[jpernst]

On the contrary, I think perhaps the best thing for the preservation of the history of windows gaming is for windows to stop changing. A frozen or deprecated win32 API will give WINE (which is already quite good) breathing room to catch up and fill in the gaps, without having to continuously cope with the shifting sand of the latest experiments with windows. We'll be able to run old windows games forever, rather than just as long as Microsoft deigns to allow it. DOS games are fairly well preserved at this point for similar reasons.

Of course, then we'll have to deal with whatever the next platform is, but that's just the reality of the industry.

[JamesLeonis]

I understand where you are coming from. You are correct that an constantly changing desktop experience is sub-optimal.

I fear we will lose the Microsoft as the silent steward of backwards compatibility, DirectX support, getting manufacturers to make great hardware drivers, the list goes on. It's this part of Microsoft that Windows will lose, because it isn't customer facing.

I think the fallout is exactly the opposite of what you want. A de-emphasized Windows means that the customer experience stuff is pushed forward while the above suffers. The only bulwark against that is how deeply invested most enterprise companies are in the Windows universe, driving many of those behind-the-scenes fixes and changes.

> Of course, then we'll have to deal with whatever the next platform is, but that's just the reality of the industry.

Gaming on the PC was, in many was, a repudiation of that idea. We could have one continuous open system that ran everything from old games to new games. That's part of the point the emulation crowd wants to make as well. We don't have to live with platform churn.

But I'll be the first to admit Stallman was right. We collectively ceded this power to a private corporation, and we could lose much of what we had because we weren't good stewards.

EDIT: Spelling and grammar because I lack coffee.

[seba_dos1]

Actually... It's more common than not for an old game to not work correctly (or at all) in recent versions of Windows without hacks and compatibility wrappers. Try to run a DirectX 6 game on Windows 10. Today, WINE is closer to be that "one continuous system" than Windows is.

[JamesLeonis]

A "continuous platform" was more aspirational than fully realized. I bet I could find some of my DirectX9-era games of mine that won't run past Windows 8. But the lack of an hard artificial churn like consoles combined with an open continuous API made PC gaming feel resilient in the face of the chaos.

[larrik]

Yeah, my Rocksmith 2014 doesn't work at all in Windows 10 due to some weird compatibility thing with the cable that Ubisoft refuses to acknowledge. Meanwhile it runs great in Wine, thankfully.