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Steam is basically a PC gaming monopoly, so why isn’t anyone mad?
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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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This. One reason I'm reluctant to purchase games on Steam is how impermanent it really is.
You buy a game in Steam, you can't play it without Steam. Should Valve decide to cut you off or just stop existing, your games are gone. And switching to another platform leaves you trapped to play your previously purchased titles on Steam or buy it again.
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.
This is not just a Steam issue, I have games I bought and will never be able to play because of DRM. Until laws change, this won't change.
Indeed, Steam is just one culprit - yet culprit nonetheless.
Culprit in what way? It's the developers and publishers that put the DRM on the games, not Steam.
Steam features its own DRM, ensuring games cannot be launched without it.
Steam has enormous leverage in the gaming market and could at least influence the devs to make DRM transferable between the publishing spaces (but that might hurt Steam's bottom line).
Plenty of games release both on Steam and, say, GOG. GOG versions don't feature DRM, Steam versions do. Why?
You are not required by Steam to use their DRM, it's a service they offer. Publishers make the choice to use the DRM.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam