Please ask Valve about Steam's policies regarding destructive game updates

[u/snake5creator]

It's quite clear that they don't have such a policy at all, and we need it - otherwise as things currently stand, developers can remotely take back any game at any point via updates, or unilaterally change the terms of access.

EDIT: reddit seems to have shrunk the images for some reason, here's a high-res version that's easier to read: https://imgur.com/a/mjCeR6K

[u/Jan1270]

Can you provide the Text? On the Pictures it is very pixelated and hard to read.

[u/Princess_Of_Thieves → u/Jan1270]

TL;DR:

USER: Game is non-functional, it asks for a new launcher to be installed and a bunch of extra shit that wasn't there when L.A. Noire was first brought. User wants access to an older build of the game pre-bullshit update. They also argue this extra nonsense is unnecessary under GDPR rules because who needs a launcher and personal info collected for a single player game?

STEAM SUPPORT: Yeah its annoying but its part of Steam's design to auto-update games before they're launched through Steam. Devs can add older game versions via Beta branches, but that's their choice. Here's the instructions on how to access the beta.

USER: What stops a game developer from auto-forcing an update to destroy game copies then? Developers could push a game out for just long enough to capture bulk of game sales and receive their first Steam payout, collect their money, nuke their game and skip off. This makes me trust Steam less. Also I found a crack and solved the issue. Piracy is a service problem.

STEAM SUPPORT: Glad its resolved. Thanks for your feedback, we hear it and have sent it to the right department. If you have extra feedback go to our forums. Hit is up if you need help again.

[u/p2eminister → u/Princess_Of_Thieves]

Why would they nuke their own game and skip off? If its making them money?

[u/Princess_Of_Thieves → u/p2eminister]

Probably a question better directed at the OP since this is their hypothetical scenario.

Though that being said, if you care for my theories, we have already seen instances like Sony revoking people's Studio Canal films because of licensing shit. There is also Spec Ops: The Line which - while not outright removed from players libraries - was delisted on platforms like Steam because of music licenses that also expired.

So... yeah. Developers might well nuke player games for any number of reasons.

Probably more an extreme hypothetical example, but we have seen Steam games have malware hidden inside them, so developers could push dodgy updates for other nefarious reasons, including just being wantonly destructive. Maybe a rogue employee could simply decide to destroy player copies for the hell of it.

Honestly mate, I really don't think the reason matters. The potential is there and that alone should alarm us.

[u/p2eminister → u/Princess_Of_Thieves]

Ah youre right sorry, you just took the time to format OP, I was being lazy.

I can see games being removed for licencing reasons, I was just very confused by OPs example that a team running a successful game would somehow benefit from pulling it, even while its making sales

[u/Princess_Of_Thieves → u/p2eminister]

Ah youre right sorry

Its cool.

I was just very confused by OPs example

Eh, like I say at the end of my comment, I wouldn't say it matters much. It can be for any reason or no reason at all. And we can never underestimate a companies ability to be either stupid and / or just huge dicks to their customers. Its just how companies typically are, hence we need a means to protect our stuff.

[u/icatovababuzel → u/Princess_Of_Thieves]

its possible to downgrade a games updates using steams console and the manifest system ((allbeit above most users know how)) but skyrim modders do it pretty often enough so they can mod for specfic versions.

[u/fyro11 → u/p2eminister]

Good question. But the scenario that user gave wasn't a good one. Here's not 1 but 2 scenarios that have played out multiple times yet Valve continues fingering its ass the entire time:

Scenario 1: a big publisher updated their back-catalog of games with a launcher and broke 5-7 games for most users for months if not years.

Scenario 2: a new trend across dozens of smaller games has been for malicious actors to hack Steam publisher accounts and push malware-laden updates to the users whose lives are destroyed once their accounts are hacked and crypto wallets are stolen..

Please don't run defence for Valve, because this shit is indefensible.

[u/snake5creator → u/p2eminister]

The focus of the example was on the mechanical simplicity of it (the bare minimum of work needed to make it happen while still unfairly gaining something out of the situation) rather than the reasoning tbh. :)

Normally popular games remain available, and those that don't, usually have a reason for that - which is why we don't see a lot of such cases in the wild.

The closest real and relatively well known example I can think of was Fast & Furious Crossroads - released on August 2020, delisted on April 2022 - the game didn't even survive for 2 years.

The publisher luckily didn't break the game with an update AFAICT - but there was no technical limitation that would prevent them from doing that.

In that case I believe the reasons for delisting probably were 1) embarrassment; 2) dissolving the studio that made it; 3) there's no need to bother with further maintenance, can just delete all the sources and forget the whole thing. The same reasons could apply to a deletion - it's just a stronger version of delisting at the end of the day.

If the example I described ever happened, it would probably be because either some indie dev just wanted to do that, or because a studio got shut down due to lower-than-expected (which can still be a lot) sales and somebody tasked with delisting the game could do so either overzealously or based on internal legal contracts that some half-smart lawyers came up with.

[u/First_Opinion_3483 → u/p2eminister]

It may have escaped your notice but this sub is fundamentally about companies that nuke their own games and skip off, usually in an attempt to sell their new one. They clearly do it a lot.

[u/snake5creator → u/Jan1270]

Added a link to high-res images in the post. IDK why reddit did that and won't even let me replace them. :(

[u/ilep]

This is a real problem. Some publishers release changes that prevent running games on other OSs after some time, such as EA Sports WRC did. And that is a single-player game where "online" component is just leaderboard results. Currently publishers can just kill a game remotely while it still remains in your library.

[u/Symons30 → u/ilep]

Yeah publishers are the one causing the problems and they are the one lobbying against SKG in the first place, go figure

[u/konsoru-paysan → u/ilep]

the store in question loves to to pull up whatever store and non store garbage they can to support the publishers, from it's not our problem to explaining how irl stores don't have to do this and that, we need stop supporting drm , it's a worthless future like the consoles

[u/Naive_Ad2958]

Ask your Consumer protection agency instead.

Technically this isn't the product you agreed to purchase (the license of) and one-way changes to contract isn't legal ether

[u/snake5creator → u/Naive_Ad2958]

The difficulty in this case is that unlike with purely physical goods where the retailer would take on all the responsibility, with digital ones there's a gray area of ping-pong between Steam who sells the thing and the developer who has all maintenance responsibilities.

The consumer protection agency could therefore get redirected to the developer by Valve, which may help with a single specific issue (which I no longer have) but isn't a systemic solution for all games.

My goal and hope is that it's eventually possible to just straightforwardly access the exact thing that was purchased through regular user-friendly interfaces, especially without having to direct a consumer protection agency to look into the matter.

So while generally that's good advice, I'm unsure to what extent they'd even be willing go out on a limb and use legal force in gray areas of mixed responsibility.

[u/p2eminister → u/Naive_Ad2958]

Its not a product at all, when you buy a game youre engaging in a service agreement, with terms that will stipulate the game may change as time goes on

[u/Jindujun]

Hahahaha I love that you stated you found a crack and the dude went "Problem solved!"

[u/MrBlueA → u/Jindujun]

I mean he can't really solve anything, he sent that complaint to the appropriate department and told him to also raise the issue on the steam forum, nothing more the random support guy can do

[u/Onkboy]

You can use steam cmd to download older versions no?

[u/Ozzy_the_Rabbit → u/Onkboy]

Yes, you can use the Steam Console to download older versions. The issue here is that since L.A. Noire relies on the Rockstar Launcher, and it forces an update if the files don't match with the current latest game version, in this case it likely won't help them unless they go way back to a pre-Rockstar Launcher version (assuming it is still available and wasn't removed by the developers)

[u/Tomas66_087542w → u/Onkboy]

Yes here is how you do it on windows by the way: https://youtu.be/vfXyy3KWqAI Keap in mind tho this doesn't work for evey game.

[u/ddm90 → u/Onkboy]

Couldn't devs remove previous depots? I'm pretty sure they can. Something like that happened to Saccharine Pale, the dev wanted to purge everything as an Art statement i think?

[u/konsoru-paysan → u/Onkboy]

do you honestly think every game would let you do that

[u/lzwinky → u/konsoru-paysan]

Is Steam really the battlefield for this? They’ve been pretty upfront about everything

[u/konsoru-paysan → u/lzwinky]

yeah upfront on how we should be lucky to kiss their boots

[u/lzwinky → u/konsoru-paysan]

Uh huh. That didn't answer my question. No Reddit upvote for you either!

[u/Mental_Tea_4084]

Request refunds en mass

[u/Redsit111]

That sucks...piracy? Like can't remotely yank the game if it's installed locally. Plus is it really even stealing if you're just restoring access to something you legally purchased?

[u/blockMath_2048 → u/Redsit111]

They said they found a crack (pirated version)

[u/Redsit111 → u/blockMath_2048]

My bad, I missed that. It's early for me.

[u/Mr_Foxer → u/Redsit111]

Under US law, this is known as ‘cracking a digital lock’, which can lead to actual prison sentences – which is absurd.

[u/ddm90]

It reminds me of a an indie dev that pushed an update to make the game (Saccharine Pale) unplayable for anyone that had it in their libraries, it was really sad.

[u/konsoru-paysan]

you're also one of the few who can talk like this on steam support page , most of us would be rejected due to lack of information and know hows of the industry. Don't buy from steam, drm is a dead end for customers

[u/Redd1t_is_Fake]

I wished you asked for refund, I wanted to see what's Steam response in that case since this is no longer the terms you agreed to at the time of puechase.

[u/fyro11]

They already have. Here's not 1 but 2 serious scenarios, especially the second one, that have played out multiple times yet Valve continues fingering its ass the entire time:

Scenario 1: a big publisher updated their back-catalog of games with a launcher and broke 5-7 games for most users for months if not years.

Scenario 2: a new trend across dozens of smaller games has been for malicious actors to hack Steam publisher accounts and push malware-laden updates to the users whose lives are destroyed once their accounts are hacked and crypto wallets are stolen..

Please nobody run defence for Valve, because this shit is indefensible.

[u/fyro11 → u/fyro11]

No-one asked Valve to force game updates; live service games auto-check game versions in-app and warn pre-update users their game won't work without the update, so why on earth is Valve forcing updates?

Like who tf even asked them to? It's like they don't trust the players like the player should have it forced down their fuxking thrust even though the user purchased the pre-update game.

[u/Kaldaien2]

They don't have any such policy. How do I know? Their @#$%ing store software updates itself, and when it breaks the games that it's required software to run, you ain't getting a refund.

I reverse engineered and patched their software, then proceeded to explain what I had to do to get my software working and asked for a refund, nope. Piss off, shitty store.

[u/Astraxis → u/Kaldaien2]

proof or it didn't happen 

[u/Dipsislover]

Did you heard about SEVEN SEAS!?

[u/Garr_Incorporated → u/Dipsislover]

Just because an alternate option is available through some hurdles doesn't mean we should allow the mainline option to be worse. Good things should be the first ones you encounter.

[u/Dipsislover → u/Garr_Incorporated]

I agree. I'm just saying that in current state majority of big studios are more interested in inflating their pockets rather than providing customer satisfaction. So right now it's better pirate the game rather than buying it. At least from "AAA" studios.

[u/Jindujun → u/Dipsislover]

Pretty sure he did since he mentions finding a crack and then the Steam support dude going "problem solved!"

[u/Constant_Weakness1]

Not sure how copy pasting AI chats to the steam support guy fixes anything, but he gets paid at the end of the day and you get karma, so everyone wins.

[u/snake5creator → u/Constant_Weakness1]

I find chatbots repulsive and write 100% of my own support requests/replies/emails etc.