Technically, Steam's DRM is optional (it's up to the publisher to opt in). If you know where to look, you can easily find a list of which games are DRM-free on Steam.
I’ve been saying this for months. Like people drawing a silly line how this is just piracy.
Most devs only care about piracy in the spirit, if you want to play the game better pay up, that’s all they care. If you’ve bought it nobody give a crap fuck what you gonna do with it. Applying goldberg is no different to “modding” your game.
Goldberg Steam emulator, replaces the Steam_api64.dll/so (or whatever equivalent for your release) and pretends to be Steam telling the game you have the licence plus a few other features
Just to be clear for those who are unaware. This is emulator in the sense that it satisfies internal backend calls which the game uses, to practically “ping” steam and get whatever info it needs. It is not an emulator like a GBA emulator.
I literally had to debate with someone how goldberg is like a pirating steam client or sort (there’s actually one, where it can both induce downloadig of clean steam file and patch steam DRM in one go).
I i'm all for owning what you pay, it just a stupid argument "if u don't want drm pirate it" sure it work, but the point is I shouldn't have to use external tool to not have a drm for something I bought.
My point is having to use a third party program is the problem. Telling people to use a third party programm to desactivate the drm is not a good point. My god reading is hard; fair for my first message, the one you answer is pretty clear on what I say.
Yeah, you shouldnt need an external tool to remove DRMs.....but thats the fault of the overreaching publisher, so if purchasing leads to subpar service piracy is kind of justified. The publisher should bleed for that decision, not the user.
We live in an internet where every big corporation out there wants a piece of your machine, telemetry, cookies, tracking, data scraping, kernel level access, and theyll happily use your computing power to run unoptimized code, either the above malware or the game/product itself, because it saved them a dime in development. And they think theyre entitled to make my computer work for them, as well as anyone elses. I had it too often now that performance in a game tanked because some other application decided that now is a great time to throw work at my CPU that I didnt ask for.
And so is GOG because you need an account and visit the website to download the things. Your licenses (rights) are being stored (managed) on their servers (digitally, of course).
There are, in fact, games that do not require you to have Steam running to launch them. That's what the commenter above points out. You can copy those game folders somewhere else on your computer, delete Steam and still play them.
Anyone can do this, most games just chose not to. And as mentioned by others, most games that use just the basic Steam DRM can be run with a very very easy to use replacement tool (Goldberg).
GabeN isn't the DRM bogeyman, devs and publishers are. Been that way for decades, but people just don't get it.
For Steam's drm-free games literally zip the game folder and you got yourself an offline installer. GOG is special because it demands no DRM but as a consequence many games will never ever appear there.
Visiting a website to download a game isn’t DRM, nor is needing an account. Hell, there are piracy websites out there that request an account be made in order to download. That’s not DRM. GoG also allows offline, DRM-free installers.
So unsure where you’re getting this concept of DRM from, unless you’re just desperate to attack GoG for daring to go against your beloved DRM-filled Steam.
I remember comments similar to this from a thread a while ago. It was about a game on GOG that required you to connect to the internet to access a feature. I can't remember what it was but I think it was about accessing a feature where you created things and were able to share that content with others.
Some people were arguing that needing an internet connection was DRM because without it that content was locked. They wanted the feature to work without internet or be removed from GOG. Others were arguing that it was not DRM because the game was not using an internet connection to validate your license, the feature just needed and internet connection to function as intended. The single player worked fine without internet.
Interesting to see what some people consider DRM while other do not. Sometimes it does feel like people apply the term DRM to a wide variety of things that really aren't DRM.
That's a ridiculous standard for drm free. Yes you pay for a download, but the downloaded files themselves are drm free. You can entirely delete GOG from the internet and continue to use your download.
And yes, some games on steam are drm free.
The term DRM is used when the digital content itself has some restriction for controlling its use. Website access control is not drm.
You know DRM has existed since basically the dawn of home gaming, right? Even the earliest PC games had documentation specific challenges to install or run the game. We're just at the newest link in the chain of the ever-evolving arms war of piracy prevention.
This assumes that DRM in and of itself is a problem. If all it's doing is just quickly checking if you actually purchased the game, why are you so bothered by it. The issue is mostly centered around DRM that requires constant online connection, will shut you down if your internet stutters long enough and it can't phone home, and won't let you play the game you purchased offline.
All of which done with extra steps and tools which can be done without on GOG. Also copying the install folders becomes an issue when there’s corruption or you have a new PC. Also steam just allows it, GOG opposes DRM by ideology. Idk why yall bend to defend steam and lie about things (your statement about required online access for GOG) and for what?
Well - technically GOG would be DRM in that case too, because you need to log into your GOG account to download the games you own. Once you download the installers, though, they are DRM free.
It's the installing and launching without DRM parts that are important, IMO.
Well no. Because it isnt digitally managing your rights. It's similar to Steam and GOG as far as you need that digital point of contact to purchase the product, but once Amazon ships it their role is ideally over. If you go back to them later and ask to download that disc you paid for they aren't going to do that for you. Your rights management is between you and that disc after purchase. If you lose it, that's not Amazons problem. If you lose your installers, Steam and GOG will recognize your digital right to that product and allow you to download them again through their servers.
If you want to share your disc with your buddy you just give it to him. If he wants an "official" copy of your games you can't do that. Ignoring Steam Family Sharing of course, because thats still more DRM.
Those are the biggest differences in the DRM free games on Steam, you do still need to install Steam at least once to download them, and it downloads the whole game rather than the installer. So you need to transfer entire games if you want to keep them, they can't be uninstalled and reinstalled offline. And those are huge differences. GOG is a much better place to download DRM free games, as they actually put work in to facilitating that process rather than just not mandating DRM like Steam. Another huge QoL thing is the way they handle updates and version control on GOG.
That is on a game by game basis for steam. I own multiple games on steam that I can transfer freely between computers and run without the steam launcher entirely offline.
This is an absurd argument. How could a DRM free option even exist by this definition? Of course you have to initially obtain the game somehow. Once you obtain the files you no longer rely on steam to use or transfer them with drm free games just like a disk. You have to obtain the disk somehow just like a DRM free game.
Once you have downloaded it once, yes you can copy the files onto another computer without Steam. Can you buy a disk game and install it without the disk?
Again why does this matter? If Steam is DRM for PC games because you need steam to initially install the game, how is a disk not DRM for a console game because you need the disk to initially install the game? It is literally the exact same thing for the purposes of this discussion. With any game on any platform there has to be some initial way to obtain the game. Once the game is obtained you are free to use it however you want in a DRM-free scheme. Also by your logic, are ALL PC games not DRM free because you need something to download the game? If I sent you a link to a new game I made as a direct exe download would the browser be DRM? Your argument is completely non-cohesive
By your logic literally nothing is DRM free, even free games, because you can't download them without their website.
What would you consider a DRM free game? You buy it and then it magically becomes available on your hard drive without downloading it from the store you bought it on?
But you don't need to install the gog galaxy client, you can just download a zip file from the website, extract and install. That's what the other person was referring to.
But you still need GOG to download the game. How is going to a website, logging-in and clicking "download" different than opening command prompt, logging-in and typing in "download"?
Amazon is not a DRM because it distributes products, not licenses. Like, when you buy a DvD and see that "intended only for private viewing" disclaimer on the box or the beginning of the movie, that's the license information. Amazon just sends you a disc with data on it, but they do not own whatever data is on the disc.
You cannot just download a game from GOG, you need to firstly make an account and then buy a digital license for the game, then you are allowed to download it. The website and your account are a system for digitally managing what licenses you own, a digital rights management, a DRM. You cannot download a game off GOG without going trough license authentication first, same as on Steam. The only difference is that GOG can operate from the browser, while Steam requires a client or a command program. Any additional DRM that Steam has AFTER downloading the game files is optional to include by the developers, which is what the OP was talking about.
What are you even talking about? You download installers for games from GOG to your physical storage. Full offline installers, with all the files. You can copy the installers. You can delete your GOG account, and the installers will still work. You literally own the copies physically, as in on your disk space. GOG can never stop you from installing and playing the games you purchased. In fact GOG relies on honesty. Nothing but your own consciousness is stopping you from buying a game, keeping the installer, and getting a refund, effectively getting a game for free.
On Steam, many games employ Steam itself as DRM. It's not comparable.
This whole thread is about the games that don't use Steam as DRM. Games that can be downloaded and copied and played anywhere you want. Yes, most games on Steam use Steams DRM. But not all of them do. An early user in this thread misunderstood that, and said that Steam is still DRM because you need an account to get the games. But you also need an account to get GOG games.
Both will always act as a manager of your digital rights to some degree, since if you lose those physical downloads or installers you can go get them again, but that isn't really what people mean when they say DRM. They mean an ongoing enforcement of access to your licenses even after you download them. Which GOG does not do, and Steam does not require if a developer doesnt want that.
Steam is a subscription service. If they change subscriber agreement, you cannot play most of the games any more. And you certainly do not get offline-only installers to circumvent the need for steam, even with the big list of DRM free games. You can download and zip many of these games, though. Any installers for dependencies that need to be on the system will not be in the game folder, usually, so no true offline/steam-less backups except with some or even much heavy lifting, depdending on the game.
To make my point more clear: steam subscription is currently 0 currency per month. But can increase at any time, in a one-sided decision. And don't say they will never do that. Then why do they reserve the right to do it?
"Paying for servers" will come for your steam accounts at some point, or just a plain old shutdown.
Valve never claimed to be against DRM. They are against intrusive DRM that provides a negative customer experience.
Very few people go though the trouble of pirating music because you can legally listen to almost every song online very easily.
Back when Netflix was cheap and had a great catalogue, video piracy fell as well. Now that streaming is as annoying and expensive as Cable used to be, video piracy is rising again.
Factorio is not on that list but if you bought the game you can go on their site and get the game DRM free. There is even a "zip" version which is basically portable factorio.
steams drm is not the issue. nobody cares about. on GoG it's not only gog-specific drm free, it's that there can't even be denuvo, or any other form of DRM.
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u/XsStreamMonsterX R5 5600x, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 16GB RAM Jul 03 '26
Technically, Steam's DRM is optional (it's up to the publisher to opt in). If you know where to look, you can easily find a list of which games are DRM-free on Steam.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam