I never realised how many games requires online DRM until I got a SteamDeck

[bluessorrow]

Firstly, apologies for the ranting.

 

I had been using self-built PC for the past decade, just recently changed to a MacBook because I haven't been playing game as much anymore, and I always wanted to go Mac. Side story aside, I got a steamdeck and started picking off my old steam library, as well as trying out new games that I missed out with the MacBook. Only then I realised how many big games required online check every damn time.

 

I recently got It Takes Two, and it is the most fun my partner and I ever had on playing couch co-ops. But it literally took me half a day of googling, digging through reddit and different forums to get the stupid EA DRM working in the deck, and it requires bloody internet every time I boot the game!? If I boot it without internet once, it just kick me offline, and I had to go through the login and linking and verification, again. What the actual hell is this?

 

Then I got RDR2, after eyeing on it for literally years, and they also have the online check every time I boot the game as well. I refunded it immediately and started looking for way to run pirate games on the steam deck. If I am playing it alone, it's not worth the money when I can't run it anytime, anywhere I wanted, isn't that what the steam deck is for? I haven't pirated a single game for almost a decade already, and was so proud that I can afford the games that I like (while on sale, few years after their release of course) and I didn't need to visit the 7 seas again. Only this time I don't even feel guilty about it at all, I am not paying money on a game that I might or might not able to play. And if I cant get pirated game working on deck, I don't have to play those game unless it affects my partner.

 

Some people might say, "oh just use hot spot to run the game, then you can play". That's not the bloody point! It is the principle, I am not even asking the publisher to strip all the DRM, I just want to play my offline+single player game, well, offline. Also, I can think of a few cases where even hot spot might not be available for me, and I saw a post having people actually stupid enough to tell a sailor that. 

 

So I am wondering, has gaming DRM always been this bad? Or are we becoming a boiling frog, being forced to slowly accept this ridiculous trend as a norm? 

[Mihle]

There is also a lot of games that don't require online connection at start up, but I guess it depends on what games you want to play.

[Poinkachu]

32 minutes ago, bluessorrow said:

Firstly, apologies for the ranting.

 

I had been using self-built PC for the past decade, just recently changed to a MacBook because I haven't been playing game as much anymore, and I always wanted to go Mac. Side story aside, I got a steamdeck and started picking off my old steam library, as well as trying out new games that I missed out with the MacBook. Only then I realised how many big games required online check every damn time.

 

I recently got It Takes Two, and it is the most fun my partner and I ever had on playing couch co-ops. But it literally took me half a day of googling, digging through reddit and different forums to get the stupid EA DRM working in the deck, and it requires bloody internet every time I boot the game!? If I boot it without internet once, it just kick me offline, and I had to go through the login and linking and verification, again. What the actual hell is this?

 

Then I got RDR2, after eyeing on it for literally years, and they also have the online check every time I boot the game as well. I refunded it immediately and started looking for way to run pirate games on the steam deck. If I am playing it alone, it's not worth the money when I can't run it anytime, anywhere I wanted, isn't that what the steam deck is for? I haven't pirated a single game for almost a decade already, and was so proud that I can afford the games that I like (while on sale, few years after their release of course) and I didn't need to visit the 7 seas again. Only this time I don't even feel guilty about it at all, I am not paying money on a game that I might or might not able to play. And if I cant get pirated game working on deck, I don't have to play those game unless it affects my partner.

 

Some people might say, "oh just use hot spot to run the game, then you can play". That's not the bloody point! It is the principle, I am not even asking the publisher to strip all the DRM, I just want to play my offline+single player game, well, offline. Also, I can think of a few cases where even hot spot might not be available for me, and I saw a post having people actually stupid enough to tell a sailor that. 

 

So I am wondering, has gaming DRM always been this bad? Or are we becoming a boiling frog, being forced to slowly accept this ridiculous trend as a norm? 

Well, piracy happened, so they invented DRM

[ImWilly]

To be fair, if you purchase legally on Steam or other platform and not disconnecting your internet every time you game, it doesn't really that matter if the game has DRM or not

[jaslion]

18 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Well, piracy happened, so they invented DRM

And thus piracy happened harder and upped their game even more.

 

It's never been easier than it is now

[it_dont_work]

Just dont play games online ,I mean people are just arseholes anyway 

[Blue4130]

47 minutes ago, ImWilly said:

To be fair, if you purchase legally on Steam or other platform and not disconnecting your internet every time you game, it doesn't really that matter if the game has DRM or not

What is you are not near wifi? The steamdeck is portable, so it kind of begs to be taken away from wifi, say in like a car on a road trip...

2 minutes ago, it_dont_work said:

Just dont play games online ,I mean people are just arseholes anyway 

Many games need the online connection even when playing offline.

[bluessorrow]

56 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

What is you are not near wifi? The steamdeck is portable, so it kind of begs to be taken away from wifi, say in like a car on a road trip...

Many games need the online connection even when playing offline.

 

59 minutes ago, it_dont_work said:

Just dont play games online ,I mean people are just arseholes anyway 

Yeah I am talking about offline/single player games, I don't really play online games, I sucks big time on almost anything.

 

1 hour ago, ImWilly said:

To be fair, if you purchase legally on Steam or other platform and not disconnecting your internet every time you game, it doesn't really that matter if the game has DRM or not

yeah like Blue4130 said, there are so many cases where internet is unavailable, where I have no entertainment other than the steamdeck, and then our game doesn't work..? You said we can keep the game running, what if the handheld or the game crashes mid section? We are shit out of luck. Why do we pay for the games and the handheld PC again? This was never a problem when I still had my PC, which almost always online, but to a handheld like the SD, it matters a lot more than you think.

 

2 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

Well, piracy happened, so they invented DRM

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

And thus piracy happened harder and upped their game even more.

 

It's never been easier than it is now

Yeah dude, I haven't been pirating games for almost a decade now, I had been very happy with how convenience Steam made things to be, what do you think is pushing people like me considering dusting off our pirate hat? If companies like Rockstars doesn't respect us, set up these BS DRM, and even have the audacity to sell us a pirated copy anyways, we are just cutting off the middle man innit? 

Edited September 21, 2023 by bluessorrow
...talking about offline/single play games.. --> ... single playER games...

[Poinkachu]

39 minutes ago, bluessorrow said:

 

Yeah I am talking about offline/single player games, I don't really play online games, I sucks big time on almost anything.

 

yeah like Blue4130 said, there are so many cases where internet is unavailable, where I have no entertainment other than the steamdeck, and then our game doesn't work..? You said we can keep the game running, what if the handheld or the game crashes mid section? We are shit out of luck. Why do we pay for the games and the handheld PC again? This was never a problem when I still had my PC, which almost always online, but to a handheld like the SD, it matters a lot more than you think.

 

Yeah dude, I haven't been pirating games for almost a decade now, I had been very happy with how convenience Steam made things to be, what do you think is pushing people like me considering dusting off our pirate hat? If companies like Rockstars doesn't respect us, set up these BS DRM, and even have the audacity to sell us a pirated copy anyways, we are just cutting off the middle man innit? 

One thing I learned is that it is really easy to lose oneself in the "justification" of doing piracy.

 

If you don't like the game / the dev, simply don't buy.
If you like it buy to support the maker.

 

In the end they have to protect their IPs and their profit. I don't like it (DRM) either, but yea the me right now can understand part of why they do it.

If simply the "have to be online" part that is ruining the experience, there might be a way to circumvent that while still paying to support/obtain a game in a legit way.

I can be elaborate about it but doing so might make me break rules of this forum, so I digress.

 

And while it is indeed quite funny to me that some devs / studios uses pirated version instead of brewing up their own fix or something.

I don't give a shit what version they gives me as long it works fine & doesn't slip malware into my system. Why should I ?.

If they did it so that they can deliver the fix faster, as a player I should be glad. They saved me time & effort. Especially if it's about confirming the safety of it

 

Story example :

Back when Nier:Automata was just released for PC, it had so bad optimization that it was shit. The pirated version though came with user-made mod that made the game ran much more better. The bad optimization continued for quite awhile after release.

In cases like that, I would most likely preferred the Dev / Steam gave me pirated version instead.

It would've saved me a lot of grief, time & effort of trying to find the user-made mod & applying it to the game.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, bluessorrow said:

 

Yeah I am talking about offline/single player games, I don't really play online games, I sucks big time on almost anything.

 

yeah like Blue4130 said, there are so many cases where internet is unavailable, where I have no entertainment other than the steamdeck, and then our game doesn't work..? You said we can keep the game running, what if the handheld or the game crashes mid section? We are shit out of luck. Why do we pay for the games and the handheld PC again? This was never a problem when I still had my PC, which almost always online, but to a handheld like the SD, it matters a lot more than you think.

 

Yeah dude, I haven't been pirating games for almost a decade now, I had been very happy with how convenience Steam made things to be, what do you think is pushing people like me considering dusting off our pirate hat? If companies like Rockstars doesn't respect us, set up these BS DRM, and even have the audacity to sell us a pirated copy anyways, we are just cutting off the middle man innit? 

I also quit pirating when I found steam. But their DRM is one big reason why I don't have a steamdeck. I travel a fair bit on trains and being online isn't happening. It's pretty much the only reason why my switch still gets played.

[ImWilly]

2 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

What is you are not near wifi? The steamdeck is portable, so it kind of begs to be taken away from wifi, say in like a car on a road trip...

Fair point, and can be solved by using Hotspot tethering from phone.

Although it creates new problem for hotter and quicker phone battery drain, it would be wise to bring power bank on a road trip

Steamdeck is quite a new technology, which makes a portable gaming while not online is a new problem

Let's see if Steam figure out a way to bypass the DRM (with consent of the game developer), especially for portable client

 

But a bit out of topic, shouldn't road trip purpose is to socialize? (Since road trip is usually done in a group. Sorry, not to undermine needs to have personal me time)

 

 

[Blue4130]

19 minutes ago, ImWilly said:

Fair point, and can be solved by using Hotspot tethering from phone.

Although it creates new problem for hotter and quicker phone battery drain, it would be wise to bring power bank on a road trip

Steamdeck is quite a new technology, which makes a portable gaming while not online is a new problem

Let's see if Steam figure out a way to bypass the DRM (with consent of the game developer), especially for portable client

 

But a bit out of topic, shouldn't road trip purpose is to socialize? (Since road trip is usually done in a group. Sorry, not to undermine needs to have personal me time)

 

 

Road trip may have been a poor choice of word. Travel is a better one. The train gets me from A to B. And hot spots cost money. Why should I have to pay more to play a game that I already paid for?

[ImWilly]

4 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Road trip may have been a poor choice of word. Travel is a better one. The train gets me from A to B. And hot spots cost money. Why should I have to pay more to play a game that I already paid for?

Noted on the travel clarification. Maybe it's a cultural difference (I am probably too 3rd world country to understand this), but does mobile data from phone cannot be carried on as tethering hot spot?
I always assume that smartphone owner always has data plan on

[jaslion]

2 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

What is you are not near wifi? The steamdeck is portable, so it kind of begs to be taken away from wifi, say in like a car on a road trip...

Its why I heavily regret buying a discounted game on the eshop too because nintendo has playtime limits on how long you can play when not online. These happen in middle ofnplay and force exit the application.

 

You could argue its to prevent theft and all that but people will figure it out out of annoyance.

 

As for the steam deck I hope it is a bigger trigger for publishers to allow offline again

13 minutes ago, ImWilly said:

Noted on the travel clarification. Maybe it's a cultural difference (I am probably too 3rd world country to understand this), but does mobile data from phone cannot be carried on as tethering hot spot?
I always assume that smartphone owner always has data plan on

Normally yes but data limits are a real thing and with how most operating systems work these days they dont always see a thether or hotspot as a metered connection and just download a bunch. Also non mobile oses are NOT efficient in the slightest with how much data they phone home

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, bluessorrow said:

what do you think is pushing people like me considering dusting off our pirate hat? If

Funny thing is the olden popular pirate groups only got waaaay better.

 

Btw the big reason they used a pirated copy seems to be that the pirated one could easily be made to work on modern oses as the old stuff that prevented it from working well was disabled/removed by pirates + community patches.

 

Quite simply the epitome of lazyness and also a big issue if something is wrong with it because they cant fix shit because they have no view on the code

[Poinkachu]

1 hour ago, ImWilly said:

Noted on the travel clarification. Maybe it's a cultural difference (I am probably too 3rd world country to understand this), but does mobile data from phone cannot be carried on as tethering hot spot?
I always assume that smartphone owner always has data plan on

Regardless it uses more data. And if you live in non 1st world country like me, chances are phone data is not unlimited.

 

Plus, it's all about "Why must I be online to play a single player offline game that I bought".

 

If the point of having a portable offline game console is ending up tethering internet from phone, and bringing powerbanks for phone so that I can tether internet from and probably for the console itself .... then bleh, no? . That's like bringing & using 3 things just to play a game on a supposedly handheld offline-able game console.

 

Not to mention that there is most likely some cases where even phone signal is not available.

[ImWilly]

3 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

That's like bringing & using 3 things just to play a game on a supposedly handheld offline-able game console.

Makes sense, probably more hassle than convenience

4 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Regardless it uses more data. And if you live in non 1st world country like me, chances are phone data is not unlimited.

 

Plus, it's all about "Why must I be online to play a single player offline game that I bought".

As a 3rd world country guy, I will never play Steam Deck on train, any public transportation or even showing in public while walking in pedestrian walk, since it's basically screaming out loud "Hey, I'm a rich guy, please mug me"

[Poinkachu]

12 minutes ago, ImWilly said:

Makes sense, probably more hassle than convenience

As a 3rd world country guy

I'm a 3rd world country guy too.

But yeah, while I might not use a steam deck on public transport due to I can't focus on the game I'm playing, it's not like every places have free good internet.

And not like every place have good phone signal.

 

Me, I seriously prefer not having to lug around powerbank(s) everywhere I go. My phone juice is enough for an entire day for my usual usage.

 

As for this.

12 minutes ago, ImWilly said:

I will never play Steam Deck on train, any public transportation or even showing in public while walking in pedestrian walk, since it's basically screaming out loud "Hey, I'm a rich guy, please mug me"

What's so different with nowadays phone

[ImWilly]

40 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

What's so different with nowadays phone

Well, I may not own Steam Deck, but Steam Deck is kinda “a bit bigger” and louder fan noise than iPhone 14 Pro Max, so it’s probably gonna stand out more and draw people’s attention when walking on the train or in bus

Depending on the mugger, they may have trained eyes to recognize authentic iPhone Pro line up amongst Android wannabe design such as XiaoMi, but a handheld gaming is device is probably something they know that won’t cost below USD100, thus seeing people playing that in public is a good mugging target

 

[Poinkachu]

1 hour ago, ImWilly said:

Well, I may not own Steam Deck, but Steam Deck is kinda “a bit bigger” and louder fan noise than iPhone 14 Pro Max, so it’s probably gonna stand out more and draw people’s attention when walking on the train or in bus

Depending on the mugger, they may have trained eyes to recognize authentic iPhone Pro line up amongst Android wannabe design such as XiaoMi, but a handheld gaming is device is probably something they know that won’t cost below USD100, thus seeing people playing that in public is a good mugging target

 

IMHO, it's pretty much the same in terms of "Hey that's a person who has money"

Just that handheld console looks more exotic for now.

 

But yeah, in terms of flipping it (selling it 2nd hand or for parts), pretty sure phone is more preferred.

Exotic things can take awhile to sell.

 

Not to mention things like steam deck most likely gonna be held with both hands.

Phone? often 1 handed with a lousy grip due to the sheer size of the phone.

[demonix00]

8 hours ago, ImWilly said:

To be fair, if you purchase legally on Steam or other platform and not disconnecting your internet every time you game, it doesn't really that matter if the game has DRM or not

The problem the OP is having is that some games require that publishers specific launcher to be installed (that being the EA and Rockstar launchers) and both do on launch authentication checks to make sure that you legally own the game which is utterly stupid since I'm certain that the hated denuvo doesn't do checks on every launch of a game.

[bluessorrow]

8 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

One thing I learned is that it is really easy to lose oneself in the "justification" of doing piracy.

That's a very fair point, but I am just kind of seeing red right now, felt the betrayal as I am paying actual money just to suffer, while people having the time of their life sailing next door. I still want to play the game, but if I pay for it, I literally unable to play it some time, I can't get over that fact. So I don't know, maybe I am just looking for a justification, like you said. I don't feel good about looking back into pirating, but I kind of don't feel bad for those that I refunded on steam.

8 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

And while it is indeed quite funny to me that some devs / studios uses pirated version instead of brewing up their own fix or something.

I don't give a shit what version they gives me as long it works fine & doesn't slip malware into my system. Why should I ?.

If they did it so that they can deliver the fix faster, as a player I should be glad. They saved me time & effort. Especially if it's about confirming the safety of it

Again, while I completely agree where you are coming from, I just feel like while dev/publisher does shit like that, they don't really respect the buyer's money as they don't bother to do the actual work that they paid for, calling pirate filthy while taking credit for the filthy pirate's work, it's all "do as I say, not as I do" attitude, which leaves a sour tastes in my mouth. That's when I started feeling like, "well screw it, the game developer said this one is safe to use, lets just use that then."

 

8 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

If you don't like the game / the dev, simply don't buy.
If you like it buy to support the maker.

This is a slippery slop, it is sick that they are ignoring the players' voice and implementing game breaking DRM like this, and it is also dangerous for me to start accepting pirating as a norm. So I don't know.. But yeah, for the very least, I will actively trying to avoid games from these publishers, and started to voice out more when possible. There are still plenty of indie publishers that actual respects their players, and bigger publishers like CD Projekt red that actually respect out time (despite how some releases having questionable quality). I am just bracing myself for the day that these "good" publishers breaks my heart again.

[ewitte]

10 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

Well, piracy happened, so they invented DRM

The pirates are the ones least impacted by DRM...

TBH I'm not pirating anything with an executable these days.  Even if it is clean of viruses, you really need to wall it off from the rest of the system and the internet to be safe.

[Poinkachu]

29 minutes ago, bluessorrow said:

That's a very fair point, but I am just kind of seeing red right now, felt the betrayal as I am paying actual money just to suffer, while people having the time of their life sailing next door. I still want to play the game, but if I pay for it, I literally unable to play it some time, I can't get over that fact. So I don't know, maybe I am just looking for a justification, like you said. I don't feel good about looking back into pirating, but I kind of don't feel bad for those that I refunded on steam.

Well, I can understand the grief. I too hate being forced to go online for an offline game.

Hence why I never played some games, especially back when I didn't have unlimited stable internet.

 

But yeah, it still doesn't make pirating games/software any justified.

 

It's pointless seeing red about it, a waste of energy, it won't change anytime soon.
If you hate the system they implement, there are a shit ton of other games out there.

If it's a game you really want to play but you hate having to be online, then time to research and see if there's another way while still owning the game legit way.

That's how I do it these days.

 

Quote

Again, while I completely agree where you are coming from, I just feel like while dev/publisher does shit like that, they don't really respect the buyer's money as they don't bother to do the actual work that they paid for, calling pirate filthy while taking credit for the filthy pirate's work, it's all "do as I say, not as I do" attitude, which leaves a sour tastes in my mouth. That's when I started feeling like, "well screw it, the game developer said this one is safe to use, lets just use that then."

Well, they still the one that spent money & made all the elements in the game. No?

if they didn't make the game, then the pirated version of that game doesn't exist as well. If the pirate accept donations or implement a premium paid subscription system, then the pirate might get some money while the dev gets near zilch.
As for pirated version, they probably use the cracked .exe or the unencrypted/extracted game file system I think.

 

Also, if the dev uses a cracked exe (let's say) from A, that doesn't mean anything from A out there is definitely safe to use. Since vetting is done in-house before they use it. The ones out there is basically unvetted.

 

Quote

This is a slippery slop, it is sick that they are ignoring the players' voice and implementing game breaking DRM like this, and it is also dangerous for me to start accepting pirating as a norm. So I don't know.. But yeah, for the very least, I will actively trying to avoid games from these publishers, and started to voice out more when possible. There are still plenty of indie publishers that actual respects their players, and bigger publishers like CD Projekt red that actually respect out time (despite how some releases having questionable quality). I am just bracing myself for the day that these "good" publishers breaks my heart again.

Game breaking? probably not. Well, it differs from game to game. But yeah I won't call needing to verify online before playing game breaking.
Grief inducing ? in some cases, definitely.

 

Some did remove their DRM after awhile. While some others never removed their DRM.

Probably after people's FOMO period dies out. Or when there's no longer significant amount of people interested in the game.

I think Death Stranding was one of it.
 

35 minutes ago, ewitte said:

The pirates are the ones least impacted by DRM...

TBH I'm not pirating anything with an executable these days.  Even if it is clean of viruses, you really need to wall it off from the rest of the system and the internet to be safe.

Well, I think it depends on how we want to view it.

 

If we take Denuvo as example, it really hinders scene releases from releasing a pirated version fast. Which therefore allows the game's sales to be unhindered by pirated version until the Denuvo in that game gets bypassed.

 

From all the scene releases I know, I think only 1 or 2 is able to bypass Denuvo, and it still takes some time. Ranging from 3-4 months to who knows when.

Out of the 2, 1 is hell bent on bypassing Denuvo, but from what I heard quite a narcist, loves attention, and wants to be worshipped. So much so that a lot of repackers are fed up & refuse to repack the release from that one.

The other 1 ... well, release something Denuvo based once every 2 years maybe ?

 

In a way, it hinders them (the pirates).

[bluessorrow]

I think you raised a lot of great points there, and a lot of things that I didn't see or thought of. Thanks mate. 

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

Game breaking? probably not. Well, it differs from game to game. But yeah I won't call needing to verify online before playing game breaking.
Grief inducing ? in some cases, definitely.

Unfortunately this is a game breaking mechanism for me indeed, its just not worth the hassle for me if I cant have the games reliably playable without internet, but I totally get the point that I am not exactly a majority here.

 

Also, why are we having a clam and constructive conversation on things that we don't fully agree? I thought this is the internet? You should be telling me how stupid I am and what you did to my mom the other night by now. /s Coming from the dumpster fire of reddit, I think I like it here. You guys are awesome. Cheers!