Notes

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

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



September 28 September 28 Valve has shared a statement with PCGamer which explains that the company does not plan to eliminate the option to download older game versions. "We are not actually planning to stop downloading old builds," a spokesperson tells the site. "What we are working on is a method on handling edge cases involving unowned content, and assisting partners to remove builds that need to be removed due to copyright issues. When it's ready for release we'll let you know more details about the work." Original story follows.



The most recent Steam beta includes an option that appears to remove the option for players to roll back updates for games or play older versions of games on Steam. With the new version, users cannot download depots of Steam games to play older versions of games they own - and many are unhappy about this change.



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



At the moment, it's completely possible to download and play older versions of games by Steam with the help of an organization like SteamDB All you have to do is locate the location of the version you want to play. The September 23 beta update to Steam seems to have stopped this practice. Maimers This update will be available in Steam's client and nobody will be allowed to play previous versions.



Pavel Djundik, creator of SteamDB said it is impossible to download older Steam game depots and play them with the new code in place. This is at a minimum if Steam implements it across all games. Pavel also says that this means that SteamDB will have to "go back to the past when it could only keep track of files that it owns" if it goes ahead. You can read Pavel's complete, detailed explanation over on SteamDB.



Last Steam beta brought a significant change to game downloads.



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



Many Steam tinkerers are unhappy with this change and want it reversed. Valve will decide if this will be prior to the live release.


Read More: https://maimers.com/