Steam Dropping Support for OS X 10.10 Yosemite and Earlier

[MacRumors]

Steam recently announced that it will stop supporting macOS versions 10.7 ("Lion"), 10.8 ("Mountain Lion"), 10.9 ("Mavericks") and 10.10 ("Yosemite") on January 1, 2019.

Starting on January 1 2019, Steam will officially stop supporting macOS versions 10.7 ("Lion"), 10.8 ("Mountain Lion"), 10.9 ("Mavericks") and 10.10 ("Yosemite"). This means that after that date the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of macOS. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of macOS.

The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of macOS. In addition, future versions of Steam will require macOS feature and security updates only present in macOS 10.11 ("El Capitan") and above.

Mac OS 10.10 "Yosemite" was released in 2014 and was replaced by 10.11 "El Capitan" in September 2015. That puts the operating system at a little over three years old. However, there still seem to be a number of users either unable or unwilling to upgrade. We recently reported that several users of Yosemite had run into an iTunes upgrade bug that prevented Safari from launching. A thread was recently posted on Steam's community forums complaining about the move as users would lose access to their game libraries if they don't upgrade.

Article Link: Steam Dropping Support for OS X 10.10 Yosemite and Earlier

 

[keysofanxiety]

Steam isn’t even 64-bit yet. Seems strange they wouldn’t support newer OSs before dropping older ones.

 

[saudor]

Meanwhile, if i wanted, i could still play my windows 95 CD-ROM games on a VM running win95 without issue. Another caveat of DRM i guess.

 

[purged]

Absolutely.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Meanwhile, if i wanted, i could still play my windows 95 CD-ROM games on a VM running win95 without issue. Another caveat of DRM i guess.

You say that, but have you actually tried playing a Win 95 game on a W95 VM? Because in my experience it doesn’t work at all. Graphics driver issues won’t even load the game. I used Parallels.

I had better luck loading 95 games on an XP VM, but even that was roulette whether or not it would work. I just ended up using Crossover.

I spent a lot of time trying to get legacy games working via VMs and I didn’t have any luck whatsoever — no exceptions, beyond BOWEP (Ski Free/Tetris) — on a 95 VM. Which games did you manage to play?

 

[saudor]

You say that, but have you actually tried playing a Win 95 game on a W95 VM? Because in my experience it doesn’t work at all. Graphics driver issues won’t even load the game. I used Parallels.

I had better luck loading 95 games on an XP VM, but even that was roulette whether or not it would work. I just ended up using Crossover.

I spent a lot of time trying to get legacy games working via VMs and I didn’t have any luck whatsoever — no exceptions, beyond BOWEP (Ski Free/Tetris) — on a 95 VM. Which games did you manage to play?

Yeah for the most part. I used VMWare fusion though and yeah it was a bit tricky setting it up. My games are really basic ones like MPC Battle Chess, Elastomania, Rayman (original), Oregon Trail 3(come on, this thing is my childhood), and various DOS games. I also run apps like Visual Basic 6 and whatnot

I did recently upgrade the VM to XP since i wanted proper USB/NTFS support (to chkdsk my NTFS drives from macOS). Everything runs perfectly still (although some games i had to use compatibility modes like 256 color mode and windows 95)

What games did you try to run? I can try running it if it's on abandonware

 

[keysofanxiety]

Yeah for the most part. I used VMWare fusion though and yeah it was a bit tricky setting it up. My games are really basic ones like MPC Battle Chess, Elastomania, Rayman (original), Oregon Trail 3(come on, this thing is my childhood), and various DOS games. I also run apps like Visual Basic 6 and whatnot

I did recently upgrade the VM to XP since i wanted proper USB/NTFS support (to chkdsk my NTFS drives from macOS). Everything runs perfectly still (although some games i had to use compatibility modes like 256 color mode and windows 95)

What games did you try to run? I can try running it if it's on abandonware

Is VMWare better for the graphics drivers? To be honest I didn’t have any luck with games that involved anything vaguely graphics intensive.

I tried Star Wars Racer — yes, though that was released in the 2000s, I originally played it on my W95 PC without any issues. Had the original CD ROM too.

There were a few others, even some crappy 2D game. Damn what was it. Made by one guy. You were a spaceship and landed on planets and stuff. Mined stuff by shooting asteroids. Other ships would try take your stuff and you’d get a bounty by killing them. You started with a green ship. Sorry can’t remember the name.

A few others. SW Episode I TPM. No luck there. No luck on XP either. Luckily I had it on PS1 so played it on the PS3.

I loved the PC version of Rayman. Played that so much back in the day. I didn’t try that one but I wish I had.

Anyhow, I’m feeling pretty incompetent right now because I honestly spent loads of time trying to get games working without any success. I figured, install the OS I originally played that on, and it’ll be fine. Not so easy for me it seems.

I might try VMWare next time. Sorry to have initially been so aggressive. Just a bit of bruised pride I suppose.

 

[saudor]

Is VMWare better for the graphics drivers? To be honest I didn’t have any luck with games that involved anything vaguely graphics intensive.

I tried Star Wars Racer — yes, though that was released in the 2000s, I originally played it on my W95 PC without any issues. Had the original CD ROM too.

There were a few others, even some crappy 2D game. Damn what was it. Made by one guy. You were a spaceship and landed on planets and stuff. Mined stuff by shooting asteroids. Other ships would try take your stuff and you’d get a bounty by killing them. You started with a green ship. Sorry can’t remember the name.

A few others. SW Episode I TPM. No luck there. No luck on XP either. Luckily I had it on PS1 so played it on the PS3.

I loved the PC version of Rayman. Played that so much back in the day. I didn’t try that one but I wish I had.

Anyhow, I’m feeling pretty incompetent right now because I honestly spent loads of time trying to get games working without any success. I figured, install the OS I originally played that on, and it’ll be fine. Not so easy for me it seems.

I might try VMWare next time. Sorry to have initially been so aggressive. Just a bit of bruised pride I suppose.

Assuming SW Ep TPM is this game here, it works perfect in my windows xp VM in VMware fusion. With win95, there's a bit of mucking around that needs to be done like upgrading DirectX, etc. I barely use that VM these days since everything I want to do works great in XP! PM me if you need help!

http://www.gameswin.org/gamesen.php?id=492

But yeah, i tried parallels before and didnt like it one bit. I have a USB Sound blaster card that works great with EAX-enabled games. it worked with fusion but glitched with parallels

 

[crazy dave]

Assuming SW Ep TPM is this game here, it works perfect in my windows xp VM in VMware fusion. With win95, there's a bit of mucking around that needs to be done like upgrading DirectX, etc. I barely use that VM these days since everything I want to do works great in XP! PM me if you need help!

http://www.gameswin.org/gamesen.php?id=492

But yeah, i tried parallels before and didnt like it one bit. I have a USB Sound blaster card that works great with EAX-enabled games. it worked with fusion but glitched with parallels

You say that, but have you actually tried playing a Win 95 game on a W95 VM? Because in my experience it doesn’t work at all. Graphics driver issues won’t even load the game. I used Parallels.

I had better luck loading 95 games on an XP VM, but even that was roulette whether or not it would work. I just ended up using Crossover.

I spent a lot of time trying to get legacy games working via VMs and I didn’t have any luck whatsoever — no exceptions, beyond BOWEP (Ski Free/Tetris) — on a 95 VM. Which games did you manage to play?

Personally I like using DOSBox or Wine to get legacy DOS or Windows games working. Boxer and Wineskin make it easy to install and setup.

 

[Westside guy]

It's turning into a weekend of bad news for Yosemite fans...

 

[AnonMac50]

So what do I do with that game that I play a lot and doesn't work on OS X newer than Yosemite? Well, it half works on El Capitan, but performance is much lower.

 

[Plutonius]

Seems like a poor business model. Selling people the games then telling them that the games will no longer run even though they still have the older computer / OS.

Would people still be able to run the older games in offline mode ?

 

[wubsylol]

Steam isn’t even 64-bit yet. Seems strange they wouldn’t support newer OSs before dropping older ones.

 

[Gogeta-Blue]

Meanwhile, if i wanted, i could still play my windows 95 CD-ROM games on a VM running win95 without issue. Another caveat of DRM i guess.

for some reason I find myself playing emulators of old systems instead of playing todays' games, even with outdated graphics I still have fun and enjoy them.
[doublepost=1544941000][/doublepost]

Seems like a poor business model. Selling people the games then telling them that the games will no longer run even though they still have the older computer / OS.

Would people still be able to run the older games in offline mode ?

is like all these companies say, give me your money then we talk about support later, then when you ask for support, they say, what support?

 

[2499723]

This is the kind of reckoning we shouldn’t be terribly surprised by, but it is disappointing nonetheless. I’ve often asked the question: ‘What would happen to my Steam games if Valve were to suddenly go under?’. Steam games require Steam to be running in order to launch. ‘Offline mode’ is finicky and if I remember correctly, must first be set when you’re...online. This kind of defeats the purpose in many respects. In any case, there is a big question mark hanging over the status of our games if Valve were to shut down. This was rarely true of physical copies before they were locked down to online stores (the physical edition of Fallout 4 is hilariously a single DVD that essentially just provides a Steam code so you can download the game).

In any case, now we have a new and somewhat unexpected issue: ‘What happens if Steam won’t run on my previously supported hardware - hardware that still runs the games I intend to play on it?’. If I boot a Windows 95 machine and have the right hardware to play the Win95 version of ‘Tie Fighter’, it will run. As a collector of old Macs, I can expect a copy of ‘Prince of Persia’ to run as well on a Macintosh LC running System 7.1 today as it did when it was released in the early 1990s.

Steam - and other digital game stores like it (GOG being the only possible exception I’m aware of) turn this whole relationship with our digital past upside down. In 20 years, will I be able to play ‘Factorio’ on my vintage laptop if I happen to have purchased the Steam version? It looks highly doubtful, and that’s terribly sad for those of us who find comfort and joy in returning to old software OR for the larger number of us whose backlog is so long that they’ll be dead before they make even the slightest dent.

 

[KALLT]

This is exactly why I do not buy games on Steam. Steam-exclusive computer games are eventually going to be unplayable. I have no hopes that either Valve or the game developers will do something about it.

 

[DanielEAndersson]

I’m pumped up for when they drop macOS for good next year, when 90% of my library doesn’t run because the hundreds of games I own are all 32-bit! Thanks for taking away my fun Apple, you know what’s best for me! I didn’t need Steam Link either!

If you want backward compability, stick to windows. Windows ain't bad these days.

 

[Manzanito]

On one hand every mac since 2008 is able to run yosemite, so it shouldn’t be that much of a problem.

On the other hand, this made me decide to buy games from gog instead of steam from now on.

 

[daveak]

Steam isn’t even 64-bit yet. Seems strange they wouldn’t support newer OSs before dropping older ones.

It is 64-bit, however the client doesn't seem to update to the 64-bit version, you have to go to the Steam website and download it again.

 

[mixel]

This is exactly why I do not buy games on Steam. Steam-exclusive computer games are eventually going to be unplayable. I have no hopes that either Valve or the game developers will do something about it.

Eventually unplayable on the Mac maybe. You can make a local archive of your steam library, but in my case it’d be so big as to need about 4TB of storage so i doubt I’d bother.

Many great games are only available through steam (and similar marketplaces). Even physical titles are usually download codes for steam, origin etc. Not buying them because you think they might not work later is odd considering they won’t work at all if you don’t have them.

This is an unfortunate move though, a lot of people’s Mac libraries are casual games that have no problem running on old hardware. Seems a shame to cut those guys off. :/

 

[allenvanhellen]

I’m pumped up for when they drop macOS for good next year, when 90% of my library doesn’t run because the hundreds of games I own are all 32-bit! Thanks for taking away my fun Apple, you know what’s best for me! I didn’t need Steam Link either!

Boot into Windows?

 

[purged]

Yeah!

 

[saudor]

If you want backward compability, stick to windows. Windows ain't bad these days.

Yeah I run most of my games within windows. Performance on macOS is a joke for a lot of games anyways.

 

[KALLT]

Many great games are only available through steam (and similar marketplaces). Even physical titles are usually download codes for steam, origin etc. Not buying them because you think they might not work later is odd considering they won’t work at all if you don’t have them.

This is exactly what annoys me the most about this. I would be happy just forgetting about Steam altogether, but this exclusivity nonsense is what drives me away from PC gaming. If I can buy a physical copy of a game for a console instead, I will always choose this one over Steam-exclusive PC version.

Eventually unplayable on the Mac maybe. You can make a local archive of your steam library, but in my case it’d be so big as to need about 4TB of storage so i doubt I’d bother.

Does this even work if the Steam client itself is no longer working/supported?

 

[jayducharme]

Personally I like using DOSBox or Wine to get legacy DOS or Windows games working. Boxer and Wineskin make it easy to install and setup.

Boxer is phenomenal! I have an old pinball game from 1993 that still works great thanks to Boxer.