Occasionally I love going back through my old CD-Rs (copied to hard drive, of course), finding old troves of files, projects, and games. That's why I always get the latest Factorio as direct download - I know someday in 20 years time I'll be hankering to bust that out again!
https://www.pcgamer.com/au/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-stea...
(songs removed from San Andreas due to time-limited music licenses, apparently at some point the renderer was replaced with the one used for iOS)
I think you can't downgrade to an old version of Stranger's Wrath either, but I could be wrong there. https://www.destructoid.com/oddworld-stranger-s-wrath-finall...
Then there are games like Diablo III where you need to be online to play single player, and therefore need a current patch, which means they can nerf or fuck with in any way they want a game you already liked and may no longer like after the changes.
Having to follow patches sucks, and piracy is often the only way to avoid it.
They even killed the official classic version not too long ago.
Short version: 1.0: Various bugs 1.01: Patch, fixed a whole bunch of issues 2.0: Only introduced a (easily defeated) tampering check after the Hot Coffee controversy 3.0: First steam release, is not based at all on 1.01 or 2.0 but on the Xbox version. Fixes from 1.01 are thus NOT IN THIS VERSION(!). Also contains many Xbox UI changes. newsteam r1: Removes the aforementioned songs, drops support for DirectInput controllers, blacklists 5:4 resolutions. Doesn't actually have a version number anymore (and is named by the community) newsteam r2: Unlocks 16:9 resolutions. Also doesn't contain an official version number.
Then there is the Microsoft Store version, which is based on a mobile version!
It's no longer in the Apple Store (along with Chaos Rings II) even though I paid $15 for each. Not cool.
Sadly, they have their own package-manager/launcher too. Same goes for blizzard, twitch, EA, epic games... Sometimes I wonder ifvthe world wiuldn't better with sone kibd of centralized digital-content-managment platform, and all those stores and launchers just tap into it.
A lot of games are multi-player. Even if the software existed, once the community dies it's not the same game. It's fine, nothing lasts forever. We use it, we enjoy it, and we move on to the next thing that's enjoyable. You can't go home again, but you can always find a new home.
And in any case, there’s still dozens of communities around old arena shooters and the like. If those had an arbitrary lifespan applied to them based on when some company or other shut down, that’d be impossible.
And every so often, it'll popup and ask, "What is the icon on page 37 of the manual?" It's a cute throwback to what copy protection used to be.
But it's a bit obscene that they didn't run the crack to take out the copy protection checks once they ported it over to Steam. Once the window pops up, the game is unplayable until you type in the right code.
I was furious my first time through. I spent all night reliving nostalgic fantasies, only to get pretty far in and hit that wall. And, because I left the game on when I went to bed on Friday, it looked like I had played it for like 48 hours, so by the time I got around to filing a complaint with Steam to get a refund, they were like, "You've clearly been playing the game for 48+ hours..." Frustrating. The person on the other end of the phone thought I was a babbling idiot when I said the game had copy protection and asked for a copy of the manual. It was one of the funniest moments of tech support I've ever been on.
Luckily, I found a a PDF of the user manual with all the symbols.
Looks like there's also an engine reimplementation: https://openxcom.org/