When you want to run it, you go to the folder and double-click the .exe of the game.
If you want, you can drop a shortcut to that exe somewhere convenient.
“Installing” is just putting files in a folder somewhere, and maybe adding a shortcut to the start menu so the user can find and run whatever got installed. There’s nothing special about it.
Unless the .exe needs some other program to be installed, or some files that need to be available somewhere else (which these DRM free games don’t), you can just move the folder the game is in wherever you like, another PC even, and it’ll still run just fine.
Any dev can decide to just not code their game in a way that requires steam. Valve doesn’t modify whatever the studio decides to ship in any way that would change that.
Interesting… I got the retail version back then and it was bundled with Steam and did check your account on every start (or required a steam client running with the title in the library). It even had a warning label on the box stating that it needed a steam account and that the CD key would be linked to your account. But I do not remember it using Securom. Which checks out, as I vaguely remember buying I after Christmas.
Maybe it got removed later? I can find some discussions in the steam forums arguing about the drm from about 10 years ago, and other more recent discussion where people are wondering why it has no more drm - e.g. this comment describing the same procedure as I did above
Fun fact: My Steam accounts lists that it was created in July 31st 2004, although Steam was released on September 12th 2004. I guess they just added a random date on old accounts that didn’t have a date registered?
Not currently in a place where I can check, but I believe pcgamingwiki.com has this info.
Edit: it does indeed. Lists available platforms and whether or not they have DRM, and/or what kind.
Spread that site around, cause I only came across it fairly recently and it has never showed up in web searches for me without me specifically looking for the site.
Steam has no built-in tool to filter them. You can try running them without steam, but the easiest way is likely to check the PCGamingWiki page for a given game. The “availability” section should list what kind of DRM the game has, if any.
Depends on the game.
There’s a surprisingly large amount of games on steam that are DRM free, meaning once downloaded, running the game doesn’t actually require steam.
They should all be like this.
That is the main selling point of GOG
But then, how do you keep the game for later, like reinstalling it on a system that does not run steam, that won’t work right?
It’s just a folder. You keep the folder.
When you want to run it, you go to the folder and double-click the .exe of the game.
If you want, you can drop a shortcut to that exe somewhere convenient.
“Installing” is just putting files in a folder somewhere, and maybe adding a shortcut to the start menu so the user can find and run whatever got installed. There’s nothing special about it.
Unless the .exe needs some other program to be installed, or some files that need to be available somewhere else (which these DRM free games don’t), you can just move the folder the game is in wherever you like, another PC even, and it’ll still run just fine.
This. I used to have a bunch of the games backed up on a hard drive because copying the files over & patching was faster than redownloading it.
Same - I used this tool which worked great for that workflow:
http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover
Pirate magic, me boy!
Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V
Sure, you can do that. It’s obviously on you to figure out how you want to do it, but that’s exactly what no DRM means
And I don’t mean it’s technically possible, you can backup the game files through steam and put them on a flash drive, and there you go
I imagine it would be for older games though?
Why do you assume that?
Any dev can decide to just not code their game in a way that requires steam. Valve doesn’t modify whatever the studio decides to ship in any way that would change that.
Wait… Half Life 2 is the game that forced me to install steam, create an account and wasn’t playable without it is “now” in this list and is DRM free?
Removed back in 2004, seems like.
Interesting… I got the retail version back then and it was bundled with Steam and did check your account on every start (or required a steam client running with the title in the library). It even had a warning label on the box stating that it needed a steam account and that the CD key would be linked to your account. But I do not remember it using Securom. Which checks out, as I vaguely remember buying I after Christmas.
Maybe it got removed later? I can find some discussions in the steam forums arguing about the drm from about 10 years ago, and other more recent discussion where people are wondering why it has no more drm - e.g. this comment describing the same procedure as I did above
Fun fact: My Steam accounts lists that it was created in July 31st 2004, although Steam was released on September 12th 2004. I guess they just added a random date on old accounts that didn’t have a date registered?
Is there an easy way to check which games in my library are DRM free?
Not currently in a place where I can check, but I believe pcgamingwiki.com has this info.
Edit: it does indeed. Lists available platforms and whether or not they have DRM, and/or what kind.
Spread that site around, cause I only came across it fairly recently and it has never showed up in web searches for me without me specifically looking for the site.
Steam has no built-in tool to filter them. You can try running them without steam, but the easiest way is likely to check the PCGamingWiki page for a given game. The “availability” section should list what kind of DRM the game has, if any.