this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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DRM-free doesn't mean piracy. GOGs whole business model is built around selling games DRM free. I don't pirate but I do use GOG where possible as I hate DRM - it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem. DRM is just an expensive waste of money for everyone involved.
The drm-free marketing that gog does has been successful, but it is just marketing. While It's true that games sold on gog are drm-free, every game sold on gog that I've looked into is also drm-free on steam. The only real benefit is that the gog installers are more convenient for backups than using a steam back up tool.
How would you play a DRM-free game bought through steam without steam? (Genuine question)
You just run the executable
So it's possible to download the installer through steam, store it somewhere and ten years later I can just start the installer without having steam on my system?
Asking out of curiosity, I don't use steam, I never thought that would be possible?
You can copy the entire game folder and run it that way, as long as the game is actually DRM free it should work just fine.
So no installer then? Or can you download that separately?
You would use Steam as the installer, or you can buy it on GoG and they will give you an installer for the game. Entirely depends on what game you're trying to copy.
Thank you! I have about 5 games on steam, so I haven't installed it on my system. The only interesting one is Doom 2016, so for a moment I thought I could download the installer as a backup without having to use steam anymore in the future when I do want to play it again. Would have been nice. Thanks for clarifying!
I don't think it is because even Steam games without DRM are still modified to work with Steam for things like achievements. There may be games without DRM and without achievements but if a game has either of them it will not work without it.
I think they'll still work without Steam, otherwise you couldn't play them offline either
They work without reaching the Steam online service, but they need Steam installed.
Yeah, that makes sense. Does kinda suck.
Steam isn't DRM. They offer a (very weak and basic) DRM for free for developers to use but they don't have too.
For a lot of games you can just install them using steam and then uninstall steam and the games will continue to work.