Same for much on Steam. They wouldn’t be able to go erase stuff off your hard drives.
Many of the older games on Steam don’t have any DRM. Typically if they’re on GOG, they come the same way on Steam.
That said, I like GOG. It’s one of the few services I buy games on. But this argument that Steam games are locked down by DRM is is silly. Most games that are released on both platforms are identical.
Yup, but you know you’re getting DRM-free with GOG, and there’s value to that.
But many games still use Steam DRM even if they remove their other DRM, meaning you need the Steam client to be running for the game to run. And it’s relatively common for games available on GOG to have Steam DRM on Steam.
That said, it’s not really something I worry about. Steam provides enough value to me personally that I’m okay with not every game being completely DRM-free. But if all things were otherwise equal, I’d opt for GOG.
that can change at any time if Valve bothers to patch it
Sure. And DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch too
it’s technically piracy
No it’s not. It doesn’t even legally count as copyright infringement. You are legally allowed to crack your own legit copy of software. The only thing possibly in the way is the EULA of the software (almost all of them have a possibly-illegal no reverse engineering clause)
it takes effort the average person isn’t going to do
The average person isn’t going to be backing up their games in the first place.
Same for much on Steam. They wouldn’t be able to go erase stuff off your hard drives.
Many of the older games on Steam don’t have any DRM. Typically if they’re on GOG, they come the same way on Steam.
That said, I like GOG. It’s one of the few services I buy games on. But this argument that Steam games are locked down by DRM is is silly. Most games that are released on both platforms are identical.
Not “many”. I think last I checked under 2% of Steam games are DRM-free.
Yup, but you know you’re getting DRM-free with GOG, and there’s value to that.
But many games still use Steam DRM even if they remove their other DRM, meaning you need the Steam client to be running for the game to run. And it’s relatively common for games available on GOG to have Steam DRM on Steam.
That said, it’s not really something I worry about. Steam provides enough value to me personally that I’m okay with not every game being completely DRM-free. But if all things were otherwise equal, I’d opt for GOG.
Steam DRM is easily bypassed. Look up hacked steam DLLs
Okay, but:
DRM-free avoids that, hence why GOG has value.
Sure. And DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch too
No it’s not. It doesn’t even legally count as copyright infringement. You are legally allowed to crack your own legit copy of software. The only thing possibly in the way is the EULA of the software (almost all of them have a possibly-illegal no reverse engineering clause)
The average person isn’t going to be backing up their games in the first place.