Hey everyone.
Government of Türkiye is pushing a new regulation that would force Steam, Epic, PlayStation etc. to appoint local representatives. If they refuse? The whole platform gets banned.
They also want full access to user data and the power to arbitrarily ban “risky” content. This isn’t just a Turkish thing, governments everywhere are trying to pull this crap. They think blocking platforms will control us? All they are doing is driving people straight to VPNs and piracy. If you make it impossible to buy games legally, we’ll just sail the high seas for free.
Thanks for the boost, I guess.
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All steam games are drm free by default. They literally have been since day 1. Even the half life games are drm free… Literally always have been.
I’m getting real fucking tired of people not understanding the fuck steam drm actually is.
It’s optional and ENTIRELY up to the dev to use.
Steam games come bundled with a SINGLE dll that hooks into steam for the overlay, cloud storage and other steam features. But this dll is NOT required and can safely be deleted. Steam ALSO supported turned the dll off via a single txt file.
Both cause the game to be simply launched from its normal exe and they never have a check in.
I have over 300 games iv bought from steam that sit on a hard drive and can be launched with out steam ever having been installed on a computer.
Steam first and foremost is just a patcher and download manager. If you don’t need to update your game then you can just slap it in a. Thumb drive and take it with you.
The only reason you NEED steam actively running. Is for steam functions, such as online play for some games that use steam servers and not there own. Games that optionally have chosen to enable the drm function. Or to update your game.
That’s it.
They already do. Steam DRM is explicitly opt-in and the Steamdwork documentation even underlines that Steam DRM is a very weak form of DRM. Denuvo isn’t by Valve/Steam and also opt-in.
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What we need is an alternative store where opensource games can make money. That would change the business.
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How so? I’d expect getting people willing to publish their games there, regardless of the payment system, to be the problem.
I mean remember the great NSFW purge when Master Card and Visa threatened to block Steam unless it stop selling content that would “hurt their brand.”
DRM, digital locks, hardware locking fuses etc. should be illegal. If I buy a car I can change the lights, swap out the engine, do whatever I want with it, it’s mine, I own it. Why shouldn’t I be able to do the same with my phone or game? Why should some company have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do with my own property that I paid for? That’s not DRM (digital rights management) because they have no right to manage my property, it’s OSM (ownership subversion mechanism) and that’s what we should call all that anti consumer bullshit.
I’d argue that modern cars behave very similar to DRM-protected games.
It’s already up to the developer whether or not they use Steam’s DRM. And fucktons of games from small devs already don’t use it.
But, for some reason, many then choose denouvo instead…
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Yes. You can even copy the installed files and just launch the executable on another machine that doesn’t even have Steam installed.
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It’s literally in the documentation and has been clear since day 1 of steam. If people fucking read the manual and faqs they would know.
That’s the thing. The vast majority of people are happy to support game devs and the steam service. That’s probably why this is not an issue causing vast losses.
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I’m not sure the majority of games is DRM free though. But youve got a point.
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How do you play games without launching steam? Can you give me a quick step by step instructions in this matter?
So long as the game is DRM-free, you just go to the install location and run the exe file.
not really? you need goldberg emu or another steam emulator, otherwise games will get confused that they can’t communicate with a steam client for achievements and whatnot
but yeah it’s just about dropping 2 files besides the game exe and done
You need to turn off the overlay. The games not confused it’s the fact your trying to use steam with out it being there and the dll that calls for it can’t find it.
Delete the dll or slap a txt files in the root folder with the appid and dll will see that and disengage.
Most people just delete the dll since you arnt using it anyways and it’s wasted memory
You are wrong, steam emulators are only necessary if the game uses steam DRM or relies on it for online functionality. You can try this with most indie games, or anything also sold on GOG.
You can remove the steam DRM wrapper as well quite easily if its the only one present.
if the game uses steam DRM, steam emulators cant do anything with that. you additionally need a separate tool that strips the steam DRM
see here: https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/blob/master/README.md
but indeed, it seems not all games need it:
Publishers would just pay the extra fee and pass the cost to us. They care about controlling the data than they do about actual sales. You know… capitalism.
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Fair point. Let the giants pay the tax to treat us like criminals while indies get to market themselves. It just makes it easier to decide who to support and who to pirate.
Valve’s better than Epic Games, but they still have every incentive to keep users in their ecosystem with DRM. To that end, the Steam Deck’s Proton compatibility layer and touchpad driver are integrated into Steam, rather than functioning independently of it.
Using the Steam Deck is possible without buying any games on Steam, but making Steam the core part of the distribution inherently encourages its usage.
Edit: I like the Steam Deck, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out the aspects of the platform designed to encourage the use of Steam.
Valve literally doesn’t use drm. ITS FUCKING OPTIONAL AND ITS THE DEV CHOICE TO USE IT. VALVE DOES NOT
I REPEAT
DOES NOT REQUIRE DRM FOR ANY OF THEIR GAMES OR ANYONE ELSES GAMES IN THEIR PLATFORM
IT IS DEVELOPERS CHOICE
Very true.
Lmao what? You have proof for this? It’s just as likely that it was easier to do it the way they did.
Not true about Proton. It’s Steam DRM that requires Steam running in the bg, same as on Windows.
Wine can be set up in a similar way, but Valve’s default setup is designed to for use with Steam first and foremost.
A bigger issue is that the Steam Deck touchpads don’t work without Steam being open. A more open approach would have been to write independent driver software for the touchpads.
Valve’s far and away better than Nintendo, but has still designed the Steam Deck to be heavily reliant upon Steam to function. The Steam Deck is priced in a way that anticipates increased consumer usage of Steam, but in isolation of Steam, it would be more usable as a Linux PC if it were more software-agnostic.
The steam deck touchpad thing is because it needs the steam input drivers and software.
Realistically if valve decoupled the steam input driver and software from the steam client then you could use it with out the client.
But that’s like bitching you can’t use a video card with out a driver… It’s kind of a well duh
Even then so long as there’s some level of touchpad support you should still have basically functionality so long as there detected which the deck has.
It works for me when I tested it in desktop mode with the Steam Launcher not running.
This is interesting, because the touchpads on the Steam Controller do work without Steam being open, at least on Linux, though without cursor acceleration. I wonder why the touchpads on the Deck were handled differently.
It works for me in desktop mode with Steam Launcher not running. Maybe their OS got corrupted and they need to do a reinstall.
Meanwhile I play all my GOG games on my SteamDeck. Sure it runs SteamOS and Steam in a sort of Big Picture Mode, but it’s still just a Linux PC, you’re free to use whatever software on there in Desktop mode, and then you can add all the apps and games you want to the Steam launcher, and run them that way. You’re not forced to stay in Steam, nor are you forced to only buy games from Steam. You can exit Steam on the Desktop mode and still use Proton to play Windows games, but that leaves you with more overhead running than when you do it from Steam in the big picture mode.