Valve wants to allow you to play only downloaded titles -apkrig
SteamDB founder Pavel Djundik is used to discussing and analyzing data generated by Steam on a daily basis. It is no big surprise, then, that it was he who first pointed to Valve’s newly released patent, which could lead to technology that allows games to be played just for download. Something similar can be used quite commonly by players on consoles, who get access to a number of games only after downloading a small introductory part, or on a PC with the Call of Duty series, which is a typical example of modular video game downloads. However, according to the mentioned patent, Valve wants to go a little differently and states in advance that the whole download process, or rather giving priority to specific files so that the game can be started prematurely, will be performed on its side without the need for developer intervention.
New Valve patent for tracking game file read operations and to allow „instant play“ where you can start a game before it finishes downloading.https://t.co/VYGj7p9siG
— Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) September 21, 2021
The whole magic according to the abstract of the patent, it consists of analytical tools that are based on the data collected from other players to determine which files are most often used in a given phase of the game. After evaluation, specific files will be given priority during the download so that the game can be started and played to a specific point. Valve refers to a sophisticated telemetry approach, analyzing blocks of files using data from Steam and universally talking about instant play video games. However, the patent does not take into account genres or only the types of individual titles and does not explain how the files will be included in the overall structure during the download, once the title is running. It also does not seem to social commentators that it would be possible to achieve the desired result without any contribution from the developers, and it is also a question of whether Steam’s mechanisms will not compromise the integrity of the game.
It is said that it should be possible to delete unnecessary parts of the game if, for example, the player has already crossed specific points in the passage through the game.
Notwithstanding the unresolved issues, however, Valve goes on to say that the whole system could also help with the performance of individual titles, especially fluency pages, as it would make the individual file blocks more logical and load faster. Allegedly, it should then be possible to delete unnecessary parts of the game if, for example, the player has already crossed specific points in the passage through the game and thus free up space, for example on an SSD, which is not usually the primary data storage. Even in this respect, however, the game could be damaged and most importantly – the described approach can be applied only to a limited range of video games. In this way, it would be possible to approach story titles, but not multiplayer games, and of course we would find much more functional and non-functional examples.
It is also interesting that Valve has tried something similar in the past and the above concerns have been met. Probably the most affected were the game Mortal Kombat X, which was supposed to start the era of modular downloading on Steam. The game was divided into approximately 3GB packages, which did not connect players correctly, or after downloading the first of them, the download of others was not initiated. It was the first time Steam had used something similar and unfortunately the last time. It is therefore not clear at what stage of readiness to use the described patent the people of Valve are actually and whether it will be implemented at all. After all, even on consoles there is nothing extra sophisticated, and if the player will finish downloaded content of the introductory part, must wait for the installation of the remaining part anyway.
