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I'm not sure I would get back on one of these. I used OnLive back in the day, but now I can't play those games any more. It was a subscription with lock-in, and

I'm not sure I would get back on one of these. I used OnLive back in the day, but now I can't play those games any more. It was a subscription with lock-in, and now that it's out of business I can't even choose to be locked in. Now, I have recently started playing on GeForce NOW, nVidia's offering. However there it's much closer to an EC2 model: I'm renting a machine, and I log into my Steam profile and play games that I purchased there. If I want to move that to my own PC, I can. I like that pattern much more.

lowiqengineer 6y ago
If this is a buffet option I don't mind possible obsolescence myself.
freehunter 6y ago
I have tons of PC games I "own" but can't play anymore. One of my favorite tycoon games was Sid Meier's Railroads, but it can't run stable on any machine with more than 4GB of RAM. Sure I could spin up a Windows XP VM but that's not a reasonable solution in any way. Same thing with Full Spectrum Warrior, just doesn't run on modern OSes. I can play Unreal Tournament 2003 or older Call of Duty games or... if I can find someone to play with, playing the maps and modes I want to play. I also have more than a handful of online and MMO games that I "own" but can't play because the servers are shut off. The days of owning a game and playing it forever are so far gone that there are adults graduating college who don't remember a time when you could expect to own a game and play it forever.
- detaro 6y ago
  If "doesn't run on newer systems" is your criteria, those days never existed (and any point in time is probably the one with the most options to run past games, due to emulation/compatibility fixes improving). Games relying on servers are a newer issue though indeed.
- bstar77 6y ago
  My Steam account has 282 game going back 15 years. I'm sure there's a few that don't work anymore, but I've never come across one. PC has a great compatibility track record even if a few games from the early 2000's don't work.
  - gabereiser 6y ago
    DX9 will never die (ballmer_dance.gif)
  - berdario 6y ago
    I recently reinstalled Assasins Creed 2, and discovered that it was unable to load levels or start a new game. I haven't tried hard to get it to work (i.e. completely wiping my local data, maybe just having a corrupt savegame would also cause new games to fail to load?)
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  FYI, when it comes to Railroads specifically, you can work around that in 2 minutes with a hex editor: https://steamcommunity.com/app/7600/discussions/0/35221584409498211/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/7600/discussions/0/3522158440... In general, there are almost always easy to follow guides online that take 30mins or less for getting older PC games to work on modern systems. If you care, you can get it working. This only changed relatively recently, and only because producers knew they could count on people being too lazy to take the minimum effort necessary when they can just buy a new game on steam.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  PC gaming has always had an element of troubleshooting and workarounds to get them working on some systems. I play lot's of old games, and it's rare if ever that I can't find patches or workarounds to get them working. It's also not quite the same to compare something you definitely could get working with more effort (like spinning up an XP VM) to something where there is literally no way at all, like when OnLive went away.
  - Moru 6y ago
    I'm still playing some MMO-games that had their servers shut down thanks to people developing emulated servers and recreating the game world. Asherons Call is one, Planetside 1 another. I know similar efforts exists in a lot of MMO's.
- kbenson 6y ago
  Have you tried gog.com? They support the games they sell, and often patch them so they can work on newer versions of windows (or if old enough, provide a custom dosbox launcher). They do sell Sid Meier's Railroads ($9.99), and if you check the support forum it may be obvious if they've fixed this problem. Having to buy it twice isn't optimal, but you get bug fixes and a DRM free installer you can download and keep and manuals in PDF form which beats trying to keep old floppies or CDs in good condition. I've bought quite a few old games I had from them for just that reason.
  - clinth 6y ago
    GOG is excellent for this reason and my experience playing older/unsupported games from them is top-notch. It stings to buy an older game again, but they're almost always inexpensive, and you can say, "Well, this is the very last time I'm going to purchase HoMM3" (or your game of choice). They also do fine as a purchase platform for modern games, but it's less than perfect because modern games are supported and some smaller publishers choose not to push updates to their offerings on GOG.
- gpderetta 6y ago
  Give a try to Wine/Proton; often they have better compatibility with older games than Windows itself.
ehsankia 6y ago
If you've used GFN, then you know that most game use Steam Cloud so your saves aren't locked in. Stadia has also claimed they let you export your save files.
- ec664 6y ago
  Except it's notoriously flaky. I've lost several save games and support has said everything from I'm lying, it's my router, and ghosting me. Can't use a provider that doesn't take data protection seriously.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    That's strange. Do you properly shutdown the game and wait for it to sync before closing the instance?
legohead 6y ago
I'm an avid cloud gamer. I used GeForce NOW at first, but it had limited game selection. I use Shadow now and it is much better. I have full control over the PC/VM, and install whatever I want from anywhere. I'm also super impressed with the latency - I can play multiplayer competitive games no problem. I'm on a Mac so cloud gaming makes sense for me. I was going to build a PC but the cost was too high. Much cheaper to just pay ~$15/month. This sounds like an ad, so to get back on topic -- if Amazon's Luna doesn't let you install whatever you want, it wont be able to compete.
- orbifold 6y ago
  I can highly recommend Shadow aswell, a friend of mine uses it and for online multiplayer it is a really nice option. It I didn’t own a decent PC I probably would choose that to play my Steam games.
  - Kelteseth 6y ago
    Does it have a time limitation? I mean if this has the power of a Nvidia 1080 for 13€/month one could surely use this as a blender renderfarm 24/7...
    - adonese 6y ago
      I was actually thinking about the same with respect to training machine learning models; but I think they might have something in terms and conditions prohibiting that
      - dylz 6y ago
        Auto shutdown after 15-30 min of inactivity, keepalive stuff is against tos and permbannable Must keep clicking/typing into it
- ianhawes 6y ago
  +1 for Shadow. I can play competitive FPS games and actually beat people running traditional rigs. The only downsides are related to the max storage and shared CPU. Apparently they have future offerings for $50/mo that add up to a TB of storage and stronger CPUs.

lowiqengineer 6y ago

If this is a buffet option I don't mind possible obsolescence myself.

freehunter 6y ago

I have tons of PC games I "own" but can't play anymore. One of my favorite tycoon games was Sid Meier's Railroads, but it can't run stable on any machine with more than 4GB of RAM. Sure I could spin up a Windows XP VM but that's not a reasonable solution in any way. Same thing with Full Spectrum Warrior, just doesn't run on modern OSes. I can play Unreal Tournament 2003 or older Call of Duty games or... if I can find someone to play with, playing the maps and modes I want to play. I also have more than a handful of online and MMO games that I "own" but can't play because the servers are shut off. The days of owning a game and playing it forever are so far gone that there are adults graduating college who don't remember a time when you could expect to own a game and play it forever.

detaro 6y ago
If "doesn't run on newer systems" is your criteria, those days never existed (and any point in time is probably the one with the most options to run past games, due to emulation/compatibility fixes improving). Games relying on servers are a newer issue though indeed.
bstar77 6y ago
My Steam account has 282 game going back 15 years. I'm sure there's a few that don't work anymore, but I've never come across one. PC has a great compatibility track record even if a few games from the early 2000's don't work.
- gabereiser 6y ago
  DX9 will never die (ballmer_dance.gif)
- berdario 6y ago
  I recently reinstalled Assasins Creed 2, and discovered that it was unable to load levels or start a new game. I haven't tried hard to get it to work (i.e. completely wiping my local data, maybe just having a corrupt savegame would also cause new games to fail to load?)
Godel_unicode 6y ago
FYI, when it comes to Railroads specifically, you can work around that in 2 minutes with a hex editor: https://steamcommunity.com/app/7600/discussions/0/35221584409498211/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/7600/discussions/0/3522158440... In general, there are almost always easy to follow guides online that take 30mins or less for getting older PC games to work on modern systems. If you care, you can get it working. This only changed relatively recently, and only because producers knew they could count on people being too lazy to take the minimum effort necessary when they can just buy a new game on steam.
ineedasername 6y ago
PC gaming has always had an element of troubleshooting and workarounds to get them working on some systems. I play lot's of old games, and it's rare if ever that I can't find patches or workarounds to get them working. It's also not quite the same to compare something you definitely could get working with more effort (like spinning up an XP VM) to something where there is literally no way at all, like when OnLive went away.
- Moru 6y ago
  I'm still playing some MMO-games that had their servers shut down thanks to people developing emulated servers and recreating the game world. Asherons Call is one, Planetside 1 another. I know similar efforts exists in a lot of MMO's.
kbenson 6y ago
Have you tried gog.com? They support the games they sell, and often patch them so they can work on newer versions of windows (or if old enough, provide a custom dosbox launcher). They do sell Sid Meier's Railroads ($9.99), and if you check the support forum it may be obvious if they've fixed this problem. Having to buy it twice isn't optimal, but you get bug fixes and a DRM free installer you can download and keep and manuals in PDF form which beats trying to keep old floppies or CDs in good condition. I've bought quite a few old games I had from them for just that reason.
- clinth 6y ago
  GOG is excellent for this reason and my experience playing older/unsupported games from them is top-notch. It stings to buy an older game again, but they're almost always inexpensive, and you can say, "Well, this is the very last time I'm going to purchase HoMM3" (or your game of choice). They also do fine as a purchase platform for modern games, but it's less than perfect because modern games are supported and some smaller publishers choose not to push updates to their offerings on GOG.
gpderetta 6y ago
Give a try to Wine/Proton; often they have better compatibility with older games than Windows itself.

ehsankia 6y ago

If you've used GFN, then you know that most game use Steam Cloud so your saves aren't locked in. Stadia has also claimed they let you export your save files.

ec664 6y ago
Except it's notoriously flaky. I've lost several save games and support has said everything from I'm lying, it's my router, and ghosting me. Can't use a provider that doesn't take data protection seriously.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  That's strange. Do you properly shutdown the game and wait for it to sync before closing the instance?

legohead 6y ago

I'm an avid cloud gamer. I used GeForce NOW at first, but it had limited game selection. I use Shadow now and it is much better. I have full control over the PC/VM, and install whatever I want from anywhere. I'm also super impressed with the latency - I can play multiplayer competitive games no problem. I'm on a Mac so cloud gaming makes sense for me. I was going to build a PC but the cost was too high. Much cheaper to just pay ~$15/month. This sounds like an ad, so to get back on topic -- if Amazon's Luna doesn't let you install whatever you want, it wont be able to compete.

orbifold 6y ago
I can highly recommend Shadow aswell, a friend of mine uses it and for online multiplayer it is a really nice option. It I didn’t own a decent PC I probably would choose that to play my Steam games.
- Kelteseth 6y ago
  Does it have a time limitation? I mean if this has the power of a Nvidia 1080 for 13€/month one could surely use this as a blender renderfarm 24/7...
  - adonese 6y ago
    I was actually thinking about the same with respect to training machine learning models; but I think they might have something in terms and conditions prohibiting that
    - dylz 6y ago
      Auto shutdown after 15-30 min of inactivity, keepalive stuff is against tos and permbannable Must keep clicking/typing into it
ianhawes 6y ago
+1 for Shadow. I can play competitive FPS games and actually beat people running traditional rigs. The only downsides are related to the max storage and shared CPU. Apparently they have future offerings for $50/mo that add up to a TB of storage and stronger CPUs.