Steam-only exclusives (unlike Epic). Get over it. Everything after that is pure insanity. MS doesn't support DOS. Valve doesn't support DOS. Nobody aside from hobbyists trying to run old software - software so old that DRM didn't even exist in any meaningful form back then - supports DOS. Well GoG sort of does, when the game requires it. But GoG is cool with hobbyists like that.

The entire idea that any part of your argument proves that GabeN was lying or that corporate policy at Valve has changed is complete insanity. It proves nothing. You have no inside information to the contrary. Neither do I. In the absence of any further information, I choose to cautiously believe GabeN because he is less of a raving lunatic than you.

Stick to plugging GoG and stop embarrassing yourself.

I don't know how you can completely miss BFG10K's point but you found a way.

If Gabe can't be trusted to make *his own games* nonexclusive despite his comments on exclusivity, how can you trust what he's said about what happens if Steam dies?

And as a side note, I'd love it if someone in this thread actually provided a source proving Gabe ever said anything about stripping Steam DRM.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I don't know how you can completely miss BFG10K's point but you found a way.

If Gabe can't be trusted to make *his own games* nonexclusive despite his comments on exclusivity, how can you trust what he's said about what happens if Steam dies?

And as a side note, I'd love it if someone in this thread actually provided a source proving Gabe ever said anything about stripping Steam DRM.

We are talking about 5 games out of like 15,000.
The main reason steam was created (per Gabe from years ago) was every patch to the original team fortress caused major stress, would enough people be smart enough to download the new version or would the player base die because too many people are running different versions.
Not too crazy to think a company that is a digital distribution platform would keep their games exclusive.
Now regarding steam unlocking stuff if they close shop, we have covered this. Reportedly he said this around steam’s launch who knows if it is true, we do know steam is a digital distribution leader by far, has millions of users and is valued somewhere around 4 billion. They are not going away.

This topic is getting so repetitive if you don’t like steam don’t buy games from steam.

 

[Stg-Flame]

If Gabe can't be trusted to make *his own games* nonexclusive despite his comments on exclusivity, how can you trust what he's said about what happens if Steam dies?

Can't be bothered to actually read what he said? He wasn't talking about exclusives in general - he was talking about exclusives in VR. Even if he wasn't talking about VR at the time of that comment, it's incredibly childish and immature to hold a grudge against the guy for having a few exclusives 20 years ago. If anyone else was willing to take over the Valve exclusives, I doubt he would care but considering they have established communities on Steam, it would be a financial disaster to try and release any of the Valve games on another platform (aside from all the Valve games that were also ported to console which eliminates them from being exclusives).

And as a side note, I'd love it if someone in this thread actually provided a source proving Gabe ever said anything about stripping Steam DRM.

Back in 2004, I had this same question and after asking in the Steam discussions, I was told to submit a Steam ticket to get an answer from the the people who work there. The response I received is pretty much on-par with what everyone else received and was told that if anything ever happens, they have everything ready to release the games for full download except for those which are strictly online-only. I don't honestly know if Gabe ever said this but the staff at his company will tell you this if you ask them. Feel free to call them all liars if you wish because it seems a few people in this thread just want to stay angry.

As Fanatical said, if you don't like Steam, there's nobody forcing you to support them and if you have no investment into Steam, why are you so upset about what happens to our games if Steam goes offline?

 

[JujuFish]

Can't be bothered to actually read what he said? He wasn't talking about exclusives in general - he was talking about exclusives in VR. Even if he wasn't talking about VR at the time of that comment, it's incredibly childish and immature to hold a grudge against the guy for having a few exclusives 20 years ago. If anyone else was willing to take over the Valve exclusives, I doubt he would care but considering they have established communities on Steam, it would be a financial disaster to try and release any of the Valve games on another platform (aside from all the Valve games that were also ported to console which eliminates them from being exclusives).

How do you not see the hypocrisy in this statement? Like, really? It doesn't matter if he's referring to VR, he's still talking about video game exclusivity. Also, I'm not holding a grudge against the guy. I'm just pointing out how you folk are being willfully ignorant to BFG's actual point. I don't like to see a poster ganged up on when you're not even addressing his points.

Back in 2004, I had this same question and after asking in the Steam discussions, I was told to submit a Steam ticket to get an answer from the the people who work there. The response I received is pretty much on-par with what everyone else received and was told that if anything ever happens, they have everything ready to release the games for full download except for those which are strictly online-only. I don't honestly know if Gabe ever said this but the staff at his company will tell you this if you ask them. Feel free to call them all liars if you wish because it seems a few people in this thread just want to stay angry.

Again, I'd love to see a source. Can't do that? Then you're not worth trusting.

As Fanatical said, if you don't like Steam, there's nobody forcing you to support them and if you have no investment into Steam, why are you so upset about what happens to our games if Steam goes offline?

I have over *1200* games on Steam. If Steam goes down and I want to play something, I'll just pirate it. I've already paid for it. At that point, I have no moral qualms about piracy. I'm not upset about any of this. Seems like you're getting rather upset though, with the ad hominem attacks. You know, that's the direction people go when they don't have an argument to stand on.

 

[extide]

More pressing question is will your games run on hardware in 8 years?

I would expect them to -- I mean I have had my steam account for 16 years and all of the games even from 16 years ago still work...

 

[Stg-Flame]

How do you not see the hypocrisy in this statement? Like, really? It doesn't matter if he's referring to VR, he's still talking about video game exclusivity.

So because he got into the field of gaming with exclusives, he's not ever allowed to change his stance on exclusives? I'm guessing you also think if a 16 year old steals a 6-pack of beer, they are a criminal for life, right? I wasn't aware that people weren't allowed to change their minds but thanks for informing me. All sarcasm aside, Gabe made exclusives in the early 2000s and almost 20 years later he is seeing how they aren't good for anyone. I would certainly hope that you understand that people will change drastically in just a few years, let alone 15+. This is common sense.

Again, I'd love to see a source. Can't do that? Then you're not worth trusting.

And again, go ask Steam yourself because you aren't going to trust anyone.

I have over *1200* games on Steam. If Steam goes down and I want to play something, I'll just pirate it. I've already paid for it. At that point, I have no moral qualms about piracy. I'm not upset about any of this. Seems like you're getting rather upset though, with the ad hominem attacks. You know, that's the direction people go when they don't have an argument to stand on.

The irony...

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I would expect them to -- I mean I have had my steam account for 16 years and all of the games even from 16 years ago still work...

will those games from 2004 run on hardware & windows machines running in 2028?

 

[JujuFish]

So because he got into the field of gaming with exclusives, he's not ever allowed to change his stance on exclusives? I'm guessing you also think if a 16 year old steals a 6-pack of beer, they are a criminal for life, right? I wasn't aware that people weren't allowed to change their minds but thanks for informing me. All sarcasm aside, Gabe made exclusives in the early 2000s and almost 20 years later he is seeing how they aren't good for anyone. I would certainly hope that you understand that people will change drastically in just a few years, let alone 15+. This is common sense.


And again, go ask Steam yourself because you aren't going to trust anyone.


The irony...

Cool. You have no rebuttal and continue to ignore the facts. This is a worthwhile conversation.

If Gabe changed his view on exclusives, why oh why are his games still exclusive, hmm?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Cool. You have no rebuttal and continue to ignore the facts. This is a worthwhile conversation.

If Gabe changed his view on exclusives, why oh why are his games still exclusive, hmm?

Okay, so if steam closes and I lose all my games, I’ll wallow in sadness for decades saying those other guys were right.
I’m sure @Stg-Flame will too.
Better? Can this discussion be ended?

 

[Stg-Flame]

If Gabe changed his view on exclusives, why oh why are his games still exclusive, hmm?

I already addressed this and this is also common sense. It would be financial suicide and an overall stupid move to re-release decade-old games on another platform or distributor, especially considering the entire player-base is already playing on Steam. I highly doubt there's very many Origin or GoG exclusive people out there petitioning to get CSGO or DoTA 2 on other distributors. Besides, even if another platform bought those games and released them elsewhere, do you honestly think there will be enough players to hold the popularity? Use your head once in a while.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I already addressed this and this is also common sense. It would be financial suicide and an overall stupid move to re-release decade-old games on another platform or distributor, especially considering the entire player-base is already playing on Steam. I highly doubt there's very many Origin or GoG exclusive people out there petitioning to get CSGO or DoTA 2 on other distributors. Besides, even if another platform bought those games and released them elsewhere, do you honestly think there will be enough players to hold the popularity? Use your head once in a while.

Don’t those games require steam networking for multiplayer?
How could one separate steam networking out and still have an enjoyable experience as in the non steam networking client actually has server, servers that are populated and somehow you can cross connect to play with your friend who has it on steam.

 

[JujuFish]

I already addressed this and this is also common sense. It would be financial suicide and an overall stupid move to re-release decade-old games on another platform or distributor, especially considering the entire player-base is already playing on Steam. I highly doubt there's very many Origin or GoG exclusive people out there petitioning to get CSGO or DoTA 2 on other distributors. Besides, even if another platform bought those games and released them elsewhere, do you honestly think there will be enough players to hold the popularity? Use your head once in a while.

Ah more ad hominem attacks because you have no argument. How about all of their single player games? Hmm? None of this is financial suicide just because you say it is.

Further, even with multiplayer games there's no reason you can't make them cross compatible. Even with DRM-free versions, as one can see with Divinity: Original Sin, which I played on Steam with a friend who had the GOG version.

Really, do try harder with your next reply.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Has there ever been a digital distributor that went out of business? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all of the digital distributors I've ever heard of are still in business.

- One immediately leaps to mind: Stardock, from the "Sins of a Solar Empire" and Galactic Civilzations guys. Had a digital distro platform, bought by gamestop, rebranded, then discontinued in 2014.

That being said, all things are definitely not equal there: Stardock is and was no Blizz/Activision, Bethsoft, EA, or Valve (which is almost better known as STEAM at this point).

 

[Fanatical Meat]

- One immediately leaps to mind: Stardock, from the "Sins of a Solar Empire" and Galactic Civilzations guys. Had a digital distro platform, bought by gamestop, rebranded, then discontinued in 2014.

That being said, all things are definitely not equal there: Stardock is and was no Blizz/Activision, Bethsoft, EA, or Valve (which is almost better known as STEAM at this point).

I am nearly positive all stardock titles were ported to steam. I know my sup com & sup com Forged Alliance keys activated on steam. I think I got an email about it around the time stardock sold their store.
That’s what I was saying earlier, businesses are eager for customers honoring keys from another store that is closing likely costs minimal in royalties and pumps up your customer base. I have no idea what the average lifetime value of a typic steam account it but it has to be around $20 per year. Let’s say Epic pays for and honors a bunch of game keys to get the misfits back on a selling platform probably totally worth it.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Ah more ad hominem attacks because you have no argument.

Just copy/pasting this doesn't make my arguments go away. It just lets everyone here know that you're willingly ignoring my arguments which doesn't put you in a very good light.

How about all of their single player games?

Go ahead and remind me which of their single player games are exclusives. Were you thinking of the Half Life series that's available on Xbox 360? Maybe Left 4 Dead 2 series that's also available on Xbox 360? Perhaps Counter Strike that's available on the Xbox 360? What about the Portal series that's also available on Xbox 360 and PS3? I'll wait around here while you find some of those single player exclusives that Valve is holding above everyone's heads.

One immediately leaps to mind: Stardock, from the "Sins of a Solar Empire" and Galactic Civilzations guys. Had a digital distro platform, bought by gamestop, rebranded, then discontinued in 2014.

I played SoaSE quite a bit when it first came out but stopped playing before the second game. Looks like that distributor came and went pretty quickly which is likely why I never knew about it. I know a lot of smaller companies have talked about it in the past, but in the end they never happen when their fans heavily object. I can't imagine that some of these popular developers are going broke by hosting their games on Steam, especially if their games are good enough to get solid attention.

 

[extide]

will those games from 2004 run on hardware & windows machines running in 2028?

I mean they have made it this far so another 8 years isn't that much of a stretch IMO. Some of them have probably received updates over time so if Steam went away today -- who knows -- but IMO 8 years isn't that far away so even in that case I bet at the very least the vast majority would. Now if you said another 16 years -- that's getting a lot more sketchy.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I mean they have made it this far so another 8 years isn't that much of a stretch IMO. Some of them have probably received updates over time so if Steam went away today -- who knows -- but IMO 8 years isn't that far away so even in that case I bet at the very least the vast majority would. Now if you said another 16 years -- that's getting a lot more sketchy.

Maybe, there are questions as to will dx(anything below 11) still be supported by Microsoft? Will hardware run it too fast or have the display distorted sort of like how some dos games do. Will there be some kind of hardware change in video cards. Really hard to say. I’d say it is possible they will be fine and it is possible they will not.

 

[JujuFish]

Just copy/pasting this doesn't make my arguments go away. It just lets everyone here know that you're willingly ignoring my arguments which doesn't put you in a very good light.

Go ahead and remind me which of their single player games are exclusives. Were you thinking of the Half Life series that's available on Xbox 360? Maybe Left 4 Dead 2 series that's also available on Xbox 360? Perhaps Counter Strike that's available on the Xbox 360? What about the Portal series that's also available on Xbox 360 and PS3? I'll wait around here while you find some of those single player exclusives that Valve is holding above everyone's heads.

There's only one person here ignoring arguments and it isn't me, which also means it's not me that isn't being put in a very good light. But you do you.

As for their single player games, it's funny how you're talking about consoles. That doesn't mean it's not an exclusive on PC. Can I get Valve's games on GOG? Any of them? Because I can get Ubisoft, EA, even Epic games there. Not all, but some is more than literally zero. Please, tell me where I can get any single Valve PC game (we're in the PC Gaming forum, you know?) that doesn't require Steam. Go on, I'll wait.

Yeah, I'd love to see Gabe not being a hypocrite, but rather a trustworthy person. Sadly, you have made literally zero progress toward that assessment.

 

[you2]

Oh for crise sake - look into the history of steam and why it was developed and what alternatives were available at the time. Yes they could probably sell it on other platforms today but why would they ?

There's only one person here ignoring arguments and it isn't me, which also means it's not me that isn't being put in a very good light. But you do you.

As for their single player games, it's funny how you're talking about consoles. That doesn't mean it's not an exclusive on PC. Can I get Valve's games on GOG? Any of them? Because I can get Ubisoft, EA, even Epic games there. Not all, but some is more than literally zero. Please, tell me where I can get any single Valve PC game (we're in the PC Gaming forum, you know?) that doesn't require Steam. Go on, I'll wait.

Yeah, I'd love to see Gabe not being a hypocrite, but rather a trustworthy person. Sadly, you have made literally zero progress toward that assessment.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Oh for crise sake - look into the history of steam and why it was developed and what alternatives were available at the time. Yes they could probably sell it on other platforms today but why would they ?

There's no reasoning with someone who is just trolling. He'll only be satisfied if Gabe goes back in time and never expresses any opinions about anything. First he kept going on about exclusives and after being proven wrong, he just changes his tune to "PC digital distributor exclusives". Next he'll start asking why Gabe never ported any games to mobile.

 

[BFG10K]

We are talking about 5 games out of like 15,000.

We're talking about 100% of Valve developed/published titles. That entire catalog is tied to Steam DRM, unlike Ubisoft/EA which have some of their games on non Uplay/Origin clients, including DRM-free GOG.

Not too crazy to think a company that is a digital distribution platform would keep their games exclusive.

But...but...but GabeN told us exclusives are bad. And his statement is used as "evidence" in this thread to "prove" there'll be a DRM removal patch post-bankruptcy.

Maybe, there are questions as to will dx(anything below 11) still be supported by Microsoft? Will hardware run it too fast or have the display distorted sort of like how some dos games do. Will there be some kind of hardware change in video cards. Really hard to say. I’d say it is possible they will be fine and it is possible they will not.

Why do you feel there are such questions going forward given historical evidence has more than answered them? I can run games right now from the late 1970s and later on Windows 10 October 2019 on a brand new PC built two months ago, including non-x86 platforms.

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DRM (especially Cloud based/always online/streaming) is the problem here, not a fictional incompatibility doomsday.