Valve Is “not Planning To Disable Downloading Previous Builds” On Steam

Replace - September 28, 2021: Valve has responded to claims that Steam could be eradicating the choice to obtain older game versions.

September 28 - Valve has shared an announcement with PCGamer that explains the studio doesn’t have plans to take away the choice to obtain older sport builds. “We are literally not planning to disable downloading old builds,” a spokesperson tells the location. “What Minecraft servers engaged on is an approach on handling edge cases involving unowned content, and helping companions extra simply take down builds that have to be removed for issues like copyright issues. We’ll have more to share on that work when it’s ready to ship.” Original story follows.

The most recent Steam beta has added a function that seemingly removes the power for customers to roll again game updates or play older variations of video games on Steam. Beneath the new model, customers can''t obtain depots of Steam video games to play earlier updates of games they own - and lots of are unhappy about this alteration.

There are many games that change radically between updates - there’s a complete fan collective devoted to discovering and archiving all the varied versions of Minecraft through the years, for example, and the likes of Counter-Strike replace repeatedly with huge changes.

As of right now, it’s utterly potential to obtain and play older versions of video games owned on Steam with the assistance of somewhere like SteamDB - all it is advisable to do is discover the depot of the version you wish to play. Nonetheless, the September 23 beta update of Steam has seemingly put a cease to this follow - so as soon as this replace goes reside in Steam proper no one will be capable of play older variations on Valve’s consumer.

This was noticed by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, who confirms that it will now be unattainable to obtain older game depots of Steam video games and play them with this new code in place - at least if Steam enforces it for all video games. Pavel also says that this means SteamDB will now have to “go again to the occasions where it might only track recordsdata for what it owns” if it goes forward. You may read Pavel’s full, detailed clarification over on SteamDB.

Final Steam beta introduced an vital change to game downloads.

With this transformation, it is now not doable to obtain older recreation versions, because consumer asks for a code (GetManifestRequestCode) that rotates every 5 minutes.

- Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) September 23, 2021

A lot of Steam tinkerers are upset with this variation and are asking for it to be reversed. Whether it will be earlier than going live is totally as much as Valve, after all.