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Comment by h4x0rr | Hacker News Reader

But it won't launch without being logging into your steam account

It will if it's DRM-free. The login check is an optional call that the developer has to intentionally use. Usually if you're a small developer releasing a DRM-free game you'd make your game degrade gracefully if Steamworks doesn't work, so you can publish the same builds on Steam and on any other store.

99% of games that use that sort of protection can be cracked in about 5 minutes by simply copying a steam emulator library into the game folder.

thus is not truely DRM free.

I love steam but even if it can barely be called a DRM, it still is. People not into computer science will have no clue how to do it, and that's what matters when talking about owning your own games, you should not require knowledge to keep something you paid for

"Not into computer science" lol. I knew how to copy a damn crack at 13 years or whatever and a barely figured out windows by that time. You act like people are stupid. Sure there are some console gamers who only use their phone for social media and are clueless about computers in 2026, but most people know how to copy some damn files over. They do not need to be in "computer science".

tech aware, i don't care how you call them, english is not my first language that's just the term I came up with on the spot. Non-tech aware people will not know about the steam emulators

Also that's the point. You purchased something you should not have to crack it to keep it.

All I'm saying is that it's an imperfect but reliable workaround for archiving your games.

What other choice do you have if the game is only available on Steam?

Of course in an ideal world it would be available in a true DRM-free installer but in the real world you'll always need to reach for messy workarounds that just work. This is one of them and most people probably don't know that it exists.

yeah I do agree with you, it's just unfortunate that that's the world we live in

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