I was browsing Steam earlier to look for a fresh new game to pick up and play. I was going through the gigantic list of games and I read the reviews on the games which caught my eye. And it never struck me before how many abandoned or purely broken games were available to be purchased.
Many older games are sold on Steam which do not function properly on modern PCs. But there are also an abundance of Early Access titles which have been almost abandoned by their developers after they managed to get the game on Steam.
How will this effect Steam long-term? Will developers just see their games as a simple “get rich quick scheme” and move on after a succesful launch on Steam? And not to mention the publishers like EA, Activision and LucasArts releasing their old games on Steam with no sort of fix or patch to make them playable on newer machines. Instead the community, which has cherished these games and kept them alive for all these years, are forced to go out and find a fix for games they paid for.
I’m curious if I will be able to play Dragon Age: Origins in a decade. Or will I have to resort to looking towards a third-party for a fix? Unfortunately only time will be able to answer these questions.
At the end of the day we need to vote with our wallets. Maybe Valve will step in one day and fix this flawed system, but I’m doubtful.
