![]() They have simply decided that doing the right thing would be more costly than whatever cost they will incur from dropping support. The end user does not and should not have to care how you cobble together your software. Problems caused by middleware are still the responsibility of the developer using that middleware. They don't have to keep selling Games on older operating systems (or could require an external browser for that) but taking away the ability to run already sold ones is unacceptable. They CAN make a specced down version of Steam (or GUI for steamcmd) for older operating systems. Browsers are expansive but not rocket science. They CAN maintain support for older versions in their fork of Chrome. Steam doesn't NEED an embedded browser, having one just makes things more convenient for Valve because they can reuse their website in the client. They used Windows' browser before and no browser component before that. you must upgrade, re-buy, expend!"īullshit. ![]() I'd even concede some form of DRM that doesn't involve the Steam client but naaa, "the h4x0rs will get into your XP box that you keep solely for retro gaming and shut off the world. But that's not an option we have, unlike say GOG, who also doesn't support old OS but at least gives us the possibility to download the games. We'd gladly trade all the distractions the client forces down our throat (stickers, trading cards, avatars and all of that stuff) for the ability to single play the games we legitimately bought. The irony is even sweeter, given that this update should very well work on period correct machines (which again, many of us still keep running) but alas, you'll still locked out. I still keep Windows 8 because it's still supported on Steam but that too will change in january 1st next year. I love the fact that on the games requirements on the Steam page it still says it runs on Windows XP when in fact all support has been cut for long now, leaving out many of us who got into Steam on the first place because we either wanted a legal digital copy of our physical collection or because many physical game keys WOULD also activate a digital license. but maybe I won't feel the same when I try and play HL DM this weekend and inevitably realize how slow my reaction times have gotten in the last ~25 years ) So thanks Valve and Half-Life team for this happy memories. I really want to figure out how to bring similiar experiences to my kids, because it was that loop of problem -> learning -> breakthrough that I think was hugely transformative to not only my career trajectory, but also just in learning to love learning. That wasn't the first time I felt the rush of getting a computer to do something I wanted (that would probably be getting doom running in windows 3.1 after dealing figuring out the mystical "command line") but it certainly was one of the most drastic in just how fast tech changed.Ī small addendum to this. This is what drove me to build my first computer and after debugging my way through all the issues that a 12 a year old would make when building a computer before the age of YouTube, I remember being absolutely blown away by the lighting and speed of what this little piece of hardware added to the experience. ![]() I first played Half-Life on a family PC with no graphics accelerator and I loved it, but I remember the jank from ~15 FPS at a few hundred lines of resolution. This game holds such a special place for me, not only for just fun childhood memories, but also so much of what got me into the excitement of how cool it was to see the rapid progress of tech.Ĭertainly, it isn't atypical for software industry folks of my age to have games be a gateway into tech, but I think I was a bit different in that I rarely considered wanting to make games, rather I enjoyed the tinkering with my computer and the rapid pace at what games could do as much as the game (which continues today with my spending more money on playing with the hardware and toys rather than the actual games) and half-life just
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |