Rockstar is the worst. They removed GTA IV from steam and replaced it with new version which requires their shitty launcher... and more

rofif

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I mean wtf... and an angry post incoming.
Digital future sucks sometimes and Steam should have some rights and protection against this.
I've bought GTA IV on steam 10 years ago for full price. It was always a broken port that got more broken with each update but I was still able to play it, mod it and so on.
The GFWL could be skipped by setting "offline" profile. I've did that forever and it was no problem. Or You could use xliveless dll to also mod it out. They even removed earlier version of social club years ago.

About a year ago Rockstar completely removed My Gta IV from my steam library and nobody is saying anything?
First they removed the music from my game and nobody give a shit. The music is completely essential to this game. Especially that most of Vladivostok radio was butchered. I don't care if it's a licensing issue. The music is on my old 360 disc and for digital version they should pay up or write better contracts. I don't see other companies removing music from their games.
Then they replaced the game with "complete" edition which broke the game even more and it now requires their terrible launcher. I cannot even launch the game properly and I cannot play offline. I don't want it. I want my purchase back. I cannot even fight for my 60 usd I've spent years ago. I have no voice over these companies. They should make it a separate entity. Or make it not affect versions purchased earlier.
lUfaUpY.png


I know that You will say "You just bought license and not a game" but:
-What if they removed music a week after the game release? Everyone would rage.
-What if they added launcher to steam version a day after release? They are allowed to do anything because it's their game and You are licensing for 60usd? I see this now
9YTHjDF.png


They keep changing my game and I have absolutely no control over my purchase. Steam also should allow me to choose what patch version do I want to run. Many times, for different games, some patch break things and I did not wanted my game to be broken or patched or features removed. Like with Dark Souls 2. I do not want SOTFS patch for vanilla version of the game.
BTW. If I put my 360 disc into xbox one, will the backwards compatibility update also remove the music?

Tl;DR This is fucked, our games are fucked. Accursed Farms was right all along. Games preservation is important. How long is Rockstar/steam required to keep the download servers anyway? In how many years, I will not be able to access my games at all?


edit: Guess I gotta stock on 360 games and consoles for when I am 90 and want to play my old game :p Probably xbox one backwards compatibility is not safe from this too.
 
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rofif said:
I know that You will say "You just bought license and not a game" but:
-What if they removed music a week after the game release? Everyone would rage.
-What if they added launcher to steam version a day after release? They are allowed to do anything because it's their game and You are licensing for 60usd? I see this now
Click to expand...

I know it hurts but yes, they'd be allowed to do this.
We all agreed to this as a trade off for the simplicity and convenience of Steam.
 
Optimistic Gamer said:
I know it hurts but yes, they'd be allowed to do this.
We all agreed to this as a trade off for the simplicity and convenience of Steam.
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Steam is amazing. I have over 500 games on it... but at the same time, I more ofter return to 360 and ps4 gaming. I've noticed that I have much tighter, selective libraries on consoles.
I know they have right to do this but it is still crazy. I can just return to pirated version of gta iv on pc... but what's the point. It would not hurt them to make it a separate .exe
 
I agree that this is bullshit.
The inability to access old versions of games on Steam has always bugged me.

OP maybe you can find an old version of the game somewhere, manually install those files and then disable updates?
 
eot said:
I agree that this is bullshit.
The inability to access old versions of games on Steam has always bugged me.

OP maybe you can find an old version of the game somewhere, manually install those files and then disable updates?
Click to expand...
There is a pirated version. Which funnily enough works better and allows me to choose a patch I want (if any). I wanted to replay gta iv at 4k since I've got 4k monitor year ago and recently a rig to be able to run 4k games. But I will just replay it on 360. There are many reasons why 360 version is better anyway... but still - it does not have to be this way
 
And devs/publishers wonder why people pirate?

I assume all the problems in the OP can be 'rectified' by way of slipping a file or two into the affected game's file folder?
 
GeorgPrime said:
One more company to avoid on PC xD
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To add to their bad deeds - I remember Rockstar banning twitch streamers playing gta iv remaster for ps4... a day before it's release. Banned their accounts and these people bought their games lol
 
rofif said:
Tl;DR This is fucked, our games are fucked. Accursed Farms was right all along. Games preservation is important.
Click to expand...
Welcome to my head of 15 years ago. Sit down, have a drink, make yourself comfortable... there's a lot of space.







wait
 
I've just had a look on Reddit and thousands of people haven't been able to play GTA5 since the epic launch as the captcha verification on the rockstar launcher infinitely loops.

I didn't even get that far the other day, I just fucked the whole lot off, epic store and gta5 after crashes, freezing, wrong password errors, etc started happening.

We bitch about digital/launchers/etc now, fuck knows what it'll be like when physical games don't exist. Can't say I'm looking forward to being totally at the mercy of these faceless cunts who don't give a toss about their customers.
 
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falcs said:
This is the price of digital.

It's why I will always prefer hard copies over digital.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily a problem with digital, it's a problem with these particular services. If you download a DRM free game from GoG they're not gonna force updates on you
 
I think the point about this one is that it's not that Rockstar are forcing their own launcher, which is fine because it's up to consumers to decide if they want/are willing to use it.
The problem is that they arbitrarily went back and changed something that people paid for. Doom Eternal just did something similar when they added Denuvo Anti-Cheat to the game, rendering it unplayable for some (e.g. Linux via Wine), making it not the same product that was paid for.

It's not something I agree with, but for things like this I don't see any way of 'declining' this sort of update except by getting a pirated copy of the game. At least with the old GTAs you can patch the music back in.
 
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The game was perma fucked using Games for Windows Live from what I can remember. Granted it's sad to see the MP for GTA IV get removed.

regardless you have to use GFWL on top of Steam. It was no longer being supported by Windows.
 
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Yeah, fuck Rockstar. When they started removing music from the game I used Steam's console command thing to download the old version of both GTA4 and Episodes. Don't know it they are still online, but you could give it a try.

I'm don't wanna sound like I endorse piracy or anything, but when they pull shit like this and remove content that you already paid for, I don't see anything morally wrong with re-acquiring said content in... other ways.
 
Rockstar isn't willing to risk their reputation with these foolish PC store wars, launchers, versions, stores are what you get from playing on PC that's always been the narrative with PC and is why gamers TRUST consoles.
 
Longcat said:
Yeah, fuck Rockstar. When they started removing music from the game I used Steam's console command thing to download the old version of both GTA4 and Episodes. Don't know it they are still online, but you could give it a try.

I'm don't wanna sound like I endorse piracy or anything, but when they pull shit like this and remove content that you already paid for, I don't see anything morally wrong with re-acquiring said content in... other ways.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I personally don't care about the "you bought a license crap". That's also true for physical media which I can still play in the same form I bought it. When companies start fucking around like this, all bets are off as far as I'm concerned. I paid for the content in a certain state, and I'm going to play it that way some way or another.
 
I thought it was kinda funny when I had to launch Rockstar when using the game we just got for free on EGS. Guess that happen for uPlay when buying Ubi games on Steam as well?
 
EverydayBeast said:
Rockstar isn't willing to risk their reputation with these foolish PC store wars, launchers, versions, stores are what you get from playing on PC that's always been the narrative with PC and is why gamers TRUST consoles.
Click to expand...

Maybe this was true 5-10 years ago, but the 360 version of GTAIV was neutered too.

In reality, console gaming is the same way these days. The game is run off the hard drive and can be updated to do whatever at any time.
 
rofif said:
There is a pirated version. Which funnily enough works better and allows me to choose a patch I want (if any). I wanted to replay gta iv at 4k since I've got 4k monitor year ago and recently a rig to be able to run 4k games. But I will just replay it on 360. There are many reasons why 360 version is better anyway... but still - it does not have to be this way
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IMO this is a legit reason to use a pirated version.
 
At least you could get it running after the update....

When I tried to launch it, the damn thing would cut the signal to my monitor, leaving me with no choice but to hard reset my PC to get back to the WIndows desktop.

..I've since uninstalled it.
 
falcs said:
This is the price of digital.

It's why I will always prefer hard copies over digital.
Click to expand...
Until you find out that your hard copy needs update. Or something like, the illusion that with hard copy you own more than just a licence, it's just a illusion. To be honest only way to get everything without "the convenience of paying customer" a la ring 0 drives for anti-cheat is piracy and seems like company does not seems to get it, many of them using stacked DRM, even though Steam already have one by default, etc. It cost them money for their illusion of not getting their game pirated.

I have not pirated anything since 2007, when I got myself a X360, but let's be honest. How else you can play old games? How you going to pay games allowed to the market only in certain regions? This is why retroarch is such a phenomenal success. Most companies simply does not care about their product, let alone their past product. Pay, consume, don't look back. It's sad.
 
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Buying any of Rockstar's games digitally has become a pain in the ass. The only thing it does is add cloud support and their social services. I've played all the GTAs, Bully, and Max Payne on iOS. You always have to sign in. I think I tied my Epic account to GTAV. If I want to play Max Payne 3 I have to use another account I created back at the University. Yeah, I should not create multiple accounts, but if I'm playing on console- PS4 especially, I want to get to RDR2 as fast as possible. I have to think of the PSN account is tied to the account, if I need to use my University sign in, or if I need to use my Steam/Epic account to verify. If I can't, then it'll be a pain just to reset it. Then I have to remember which is which. I can't play Max Payne 3 or continue with my saves on iOS if I can't sign into the account.

Square-Enix does it really well on iOS because it'll just sync to the cloud. You don't exactly have to sign in with your SE account, which I've only ever used for FFXV and their store. I can't imagine having issues with the music because frankly I've cared more about the gameplay. I owned GTAIV back on 360 and then haven't really played much of my Steam copy. I can't imagine going back to GTAIV and not seeing it or having some time consuming issue.

Thinking about it now, I have to be very strategic when I choose to play a digital game from Rockstar. Plan ahead and give myself plenty of time to find the account associated with it.
 
Lawrence 'Chunk' Cohen said:
I thought it was kinda funny when I had to launch Rockstar when using the game we just got for free on EGS. Guess that happen for uPlay when buying Ubi games on Steam as well?
Click to expand...

Yep that's the case.

After installed you can even launch Ubi games you bought on the Epic store via Uplay, skipping the Epic launcher entirely.

Multi layered DRM really needs to fuck off. Launchers launching launchers is such a ridiculous concept, I have no idea why its even allowed.
 
They used to be one of my most respected developers and I adore RDR2 but their practices since GTA V came out have caused to lose some of that respect.
 
synchronicity said:
Yeah, I personally don't care about the "you bought a license crap". That's also true for physical media which I can still play in the same form I bought it. When companies start fucking around like this, all bets are off as far as I'm concerned. I paid for the content in a certain state, and I'm going to play it that way some way or another.
Click to expand...

I agree with you.

Imagine if a company came to your house with scissors to cut parts of old CDs and DVDs because you bought a license and it expired and you can no longer have it. It's a shitty argument.
 
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Exactly. Nobody would accept that in any other market or console games but on PC is reality. I understand they can stop selling a game and do new edition.... But do not sleep my purchase of it's not my choice
 
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