Hacker News Reader

Comment by benoau | Hacker News Reader

All of this is based on the assumption that the way it was done is the way it will be done.

Who will own and run Steam 30 years from now? Gabe Newell will be long-gone, his nepobaby next-CEO will be closing in on retirement if they don't check-out early to enjoy their vast wealth like Gabe has done.

What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Adults using it today are mostly dead and all of their licenses revoked forever, the games removed from circulation gone forever because nobody can ever have a license to use them again. They might be onto their 4th, 5th or 6th CEO by then, half a century removed from Gabe and any expectations we have around the ways he did things.

There's a lot of room for improvement securing some sort of legacy for Steam.

View on HN

I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 or whatever OS will be the dominant for PC in 30 or 60 years time.

Most C64, MSX, Apple,Amiga, Atari ST and Dos games can still be played on all majors operating systems.

In fact I used "most" but I can't name one that couldn't be played.

If anything it will be easier than ever to run those games, the platforms you mention can be run in a web browser these days with nothing at all to install or configure or download.

Are you willing to put monies on that?

> I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20

Given the lengths the Windows development team has gone to, to preserve backward compatibility, to the point that there was individual-game-specific workarounds codified in Windows, makes this claim the same as the GP’s, that Steam will change 30-60 years from now.

The cynic in me thinks you’re both right, mind.

If it works on WINE today, I would expect it to work on WINE tomorrow. Worst case, you can probably just install an older WINE on a newer OS to ensure it.

It would presumably work in a virtualized environment.

You can literally run 30 year old software on your Windows computer today.

30 year old Windows software is kind of rough. Tried to get some old games working on my Dad's computer this holiday season. DOS based game is easy. Windows 95 based games are hard... First you almost certainly need winevdm for the installer because the installers were almost always 16-bit; then I was getting errors that I can't run on Windows NT, only Windows 95 is supported, and insufficient ram errors because the memory available is too much.

Found some other options (fan remake) for now, but probably I need to shell out the $3 for a modern port or run a whole emulated windows95. Probably wine with options would also work? SSI games, Allied General and Pacific General.

I bet it'll run on Wine.

It will continue to work on the same platforms it does now. Steam on the other hand already dropped support for Windows versions when they were still used by many players.

No. At least in some countries (e.g. Germany) they would be forced to reimburse every buyer if they removed access to a game someone bought.

The fact that somewhere deep down in their EULA there might be words that make it clear that you're not really "buying" anything, just renting/leasing/whatever, wouldn't stand in court since the important part is the big shiny "Buy now" button, and "buying" has a specific meaning here.

So yeah, the only way they could "take the games away from you" is if Steam went bancrupt

> So yeah, the only way they could "take the games away from you" is if Steam went bancrupt

Yeah, that's not impossible, and I'd rather keep what I buy even if the seller does go bankrupt.

I don’t care because I’ll be dead.

Data-hoarding archivists don’t like to hear this, but this is how it’s worked for all of human history. It’s not practical to consume and remember all the media every person has ever published.

This is getting totally beside the issue of DRM.

What will happen is that the greatest games will be remembered if they’re lucky and the rest will be discarded by time, even if they are DRM-free and unencumbered by reaching public domain status.

Can you name your favorite silent movie? How about your second favorite? How about your 10th favorite?

What’s your favorite song from 1492?

> It’s not practical to consume and remember all the media every person has ever published.

It's not about you being able to "consume it all", it's about future generations being able to look back and see how gaming and humanity evolved and explore this history. Many people will research the greatest hits, the greatest developers, the greatest accomplishments, just like any other historically-interesting thing.

My favorite song from roughly 1492 is a small ditty I came across some years ago called Branle Englese, amongst many centuries-old pieces of classical music I enjoy playing. I don't know if it's specifically 1492, as the details have been lost to time unfortunately.

Do you recognize the value of other history? Should we 'delete' it all or just games, rather than challenge a fairly recent status quo that emerged and undermines their preservation?

I mean I don't really give a shit. Im buying a game to play it now, maybe next year.

Besides you only need Steam if the publisher chooses to use Steam DRM. There's clearly an incentive for it, don't think its purely Steam's fault.

If that's the model the publisher offers, that's the model you have. Its your choice to participate in it or not.

> What does Steam look like 60 years from now?

Does it matter? You are treating this like these games are some valuable collector's items, when they really are just toys you play once and then never touch again for the most part.

But let's assume you had physical copies of all of these games you own on Steam. Once you are gone, there is a > 90% chance that whoever inherits it, will throw it away, just like Millenials now are throwing away all this junk they are inheriting that Boomers used to collect.

The point is, Steam is good enough for all practical purposes, which is to acquire and play games in the now.

My library includes games I played with my father and games I played with my own children. Given the option my children would certainly revisit their favourite titles with their own children one day, or for their own nostalgic memories.

One thing you are missing with your logic is that "throw it out" is probably more like "give to charity", the unwanted goods are not necessarily being destroyed and may be redistributed to people who do value them. If my kids didn't want my Steam account I'm sure there's others who would, and preservation groups and museums that would probably take it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com