>Games you purchased on a Windows 98 machine later had their system requirements bumped up to Windows XP, then to Windows 7, then to Windows 10...
>Because the Steam client patches itself and because Valve was lying about contingency plans, their DRM prevents running Windows 98-era games on original hardware.
What about Linux? Steam has supported Linux since 2013, and is notably the only big store that does. Personally, I don't even see the other stores as competition since they don't even let you install them from my OS.
> What about Linux? Steam has supported Linux since 2013, and is notably the only big store that does.
Steam is a big contributor to making games run on Linux but it's not some magical sauce unique to Steam. Unless you're talking about the store client software itself having better support, I haven't used any of the first party store clients on Linux. My GOG games run fine on Linux with Heroic Launcher.
But the bigger issue for me was when I bought older games from the Steam store only to discover that they didn't run properly or at all on Windows 10 despite the statement that they do. I bought them again from GOG who actually patched them to work. Supporting the OS I bought the games for should be guaranteed unconditionally for as long as I own the game. Support for additional OSes, especially when it's best effort, is just a bonus not a replacement.
I'm talking about his complaint that Steam does not have any contingency plans for running games on old hardware due to them not supporting old versions of Windows. You can install Linux on that hardware, so I'd say that's a good enough contingency plan.
* Assuming that game is supported on Linux
While compatibility has improved a lot, it's difficult to argue it's on par with a game on as-released hardware + OS.
There will always be gaps or altered functionality in compatibility.
And unfortunately, because of the recency bias of popularity, there won't be large enough player bases to justify corporate fixes.
It needs to be a priority despite finances (e.g. GoG) or community driven (e.g. Kaldaien and the moding community).
And it seems fair for the latter to be pissed off when Valve intentionally creates extra work for them, because either Valve doesn't care or it makes business sense for them.
And if nobody cares... troublesome games just disappear. Which seems tragic.
I've collected so many free games on the Epic store, but almost never play any of them due to issues with them running on the SteamDeck. With some persuasion they can be made to work, but I don't want to be tinkering when I just want to play a game for 5-10 minutes.
Apart from multiplayer games with anti-cheat I’ve had no real problems running Epic or GoG games on Steam Deck via Heroic Launcher. In fact, SD is helping me work through my free Epic games backlog.
The most problematic was Deathloop, which flashed up some messages about it being an unsupported APU but ultimately worked fine. Occasionally some games crash after waking from a suspend.
How's the experience of playing mouse centric games (like Civilization, Factorio and other strategy games, for instance) on the Steam Deck?
The pads work ok, they work more like a thumb ball than a track pad, but it’s no substitute for a mouse. You can just use a Bluetooth mouse, of course.
A bigger issue is the size and resolution of the screen. Many games of this type assume at least 1080p.
Pardon my ignorance... So people actually connect mice and keyboards to the deck? How does that work in terms of playing position? I thought the deck is mostly targeted towards mobile players who will have it on a bed, chair etc where there won't be any surfaces for using a mouse or other peripherals.
SO you can do what I'm currently doing because I'm in the middle of moving countries and my desktop isnt here!
I have a monitor i'm borrowing from work, a mouse, keyboard, and the steamdeck Dock. And I just treat it like a desktop. You can still easily use steam big picture mode. OR you can boot to desktop, as the Steamdeck is just a Arch linux install. Its honestly amazing.
Like the other poster, I use the SD for convenience, snatching 10 minutes of gameplay wherever I am and whenever I have time, and that means not plugging anything in.
But the SD is just a PC in a handheld form factor. You can plug in a dock, external monitor and other peripherals, only removing it when travelling, if that suits you.
5-10m? Sounds more akin to a phone/mobile game.
The sheer convenience of the SteamDeck is what has brought me back into gaming. It's so easy to pick it up whilst cooking etc. and play a few minutes of Blue Prince - the power button pause/resume is such a killer feature. (Also, 5-10 minutes is enough time for a CyberPunk 2077 mission)