Steam doesn’t enforce the use of its DRM (which is super easy to bypass anyway but that’s a side note).
Steam lets you publish your game on their platform and hand out as many keys as you like to resell on other platforms (at no cost) while still doing all the heavy lifting of hosting and distributing.
Steam doesn’t decide what kinds of titles get published on their platform any more than GoG does, so the bit about remasters, etc. is a bit weird. Besides you the user should get to decide what you want to buy and play.
I love GoG, but I love Steam as well. They’re not mutually exclusive and you can have both.
Yeah, its like a lot of people don’t know you can just… move files out of Steam’s directory, and 95% of the time, game still runs, just, not through Steam.
The problem is that with Steam you only know if that works after you bought the game and only know if that works across machines if you upfront have two machines to test it in.
I mean, if you know upfront that it matters to you (which you might not until, say, your machine breaks and you happen to have no access to the Internet or Steam in your new machine yet, at with point you’ll be thinking “I wish I checked”) you can go through all the hassle of always thoroughly testing it within the refund period of that game, but at that point piracy is less of a hassle.
Meanwhile some of my GOG offline installers are so old that they have been used on 3 different machines (well, one was the same machine under Windows and under Linux) already.
Don’t get me wrong - I use both Steam and GOG, my point is that saying that “Steam has DRM free games” is even worse than a half-truth and about as bollocks as saying that a shop selling TVs is selling “Quake game machines” - sure, people with the right skills can get Quake to run in some Smart TVs, but that’s not how the store is selling them as, that’s definitelly not supported by them and they won’t refund you a Smart TV purchase as “not suitable for purpose” if that device fails to runs Quake.
Ok I had to read that twice to understand the angle I think you’re coming from, but uh, basically yeah, agree.
If you want a game, that works if the net goes down… yeah, sometimes just 100% relying on vanilla Steam, that’ll fuck you.
But, Steam does have ways to set up local backup, freeze potentially breaking updates, work in offline mode…
But but, yeah, in many cases, for many people, it makes sense to just either make and keep your own isolated backup of some kind, or yeah, just grab a rip from somewhere and keep it in emergency storage.
My own experience of problems with the “Steam way” is wanting to install and run a new game whilst offline (for example, when I moved houses and was waiting to get landline Internet running, whilst mobile Interned was too slow or expensive to download anything but the tinyiest of games, all the while my external HD with a collection of GOG offline installers gave me plenty of options) and installing games in machines with older versions of Windows because the Steam Application doesn’t support those old OS versions anymore (plus, in all honesty, you definitelly don’t want to to connect such machines to the Internet for security reasons).
Further, as I said in a different post, I can run my GOG games through Lutris by default sandboxed with networking disabled, but I can’t do that in Steam.
More in general, as a Techie since the 90s I’ve long been very aware (and averse) to the dangers of having software or data which is supposedly yours yet is de facto under direct control of an external 3rd party for whom you’re nothing (i.e. not a mate you lent a CD to, but a big company with a massive Legal budget controlling your access to it using phone-home validation), so out of principle I heavilly favor sellers who do not try and retain control of what I bought from them. Same reason I didn’t like “phone home” or “dependent on external servers” hardware or DRM-wrapped books or music, well before the recent wave of enshittification and increase in problems like digital books taken away from people because of some licensing dispute (or even their accounts just being terminated) or hardware bricked because the servers were switched off.
Whilst it might seem like an old-fashioned sense of ownership, that posture has saved me from pretty much all the effects of the enshittification wave.
Yep, I am personally just a bit more comfortable with the convience of Steam, at the moment… but oh yes, when Gabe announces he’s retiring, I’m backing up everything.
I dunno, I mod (as in, make mods, as well as configure combos of other ones, hell I even mod mods lol) a lot, and I’ve just… got my own method, at this point, would be hard to fully describe lol.
Steam is as much de facto a seller of DRM-free games as a electric appliances store is a seller of quake games machines: some people with the right skills might get quake to work in some of the smart fridges or smart TVs they sell, but they’re definitelly not made for it, definitelly not sold as supporting that feature and definitelly no support whatsoever is provided for that feature.
When you’re making a purchasing decision on their store, Steam doesn’t tell you upfront if the game has or not their DRM hence you cannot make an informed decision on that factor: Steam most definitelly do not want potential customers to select games on the basis or absence of DRM.
Also the install process of a game in a new machine with Steam is always via their store which can arbitrarily refuse you access to the games you supposedly bought (only according to Steam, you only “licensed” them) whilst with GOG once you downloaded the offline installer it’s de facto yours (even in legal environments where such sales are not treated the same as sales of games in physical media - which are treated as owned). The copying over of a Steam game is a hack, which even without the Steam phone-home DRM might not work, for example, if the game won’t run properly when certain registry keys created during install are not present.
You pointed out that Steam sells games without DRM.
I pointed out that for the customer that’s just a side effect of Steam selling games, since the absence of DRM is not pitched as a feature or even listed by the Steam store.
It seems to me that my point just adds to your point to make a more complete picture that better informs readers.
Well no, your metaphor is based on the premise that copy and paste is difficult. You can compare it to something ridiculous, but it doesn’t change that copying and pasting something is something actual children master.
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Steam doesn’t enforce the use of its DRM (which is super easy to bypass anyway but that’s a side note).
Steam lets you publish your game on their platform and hand out as many keys as you like to resell on other platforms (at no cost) while still doing all the heavy lifting of hosting and distributing.
Steam doesn’t decide what kinds of titles get published on their platform any more than GoG does, so the bit about remasters, etc. is a bit weird. Besides you the user should get to decide what you want to buy and play.
I love GoG, but I love Steam as well. They’re not mutually exclusive and you can have both.
Yeah, its like a lot of people don’t know you can just… move files out of Steam’s directory, and 95% of the time, game still runs, just, not through Steam.
What even is a Steam rip, anyway?
The problem is that with Steam you only know if that works after you bought the game and only know if that works across machines if you upfront have two machines to test it in.
I mean, if you know upfront that it matters to you (which you might not until, say, your machine breaks and you happen to have no access to the Internet or Steam in your new machine yet, at with point you’ll be thinking “I wish I checked”) you can go through all the hassle of always thoroughly testing it within the refund period of that game, but at that point piracy is less of a hassle.
Meanwhile some of my GOG offline installers are so old that they have been used on 3 different machines (well, one was the same machine under Windows and under Linux) already.
Don’t get me wrong - I use both Steam and GOG, my point is that saying that “Steam has DRM free games” is even worse than a half-truth and about as bollocks as saying that a shop selling TVs is selling “Quake game machines” - sure, people with the right skills can get Quake to run in some Smart TVs, but that’s not how the store is selling them as, that’s definitelly not supported by them and they won’t refund you a Smart TV purchase as “not suitable for purpose” if that device fails to runs Quake.
Ok I had to read that twice to understand the angle I think you’re coming from, but uh, basically yeah, agree.
If you want a game, that works if the net goes down… yeah, sometimes just 100% relying on vanilla Steam, that’ll fuck you.
But, Steam does have ways to set up local backup, freeze potentially breaking updates, work in offline mode…
But but, yeah, in many cases, for many people, it makes sense to just either make and keep your own isolated backup of some kind, or yeah, just grab a rip from somewhere and keep it in emergency storage.
My own experience of problems with the “Steam way” is wanting to install and run a new game whilst offline (for example, when I moved houses and was waiting to get landline Internet running, whilst mobile Interned was too slow or expensive to download anything but the tinyiest of games, all the while my external HD with a collection of GOG offline installers gave me plenty of options) and installing games in machines with older versions of Windows because the Steam Application doesn’t support those old OS versions anymore (plus, in all honesty, you definitelly don’t want to to connect such machines to the Internet for security reasons).
Further, as I said in a different post, I can run my GOG games through Lutris by default sandboxed with networking disabled, but I can’t do that in Steam.
More in general, as a Techie since the 90s I’ve long been very aware (and averse) to the dangers of having software or data which is supposedly yours yet is de facto under direct control of an external 3rd party for whom you’re nothing (i.e. not a mate you lent a CD to, but a big company with a massive Legal budget controlling your access to it using phone-home validation), so out of principle I heavilly favor sellers who do not try and retain control of what I bought from them. Same reason I didn’t like “phone home” or “dependent on external servers” hardware or DRM-wrapped books or music, well before the recent wave of enshittification and increase in problems like digital books taken away from people because of some licensing dispute (or even their accounts just being terminated) or hardware bricked because the servers were switched off.
Whilst it might seem like an old-fashioned sense of ownership, that posture has saved me from pretty much all the effects of the enshittification wave.
Got nothing really to add to that or challenge.
Yep, I am personally just a bit more comfortable with the convience of Steam, at the moment… but oh yes, when Gabe announces he’s retiring, I’m backing up everything.
I dunno, I mod (as in, make mods, as well as configure combos of other ones, hell I even mod mods lol) a lot, and I’ve just… got my own method, at this point, would be hard to fully describe lol.
Steam is as much de facto a seller of DRM-free games as a electric appliances store is a seller of quake games machines: some people with the right skills might get quake to work in some of the smart fridges or smart TVs they sell, but they’re definitelly not made for it, definitelly not sold as supporting that feature and definitelly no support whatsoever is provided for that feature.
When you’re making a purchasing decision on their store, Steam doesn’t tell you upfront if the game has or not their DRM hence you cannot make an informed decision on that factor: Steam most definitelly do not want potential customers to select games on the basis or absence of DRM.
Also the install process of a game in a new machine with Steam is always via their store which can arbitrarily refuse you access to the games you supposedly bought (only according to Steam, you only “licensed” them) whilst with GOG once you downloaded the offline installer it’s de facto yours (even in legal environments where such sales are not treated the same as sales of games in physical media - which are treated as owned). The copying over of a Steam game is a hack, which even without the Steam phone-home DRM might not work, for example, if the game won’t run properly when certain registry keys created during install are not present.
Who’s claiming Steam is a “de facto” seller of DRM-Free games?
What was the purpose of you writting as the very first sentence of your post:
If not to tell us that Steam also sells DRM-free games?
If Steam also sells DRM-free games (even if alongside games with DRM) then de facto Steam is a seller of DRM-free games.
Being a “seller of” doesn’t mean just selling that and nothing else.
The purpose was to tell you exactly what I stated - that Steam does not enforce the use of DRM and nothing more.
You’re the one that wants to extrapolate that statement to mean much more than it does.
The point you missed is that the use of DRM is on the publisher/developer and not Steam itself.
You pointed out that Steam sells games without DRM.
I pointed out that for the customer that’s just a side effect of Steam selling games, since the absence of DRM is not pitched as a feature or even listed by the Steam store.
It seems to me that my point just adds to your point to make a more complete picture that better informs readers.
Are not both our points true?
Did you just compare copying and pasting files to running Quake on a smart fridge?
From all that I wrote, somebody having that take is the equivalent for metaphors of being a Grammar Nazi.
Well no, your metaphor is based on the premise that copy and paste is difficult. You can compare it to something ridiculous, but it doesn’t change that copying and pasting something is something actual children master.
Imagine being sane, neither an steam only, pc master race enthusiast, nor a FOSS Linux 100% privacy and anonymity zealot.