Is steam poor for older games?

[Deleted]

Never had any issues like these with more modern games, but plenty of issues with older games:

Final DOOM: Distorted graphics, re-installed...nothing changes. Inferior to my DOOM collectors edition to say the least.

CS: Breaks just about every steam update. Broken twice for me now, waiting for a response for support.

Age of Empires II HD: Cursor errors, typing anything in the map editor causes the cursor to vanish. SOMETIMES this fixes itself after minimizing the game. Only just installed this game after buying it in the sale.

Quake II: Refuses to minimize (more of a convenience issue) and crashes frequently if you leave the game after starting it up.

I've not played any older game without some issues.

Before you ask: NO, these issues are NOT my fault: my laptop is very healthy, and I don't have anything disrupting steam etc. I have changed no settings on these games. I have re-installed them all, asked for support and gotten nowhere. All these errors were present the moment I installed them.

I expect issues with older games as any reasonable person would, but is this just poor quality control from steam in regards to checking older games for bugs/errors? Why are they inferior to CD versions?

[Remilia]

I wouldn't say it's Steam.

It isn't your fault as it's the developer's.

Final DOOM: If you have Y axis (up down) apparently it distorts the graphics because of the engine itself, if not that I have no idea.

CS: No idea. This for whatever it is actually is Steam's (Valve's) fault, :P.

AoE2 HD: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380...5361223803122/

Quake 2:
http://www.quakeworld.net/main-commands.html

vid_minimize vid_minimize
Causes Windows versions of Quake to minimize, a key could be bound for easy access.

Steam does not handle QA of the games nor do they handle the development process of the games. All Steam is is a distribution platform. If there is an extreme problem like WarZ launch then refunds can be handed out and removed from the store. Asking for Valve to be able to handle QA or all the bugs is impossible.

[Terahertz]

I had some issues with sonic adventure 2, but that's because of compatibility issues.

I think it's just the compatibility of certain games with your PC.

[Sanguinesun]

In general I prefer good old games site for older games because they seem to do more work at optimizing them on the newer machines and their OS's.

[yuca247]

In general I prefer good old games site for older games because they seem to do more work at optimizing them on the newer machines and their OS's.

I second this gog.com is my preference for old school games.

[Girlyman]

Bought Bard's Tale, can't play it. No fixes for W7 64bits.
Sent a ticket to get my money back, they told me to contact the publisher.
I said Fuck it and left in my library.
Someday I will play it.

[Varyk]

There are tons of games that don't work on newer computers. It may not be steams fault they don't work, but they're selling a product that does not work.

[Ferocity]

There are tons of games that don't work on newer computers. It may not be steams fault they don't work, but they're selling a product that does not work.

That's why GOG rocks. They don't sell games which don't work. They approach each game individually to make sure it will work on modern OS. + no DRM.

[obdigore]

As posted multiple times, GOG is where to go for older games. Everything works and works well.

Steam I like for newer games and something like skyrim, because it is much easier to mod and update mods using the service Steam provides.

[Vamandrac]

It has more to do with the games and your operating system than with Steam. Some older games play nice with the newer systems and other do not for various reasons.

[KOMO1211]

ive found with old games if you google search like the name of your game plus win7 fix youll find a lot of info and sometimes it works. that said GOG.com is a rockin site. have played games from there that wont even install of the original cds (plus they are dirth cheap and even have sales all the time taking games up to 75% off)

[Zenotetsuken]

I unfortunately bought Sim City 4 on Steam during last sale, and it was a pain in the ass to get to work, so I feel your pain.

I am with everyone here, I Love gog.com. It is such a nice site to get old games that actually work on current machines. They have sales all the time, and from time to time give away free games. Got Duke Nukem 3d, and Fallout for free. I have taken to checking to see if they have a game that I see I want on Steam before I buy it. Having all of your games in a single collection is awesome, but having all of your games playable is better.

[Fleckens]

The only exception when steam is better than gog is when it comes to games that got an updated version, like duke nukem 3d and the recent shadow warrior, so they have proper rebindable keybindings and mouse control, which shadow warrior at least did not have on gog, as it was the old version.

[Lillpapps]

I unfortunately bought Sim City 4 on Steam during last sale, and it was a pain in the ass to get to work, so I feel your pain.

That is really weird. I have it on Steam aswell and I only needed to install it and I was good to go. Played it on W7 64-bit.

[Deleted]

I would also recommend gog for older games, up to now never had an issue with it .

[Zenotetsuken]

That is really weird. I have it on Steam aswell and I only needed to install it and I was good to go. Played it on W7 64-bit.

Yeah, the problem I had was that it installed in the Steam x86 folder, but wouldn't run from there. I read that it should work fine if you don't install it to x86 path, so I uninstalled it and tried that, but it still didn't work, so I messed with it for a day or so, and realized that the reason it wasn't running was because the original empty Sim City 4 folder was still in my Steam x86 folder, and the game kept trying to load from there. Deleted that, and it worked fine.