timppu: To test your claim, I just went to Windows 7 command prompt and tried to play Red Baron MS-DOS version, by running BARON.COM. It gave me an error:

Pond86: Expected. DOS hasn't been in Windows since the 9x days. XP didn't even have DOS.

timppu: (and a pirated copy of a N64 game)

DosFreak: Steam provides different binaries based on the OS. If you check the packages folder you'll see them.The laziest solution would have been to not push updates to non-supported operating systems anymore leaving them on the old client. Instead people have to hunt down old steam versions and/or replace dlls and hunt down the config file changes or command line switches to prevent steam updates. If they were really not lazy they wouldn't use CEF for a game launcher or provide a switch to not use it. I don't care about the browser crap and I'm sure there are many others like me. When they code Steam they could offer two paths in their code usable with a switch, bloated POS mode by default (current mode) or game launcher mode without BS (enabled via switch). It's not that hard.

Really they should leave the web browsing to web browsers but that makes too much sense.

I don't care anyway since I use other means that work quite well on all of the Steam games I own for Windows 2000 and above so I don't need Steam to play my games but it's ridiculous how people are treated and they just lap it up because "it's just a game".

ssokolow: Not necessarily. I have a Retrode (with N64 cart adapter) that I plug my childhood N64 carts into (or ones I used to rent and have since bought on eBay).

One of these days, I really need to track down the cause of my N64's reset problem and find a deal on a ~22" CRT TV for the sake of the full nostalgic experience.
ssokolow: When was the last time you saw a major company that welcomed the potential problems (support, PR, and possibly even legal) of continuing to implicitly endorse unsupported and unmaintained software by offering it up for distribution?

That said, you won't see me arguing over companies being too eager to use web technologies in desktop apps.

KidInTheHall28: They said they'd delete our access to them.

DosFreak: Daily as evidenced by most of the games on steam that are sold but never updated. The ones that use 3rd party libraries are easy to identify vulnerabilities for, others less so. Any game that uses network access and hasn't been updated in awhile is likely a high risk.

AB2012: Section 17.3 of GOG's Terms & Conditions specifically grants users (note: that's "users" not "subscribers") the right to legally continue to use any offline installers they have in the event GOG goes out of business:-

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-User-Agreement

Multiple GOG members of staff have reaffirmed that means your license to play doesn't expire in the event the cloud version / GOG disappears.

AB2012: ^ Including yourself if you think a licensed offline copy and a torrented pirated version are "the same". It's probably best to give the constant sarcastic anti-anti-DRM sniping a rest for a while until you can at least bother to read the same T&C's yourself that you're trying and failing to "interpret", eh?

Managerium: If this has been discussed before, so be it. Too many threads, too little time.

Backing up all your GOG games is the ideal, but one backup is as good as no backup at all. It's like 'quis custodiet ipsos custodes'?

What do you do when your 6Tb Seagate HDD flatlines, as mine has just done, and no amount of work will wake it up., and that's where all your GOG games were stored. Of course I know I should have had a second backup, which, of course, i don't have. I have a few favourites backed up elsewhere, but by no means my whole library. Just didn't have the funds to get another big hard drive.

Excuse my cynicism - although GOG blithely assures us that good days are ahead - that somehow makes me even more nervous about not having my games backed up.

Of course there is also the question of access to updates to games, if one even has them backed up up in the first place. I'm sure that's discussed somewhere also, but I just can't wade through all the threads about this. Would the developers, shown proof of a GOG purchase, allow you to download an update to a game?

I have read about a Python script for backing up your whole library, but I'm not very good at stuff like that, will try to find it. I know I tried it once before and didn't manage to get it to work - 'it's not you, it's me', as the saying goes.

But first I need to rob a bank, hard drives are expensive here with our useless currency.

Going off-topic, but that seems to be happening in all these threads, where are your saved games stored? Other than on my dead 6Tb Seagate?

HypersomniacLive: Source?

gixgox: You don't know how to back-up a few files?

blotunga: Do you think Gabe would keep the servers running? No. Maybe they provide you for a patch for your already installed games and then poof. At least for GOG I have a backup of all my games.

SirPrimalform: If GOG shuts down, the super-secret DRM built into everything will activate and cause your hard drive to self destruct. So, you know, keep buying games to keep GOG in business if you value your computer.