5 ms·

> All I'm saying is it's all digital on the PC side of things, and has been for ages, but we have means of maintaining access to the games we love over here, an

> All I'm saying is it's all digital on the PC side of things, and has been for ages, but we have means of maintaining access to the games we love over here, and it's one of the reasons I've gravitated to the PC for quite a while now. It all depends on where you buy your games of course; GOG will let you download DRM-free installers, but if Steam goes down, your libraries goes down with it. They have made a vague promise that they would prevent that if the company ever went out of business, but who knows if they will keep that promise. Guarantees about playability went out the window the day free, easily-obtained updates came out on PC as much as consoles. At least on the PC side, there's a vibrant piracy community.

rjh29 3mo ago
Steam for some reason gets a pass even though it normalized the use of DRM for PC games over 20 years ago.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Most Steam games don't actually have any DRM. They just link to steamapi.dll for things like achievements, and that makes you think you can't run them without Steam. Some have DRM, of course.
  - righthand 3mo ago
    What is the command I can use to run them without Steam then? If the game links to a dll that launches Steam and won’t play without it, then that is effectively Drm. Before I even play the game without Steam: how do I download it without Steam?
    - Orygin 3mo ago
      There are DLLs that remove any check of Steam running. Just keep a copy of one and use that on other games. Regarding the download, it's the same issue with physical media. If I don't have the DVD, how can I acquire the game?
      - righthand 3mo ago
        Oh there are Dlls? And as a non-technical consumer I just know this do I? I know how to dig deep into my file system and copy+paste a dll file into software I can’t/don’t understand? How do I download and install a copy without Steam?
        saghm 3mo ago
        The premise of this hypothetical is Steam's servers going away. Ping me about this if and when it ever happens and I'll write you a tool where you can select the steamapi.dll you downloaded and have it copied to where your games need it. There's a fair chance you might not even need to because someone else will have made it before me.
        inigyou 3mo ago
        Has the barrier for non technical consumer gone down? Back in the 90s when some game didn't work because of some weird issue (we had two CD drives and it would refuse to detect the CD in either drive) my parents had no problem downloading a pirated one that didn't need a CD. You wouldn't have to figure it out yourself. They didn't need a hex editor. But they did understand "download this file, go to this part of Program Files, move the downloaded file here and agree to overwrite". You'll find similar guides online. They already exist, because it's the same as if you're trying to pirate a Steam game! People will do anything for the dancing bunnies. Both good and bad.
        righthand 3mo ago
        No my point here is that you have to download and install Steam before you can download and install any games. Now if I’m non-technical why would I want to make the extra effort to go Drm free if I have to use Steam anyways? I know technical people can do it, but I do not believe this is a path for the non-technical user. The proposed steps are: - buy game on steam marketplace (no client) - download and install games (client required) - uninstall steam client and paste in fake dll file But now I want more games… so rinse and repeat? This is a lot of work.
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      You can download a fake steamapi.dll from a pirate site. It will fill in all the function stubs and it isn't even illegal. Or so I assume. I have Steam installed, so I wouldn't know.
    - wongarsu 3mo ago
      You download it with Steam, then run Steam's backup function to back up the games you care about to physical media. Or in the vast number of cases you can just copy the game folder Obviously if you buy it with steam you need Steam. But you only need it at the time of purchase, for the vast majority of titles
      - inigyou 3mo ago
        Steam's backup function creates some kind of proprietary and licensed archive files. Reality: you download it with Steam, then go to Steam's folder and copy the game folder.
    - happymellon 3mo ago
      Depends on the game. Stardew Valley can be run outside Steam, and I do it to be able to add mods. How do you run an application? Depends on the application, as they all have different filenames...
    - chainingsolid 3mo ago
      I got Kerbal Space Program to run by just copying the entire folder then deleting the Steam dlls. Not sure how many games that will work for though.
    - themaninthedark 3mo ago
      If you are on Windows, you navigate to the folder that the game is installed to and double click the .exe to launch it. https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/5540051992994651706/ https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/5540051992994...
- noir_lord 3mo ago
  Good customer service and mostly benevolent for the last two decades, it buys them a lot of goodwill they otherwise wouldn't have. That and people simply trust steam because it has always been trustworthy (on the whole).
  - Insanity 3mo ago
    Yeah, I’ve been on Steam for about 20 years now and I can’t recall many bad moments with Valve. The only one that comes to mind is the “outrage” when they decided to release L4D2 just a year after L4D back in 2008 instead of making this a free upgrade. Times have definitely changed. looks at yearly COD with barely any changes
- jakubmazanec 3mo ago
  > Steam for some reason Currently probably because of Valve's work on Proton, and before because Steam just worked and didn't seem to exploit players.
- flohofwoe 3mo ago
  Steam games are not required to have DRM, it's entirely up to the game developer/publisher.
- Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
  It allows you to play your games offline though, so if Steam's servers go down you can still play your games. I'm not sure if that's permanent or if you need to reactivate your DRM / license every once in a while though.
  - harrisoned 3mo ago
    Around a decade ago i had to move to another city and spent a few months without internet. I had all my favorite games downloaded on Steam and was able to play them offline with no issue for all that time. Not sure if it still like that, but it was possible back then.
    - Gigachad 3mo ago
      It’s not possible with any Denuvo game which will require you reactivate with a drm server every so often.
      - happymellon 3mo ago
        Which has nothing to do with Steam...
- jeroenhd 3mo ago
  I sort of get it. Every competitor, except maybe GOG, has come down hard in hyper-capitalist value-extraction mode quickly after pretending to do any good-will. For Valve, being a somewhat decent company is part of their ethos, for their competitors it's a means to an end. I trust Valve not to screw me over, even though I know they totally could. Their own DRM is pretty weak (just put a modified DLL in the game directory and the game will launch), luckily.
OCTAGRAM 3mo ago
Steam has some backup feature. I do backups of my games. Compressed to slow HDD dedicated to backups. Faster to install than downloading again from network. Don't know though how much will that help
- silon42 3mo ago
  Can one download a backup first, then install (using usb drive) into an "offline" machine first (without steam/online?)
  - nemomarx 3mo ago
    Yeah, if the game is set up to not use steam as drm. You can check by going to the installed files and running the exe directly - in most cases it'll still launch even if you're signed out.
bakies 3mo ago
If steam goes down you can play offline. They have a portable game console that doesn't need to be connected to play. They have big warnings on the store page of games that require online drm.
- Forgeties79 3mo ago
  They don’t let you resell games, if you die your library is gone, if said steamdeck (or steam machine) breaks those games are gone, the list goes on. It is a digital store with the exact same limitations of any video game console full of digital purchases. I use Steam but I also know I’m vulnerable to a rug pull. We all are. That’s why I’ve been shifting over to GOG and making sure to back up my library in an organized fashion. I wish I had done it sooner, but hey, today’s the best day. As for warnings, I mean…come on man. That’s like hiding behind ToS. Let’s be realistic here: how many people here (including yourself) see a game they really want, see it has a little DRM note on the uttered store page, then decide never to buy it? Few people let that stop them from getting a game they actually want.
  - bakies 3mo ago
    The deck and machine are not going to delete your account if it breaks? Theyre just PCs what are you on about? I don't buy games that require third party launchers ever. Been burned losing my Ubisoft account or w/e a few times. The warnings are helpful and steam doesn't have to say anything at all.
    - Forgeties79 3mo ago
      If steam shuts down and all your games are on a valve device. I only addressed that because it seemed it was being used as an example in the prior comment, as if that protects them more than an Xbox does.
      - deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
      - 3mo ago
hodgehog11 3mo ago
Even if you get all of your games via Steam, provided you have them downloaded, you can still run them without Steam if you know where to look. Obviously GOG is far better in this regard, but preservation is not a concern on PC, outside of games that are reliant on a server. Starting next generation when prices are going to be obscenely high, I'm really struggling to see why anyone should invest in a console as opposed to a (mini-)PC.
- Gigachad 3mo ago
  Depends. Steam is not DRM itself, you can open the game folder and copy the game to another computer and steam doesn’t care. The game often has its own DRM though which will stop you. GOG is different in that they ban DRM outright.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    Some games won't start if Steam isn't running but you can work around that with a fake steamapi.dll, it's not a deep DRM check.
  - hodgehog11 3mo ago
    > The game often has its own DRM though which will stop you I think you missed the "know where to look" part. It's called a Steam emulator, for starters. Note that I speak about this strictly for preservation purposes, as people who raise Steam DRM as an obstacle to preservation have not done their homework.
AussieWog93 3mo ago
Realistically, if Steam closed down tomorrow, within 4-6 hours there'd be a megathread on Reddit explaining how to get the games running without Steam. Within 48 hours there'd be an auto-crack tool floating around on GitHub.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 3mo ago
Also there is a vibrant retrogaming community, with lots of games much more interesting than yet another COD or FIFA.
MelonArmiger 3mo ago
[dead]

rjh29 3mo ago

Steam for some reason gets a pass even though it normalized the use of DRM for PC games over 20 years ago.

inigyou 3mo ago
Most Steam games don't actually have any DRM. They just link to steamapi.dll for things like achievements, and that makes you think you can't run them without Steam. Some have DRM, of course.
- righthand 3mo ago
  What is the command I can use to run them without Steam then? If the game links to a dll that launches Steam and won’t play without it, then that is effectively Drm. Before I even play the game without Steam: how do I download it without Steam?
  - Orygin 3mo ago
    There are DLLs that remove any check of Steam running. Just keep a copy of one and use that on other games. Regarding the download, it's the same issue with physical media. If I don't have the DVD, how can I acquire the game?
    - righthand 3mo ago
      Oh there are Dlls? And as a non-technical consumer I just know this do I? I know how to dig deep into my file system and copy+paste a dll file into software I can’t/don’t understand? How do I download and install a copy without Steam?
      - saghm 3mo ago
        The premise of this hypothetical is Steam's servers going away. Ping me about this if and when it ever happens and I'll write you a tool where you can select the steamapi.dll you downloaded and have it copied to where your games need it. There's a fair chance you might not even need to because someone else will have made it before me.
      - inigyou 3mo ago
        Has the barrier for non technical consumer gone down? Back in the 90s when some game didn't work because of some weird issue (we had two CD drives and it would refuse to detect the CD in either drive) my parents had no problem downloading a pirated one that didn't need a CD. You wouldn't have to figure it out yourself. They didn't need a hex editor. But they did understand "download this file, go to this part of Program Files, move the downloaded file here and agree to overwrite". You'll find similar guides online. They already exist, because it's the same as if you're trying to pirate a Steam game! People will do anything for the dancing bunnies. Both good and bad.
        righthand 3mo ago
        No my point here is that you have to download and install Steam before you can download and install any games. Now if I’m non-technical why would I want to make the extra effort to go Drm free if I have to use Steam anyways? I know technical people can do it, but I do not believe this is a path for the non-technical user. The proposed steps are: - buy game on steam marketplace (no client) - download and install games (client required) - uninstall steam client and paste in fake dll file But now I want more games… so rinse and repeat? This is a lot of work.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    You can download a fake steamapi.dll from a pirate site. It will fill in all the function stubs and it isn't even illegal. Or so I assume. I have Steam installed, so I wouldn't know.
  - wongarsu 3mo ago
    You download it with Steam, then run Steam's backup function to back up the games you care about to physical media. Or in the vast number of cases you can just copy the game folder Obviously if you buy it with steam you need Steam. But you only need it at the time of purchase, for the vast majority of titles
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      Steam's backup function creates some kind of proprietary and licensed archive files. Reality: you download it with Steam, then go to Steam's folder and copy the game folder.
  - happymellon 3mo ago
    Depends on the game. Stardew Valley can be run outside Steam, and I do it to be able to add mods. How do you run an application? Depends on the application, as they all have different filenames...
  - chainingsolid 3mo ago
    I got Kerbal Space Program to run by just copying the entire folder then deleting the Steam dlls. Not sure how many games that will work for though.
  - themaninthedark 3mo ago
    If you are on Windows, you navigate to the folder that the game is installed to and double click the .exe to launch it. https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/5540051992994651706/ https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/5540051992994...
noir_lord 3mo ago
Good customer service and mostly benevolent for the last two decades, it buys them a lot of goodwill they otherwise wouldn't have. That and people simply trust steam because it has always been trustworthy (on the whole).
- Insanity 3mo ago
  Yeah, I’ve been on Steam for about 20 years now and I can’t recall many bad moments with Valve. The only one that comes to mind is the “outrage” when they decided to release L4D2 just a year after L4D back in 2008 instead of making this a free upgrade. Times have definitely changed. looks at yearly COD with barely any changes
jakubmazanec 3mo ago
> Steam for some reason Currently probably because of Valve's work on Proton, and before because Steam just worked and didn't seem to exploit players.
flohofwoe 3mo ago
Steam games are not required to have DRM, it's entirely up to the game developer/publisher.
Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
It allows you to play your games offline though, so if Steam's servers go down you can still play your games. I'm not sure if that's permanent or if you need to reactivate your DRM / license every once in a while though.
- harrisoned 3mo ago
  Around a decade ago i had to move to another city and spent a few months without internet. I had all my favorite games downloaded on Steam and was able to play them offline with no issue for all that time. Not sure if it still like that, but it was possible back then.
  - Gigachad 3mo ago
    It’s not possible with any Denuvo game which will require you reactivate with a drm server every so often.
    - happymellon 3mo ago
      Which has nothing to do with Steam...
jeroenhd 3mo ago
I sort of get it. Every competitor, except maybe GOG, has come down hard in hyper-capitalist value-extraction mode quickly after pretending to do any good-will. For Valve, being a somewhat decent company is part of their ethos, for their competitors it's a means to an end. I trust Valve not to screw me over, even though I know they totally could. Their own DRM is pretty weak (just put a modified DLL in the game directory and the game will launch), luckily.

OCTAGRAM 3mo ago

Steam has some backup feature. I do backups of my games. Compressed to slow HDD dedicated to backups. Faster to install than downloading again from network. Don't know though how much will that help

silon42 3mo ago
Can one download a backup first, then install (using usb drive) into an "offline" machine first (without steam/online?)
- nemomarx 3mo ago
  Yeah, if the game is set up to not use steam as drm. You can check by going to the installed files and running the exe directly - in most cases it'll still launch even if you're signed out.

bakies 3mo ago

If steam goes down you can play offline. They have a portable game console that doesn't need to be connected to play. They have big warnings on the store page of games that require online drm.

Forgeties79 3mo ago
They don’t let you resell games, if you die your library is gone, if said steamdeck (or steam machine) breaks those games are gone, the list goes on. It is a digital store with the exact same limitations of any video game console full of digital purchases. I use Steam but I also know I’m vulnerable to a rug pull. We all are. That’s why I’ve been shifting over to GOG and making sure to back up my library in an organized fashion. I wish I had done it sooner, but hey, today’s the best day. As for warnings, I mean…come on man. That’s like hiding behind ToS. Let’s be realistic here: how many people here (including yourself) see a game they really want, see it has a little DRM note on the uttered store page, then decide never to buy it? Few people let that stop them from getting a game they actually want.
- bakies 3mo ago
  The deck and machine are not going to delete your account if it breaks? Theyre just PCs what are you on about? I don't buy games that require third party launchers ever. Been burned losing my Ubisoft account or w/e a few times. The warnings are helpful and steam doesn't have to say anything at all.
  - Forgeties79 3mo ago
    If steam shuts down and all your games are on a valve device. I only addressed that because it seemed it was being used as an example in the prior comment, as if that protects them more than an Xbox does.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - 3mo ago

hodgehog11 3mo ago

Even if you get all of your games via Steam, provided you have them downloaded, you can still run them without Steam if you know where to look. Obviously GOG is far better in this regard, but preservation is not a concern on PC, outside of games that are reliant on a server. Starting next generation when prices are going to be obscenely high, I'm really struggling to see why anyone should invest in a console as opposed to a (mini-)PC.

Gigachad 3mo ago
Depends. Steam is not DRM itself, you can open the game folder and copy the game to another computer and steam doesn’t care. The game often has its own DRM though which will stop you. GOG is different in that they ban DRM outright.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Some games won't start if Steam isn't running but you can work around that with a fake steamapi.dll, it's not a deep DRM check.
- hodgehog11 3mo ago
  > The game often has its own DRM though which will stop you I think you missed the "know where to look" part. It's called a Steam emulator, for starters. Note that I speak about this strictly for preservation purposes, as people who raise Steam DRM as an obstacle to preservation have not done their homework.

AussieWog93 3mo ago

Realistically, if Steam closed down tomorrow, within 4-6 hours there'd be a megathread on Reddit explaining how to get the games running without Steam. Within 48 hours there'd be an auto-crack tool floating around on GitHub.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

pjmlp 3mo ago

Also there is a vibrant retrogaming community, with lots of games much more interesting than yet another COD or FIFA.

MelonArmiger 3mo ago

[dead]