this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Still waiting for the day Steam bites the bullet and just publish titles DRM free by default (as in if a studio really wants DRM they have to pay Steam extra, and Steam publishes that their DRM is in use)
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 payed 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 don't use it.
But, for some reason, many then choose denouvo instead...
So if I buy the games they can run without Steam on my machine?
Yes. You can even copy the installed files and just launch the executable on another machine that doesn't even have Steam installed.
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.
Feel like that’s something should be made more clear for people
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.
While not vast with game preservation and playability a big concern actually being clear that a majority of games are perfectly playable without the Steam Launcher would ease concerns
I'm not sure the majority of games is DRM free though. But youve got a point.
Not really. I mean I know that DRM free titles exist on Steam, but what I would like is the DRM free to be the standard
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.
Erm yes but in all likelihood the only ones that could reasonably afford said extra fees is AAA corporates who I don’t feel bad sailing on the high seas to download.
Meanwhile the more smaller and often Independent probably can’t afford the costs in paying for DRM protections and so would go without them. Hell a number would even likely use it as a marketing tool “my game is available DRM free, unlike that Activision-EA Slop.”
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.
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.
It works for me when I tested it in desktop mode with the Steam Launcher not running.
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.
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.