The Steam client is just a launcher. Why is it Valve’s job to make sure that legacy 32-bit games continue to run? They’re not the vendor of the game, and they’re not the vendor of the OS. They’re just a middleman. If the game vendor doesn’t want to patch it to 64-bit, and the OS vendor doesn’t want to maintain 32-bit compatibility, then there’s simply no more support for that combination of OS and game. Valve isn’t required to step in there.
It may surprise you to learn that Valve already switched the client to 64-bit… for Mac. OSX hasn’t had 32-bit support since 2019, but it still has a Steam client! Valve didn’t do anything for 32-bit-only Mac titles, except drop the “Mac OS compatible” tag once Apple had dropped 32-bit support. That’s all they’re ever going to do for 32-bit-only PC titles, when/if OS vendors completely drop 32-bit support.
32-bit is dead and it’s somewhat absurd that Steam is still 32-bit.
Tell that to anyone who bought a legacy title on Steam and now wants to run it on modern hardware. Leaving the Steam client at 32-bit is simply a low-effort way to ensure that the OS has the 32-bit libraries that will be required by any 32-bit title the user happens to launch.
People always underestimate the work that goes into making sure stuff works. These packages need to be built so they add a lot of compile time to the pipeline, these packages have limitations inherent to 32 bits so they also add troubleshooting and bugs. This is time and resources that could be spent elsewhere.
Why is it Valve’s job to make sure that legacy 32-bit games continue to run? They’re not the vendor of the game, and they’re not the vendor of the OS.
They have a responsibility to ensure that games they sell continue to work. They ship libraries on Linux so there’s a common base, and they should also do so for 32-bit games. GOG does this for older games using things like dosbox or whatever, and Steam should follow suit.
Why would I use a launcher if it doesn’t launch games?
The Steam client is just a launcher. Why is it Valve’s job to make sure that legacy 32-bit games continue to run? They’re not the vendor of the game, and they’re not the vendor of the OS. They’re just a middleman. If the game vendor doesn’t want to patch it to 64-bit, and the OS vendor doesn’t want to maintain 32-bit compatibility, then there’s simply no more support for that combination of OS and game. Valve isn’t required to step in there.
It may surprise you to learn that Valve already switched the client to 64-bit… for Mac. OSX hasn’t had 32-bit support since 2019, but it still has a Steam client! Valve didn’t do anything for 32-bit-only Mac titles, except drop the “Mac OS compatible” tag once Apple had dropped 32-bit support. That’s all they’re ever going to do for 32-bit-only PC titles, when/if OS vendors completely drop 32-bit support.
Tell that to anyone who bought a legacy title on Steam and now wants to run it on modern hardware. Leaving the Steam client at 32-bit is simply a low-effort way to ensure that the OS has the 32-bit libraries that will be required by any 32-bit title the user happens to launch.
People always underestimate the work that goes into making sure stuff works. These packages need to be built so they add a lot of compile time to the pipeline, these packages have limitations inherent to 32 bits so they also add troubleshooting and bugs. This is time and resources that could be spent elsewhere.
They have a responsibility to ensure that games they sell continue to work. They ship libraries on Linux so there’s a common base, and they should also do so for 32-bit games. GOG does this for older games using things like dosbox or whatever, and Steam should follow suit.
Why would I use a launcher if it doesn’t launch games?
And 32bit mac games no longer work either.