Valve added a method in the latest Steam beta to prevent users from downloading old versions of games. For example, old builds are used by speed runners, players who encounter crashes in newer versions, and archives.

Why Valve introduced the add-on in beta is unknown. In fact, the Issuance where the change is made according to Comprehensive blog post By SteamDB head Pavel Djundik, he does not have this information in his changelog. One possible reason for this move is to save bandwidth and possibly storage space, or to give publishers and developers privacy when it comes to old data. SteamDB’s Pavel Djondyk notes that the feature doesn’t actually work yet, but it’s there. Djundik describes the post’s entry on Twitter as “reasonable”.

Where users can now simply enter a command to request an older version of the address from Steam servers, if the feature becomes a requirement, there is an additional command Indication of the order code necessary for. The customer will only receive this if he has Application ID, Repository ID, Manifest ID, Branch Name employment Branch password All this data is up to date and the customer also “owns” the game. Older clear identifier, which represents an older version, is rejected. Codes issued by the servers are also valid for ten minutes, so it is difficult to reuse them.

If the function has already become active, the developers themselves can still use the so-called pita branches Created for users to register on Steam gui. The disadvantage of this is that the developers have to do extra work for this and there is a maximum of 25 branches.

On the speed subreddit, guys does not speak about the impending change. People talk about using GOG as an alternative, but this store only keeps the five latest versions. Example of a game that was partially played in an older version due to fast racing Cuphead. An anecdote is also shared about someone who can only run Doom 2016 correctly on the penultimate version of the game, which can be more difficult for him or her using this Steam feature.

function too SteamDB to have consequences. Steam’s information site collects all kinds of data about games, but after this change, it will no longer be able to track all file listings for all games on Steam. This means that the change history for each file, for example, is no longer persistent. Because soon only the latest may be available manifest It can be obtained, SteamDB has downloaded all the data it can get. All of these file lists make up a total of 600 GB.