Open any gaming PC, and chances are the blue icon of Steam is sitting right there on the desktop. Not hidden, not optional, but almost expected. Over time, Steam has gone from being just another launcher to becoming the default storefront for PC gaming, almost like a built-in part of the experience. The Monopoly Nobody […]
That’s not true though. For many games, after you installed it you can even uninstall Steam or copy/backup the game to another computer without Steam and play it forever. Yes, many games have DRM that will prevent you from doing that, but that’s the game developers doing. Steam does not have any DRM by itself, nor does it require to be running or even installed to run games you originally got from it.
Again, unless the game developer went out of their way to add DRM.
It does, and the default practice is to enable it, even when DRM-less versions are available elsewhere. It might not be as fancy as Denuvo, but it is there and it doesn’t allow you to run games without also launching Steam.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm
I am aware they offer a feature. It is up to the game developer to implement it though if they choose to, Steam does not force DRM onto anyone.
But Goldberg emulator has been widely and easily available basically forever and they’ve done nothing to try to stop people from using it or shutting it down. People are also able to add pirated games to their steam library and run them without fear of banning or retaliation on platforms like SteamOS or the steamdeck. Without being able to launch (pirated) games from within steam, using proton or gaming on Linux at all would be much harder.
For all I know, Goldberg emulator only works with multiplayer titles to enable local multiplayer capabilities. If the game is SteamDRM protected, it should not work and is very illegal.
Illegality is a general issue with piracy to begin with - Valve can snap on it any time, leaving us empty-handed. It is not a sustainable solution - just the only one we’re left with. Instead of not suing emulators and certain tools just yet, I’d rather see them actually removing the damn DRM. I mean, we had enough Nintendo drama, didn’t we?
On my end, I make sure to purchase DRM-free games and yarrr the hell out of the DRM-protected ones, but personal activism can only get you so far.