Notes

Valve is "not Planning to Disable Downloading Old Builds" on Steam

Update 28 September 2021: Valve has responded to reports that Steam might remove the option to download earlier game versions.



September 28 September 28 Valve has released an announcement with PCGamer that clarifies that the studio does not plan to eliminate the option to download older versions of game builds. A spokesperson for Valve told PCGamer that the company is not planning to prevent users from downloading older builds. "What we're currently developing is an approach to handle edge cases that involve materials that are not owned by us and assisting partners to remove the builds that are no longer needed. When the product is ready to go live, we'll be sharing more about that work." Original story follows.



The latest Steam beta has added a feature that seemingly removes the option for users to roll back updates for games or play older versions of games on Steam. Users are no longer able to download Steam games using their Steam accounts to play games with older updates. Many are dissatisfied with this new feature.



There are a variety of games that undergo radical changes between updates. There's even a fan collective dedicated to finding and archiving the various versions of Minecraft over the years for instance and games like Counter-Strike update regularly , with significant changes.



As of right now it's possible to download and play older versions of games owned by Steam with the help of somewhere similar to SteamDB - all you need to do is find the location of the game you wish to play. chit chat chit chat However, the 23rd September beta update to Steam has seemingly ended this practice, so when the update is live in Steam proper there will be no way to play older versions on Valve's client.



Pavel Djundik, creator of SteamDB, confirmed that it is impossible to download older Steam game depots and then play them with the new code. This is at least if Steam implements it across all games. Pavel declares that SteamDB will have to "go back in time where it could only track files it owns" If this happens. SteamDB has Pavel's complete, in-depth explanation.



The previous Steam beta introduced a significant modification to downloads of games.



With this change, it is no longer possible to download older game versions, because client asks for a code (GetManifestRequestCode) that rotates every five minutes.



Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw September 23 2021



A lot of Steam tinkerers are dissatisfied with this change and are asking for it to be reversed. Whether it will be before going live is entirely up to Valve of course.


Here's my website: https://www.irc101.org/