Hey,

I finished building my new computer. I just bought a graphics card that came with a free download of Metro: first light. I haven't played any computer games in a long time, and I'd like to try this out.

However, much to my dismay, it was a Steam download. Admittedly, I know little about steam. However, I do know that I will not be playing the game if I am required to have steam installed on my computer whenever I play it (or connect to steam online).

I am amenable to downloading & installing steam one time if there is some way to just save the game to a disc so that I never need use steam again anytime I want to install or play it.

Is this possible at all?

Well I am pro Steam and I can't really do without it but I know there are guys on here who hate it,so I'm not going to fuel a debate about it.

I don't believe you can run the majority of games without Steam running although I have done it (can't remember which one now) and have heard of other people doing it.

How they did it was probably by modifying the games .exe or similar.

Give Steam a try,you got nothing to lose.You can always uninstall it.

Steam games can be backed up easily so you never have to download the game in full again.

*edit* I just google'd 'can you play steam games without Steam' and the first link sent my anti-virus into a panic so I guess it's probably a bit 'dodgy'.

You need Steam to download and update the game, and you will need Steam "on" for you to play the game. However, you can probably put Steam on "offline mode" and still play your game.

EDIT: Just turned off my internet connection, Steam went "offline," but I was still able to play Anomaly via Steam. All I lost was the "online leaderboards report" on the mission success screen.

Humph. Well, thanks for trying to help anyway. I was really looking forward to trying it. Shame.

Since both of you tried to help, do either of you really want the game? If both of you want it, perhaps I could flip a coin?

Again, appreciate your response. Just IM me if you do want it. I'll flip the coin if necessary and give the winner the DL code.

These days 80% of all games published have Steam DRM. Of the other 20%, most have either Origin or UbiPlay DRM. There are games that have more than one. Even most of the games you buy on a disc will require it.

After going to the trouble of upgrading your machine, it would be unfortunate these will prevent you to enjoy new games.

If I may ask, what do you find so bad with Steam? (Honest question from someone who owns about 80 Steam titles and have no issues with it).

Hey Bib,

If I'm 100% honest, part of my mistrust for this software is due to ignorance about how exactly it works. I'm a little unclear on whether you need to be online to even use the games you buy. Care to educate me?

On the other hand though, I doubt I'll ever really accept that I need to be connected to a service just to download, save or play a simple game. Activations are a definite no-no for me. It's not okay with me (even at the theoretical level) that someone can just flip a switch on a server, and *poof* there goes my game (and product I paid for).

Without boring you with my a manifesto on digital control, I'm prone to resist any efforts by companies to extend their control of a product past the store shelves and into my front door.

Hope that kind of explains where I'm coming from...

You don't need to be online to play the game. Steam has an offline mode where once you download the game, you can set it to that, and it won't be connected. To be honest though, there's not really any reason to be offline or online. Online does get you cloud saves, which I found to be a huge bonus when I had to build a new computer. I installed the games, and all my old saves were already there. You don't need to be connected to the server to save however. Yes theoretically Steam could go belly up tomorrow and we would all be out of a lot of games/money, but considering that Steam is by far the largest and most successful "download service", I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I'm a little more weary of Origin and the like, I find them to be invasive and system hogs. Steam just sits there in the corner until I need it, never really bothering me. Just my two cents.

I hear where you are coming from Phoenix,and I respect that.I won't try to turn you to the dark side.
Thanks for the game offer but it's not something I would play,but thanks.
If Ice doesn't want it offer it up in the 'Buy,sell,trade' section,I'm sure it will go easily.

Steam is really simple. You install it on your PC, buy stuff from it, it'll download and update it for you (or not update, you can turn this off in settings), and you can play it. I've twice reformatted my hard drive, and lost all my "game info," but I simply had to re-install Steam, log in, and choose which games to download (and update), and done. I just bought Gnomoria a couple of days ago, but I tried the demo months before. Steam remembered my demo saves, so my "new game" had a couple of saves in it.

The "dark side" to Steam is the various Steam sales. The games are cheap, and I found myself buying 4-packs of some games so that I can give them to my son and to my brother so we can all play MP together. It's very easy to "gift" games as well.

Like I said, you can also play your games in "offline" mode so "always online" isn't necessary. I'm sure there may be a game or two that will NOT work in offline mode, but that is game-specific rather than a function of Steam.

However, I do understand the sentiments you mentioned. I do hope this gives you a bit of an idea of how Steam isn't the "big bad guy" that everyone thought it was when it first started. My biggest beef is the fact that you can't sell the games you no longer play, as it is forever tied to your Steam account.

Re: Metro, thanks for the offer, but I tend to pass on shooters now. Too fast for me. However, please do put it up on the Buy/Sell/Trade forum, even for free. A few other guys have given away various games via "lottery," and I'm sure someone will be very happy to have this game.

Good luck!

If you don't want to bother with all that, I'll happily take Metro: Last Light off your hands!

Unfortunately, Steam, Origin, and their ilk are the future of PC gaming. Other than indie devs who may use no DRM at all when you DL off their site, discs are dead. The CP was so easily cracked it made no sense, and the idea of having NO DRM is just like poison to these big companies.

Whether it's Steam or Origin, or "always on", or an activation program, pretty much every game coming out now will use one or more of these. I'm afraid you may be faced with the choice of either only playing older games or giving it up altogether.

If it's security of your own system you're concerned about, you do have 2 options. One, a separate PC for gaming. Put no personal data on it, no banking or any of that stuff, just games. Use an older PC or other device to do the "serious stuff." Two, virtual machines. Using a program like VMWare, MS Virtual PC, or Oracle's VirtualBox you make a PC within your PC. Again, this would be for the "serious stuff" as games will run poorly if at all in a virtual PC, but things like Turbotax or Paypal or whatever will run fine and you can have that stuff pretty well separated from the rest of the PC.




The Jedi Master

IMO, Steam is a great idea. What's the problem with a great idea? People want to COPY a great idea. LOL
So, instead of just using Steam, EA wants their own "Steam". Ubi wants their own "Steam". Gaijin wants their own "Steam"....MS wants Live to be their own "Steam"...
It eliminates the frustrating parts of pc gaming, checks your system for necessary files (avoiding the dreaded .dll errors), keeps drivers up to date, it's NOT resource intensive at all to leave running, it provides comms, a friends list, gaming groups with forums and communication/calendar options, a very useful launcher for your games (even non-steam) so you can ditch the desktop icons or using the program list, gives you screenshot ability, a community hub (which many of us use, it's fun to see who likes what), offers incredible sales, multiple-pc installations and downloads, a wishlist and now even a controller-friendly version for those that want to have a more console-like experience.
Steam is fine. It's the half-assed copycats that get in the way.
Just my 2¢

+1 to JediM. & RawK.

Thanks guys. Even though I've stubborn, I'm still happy to know a little bit about it and similar services. I never did really fully get how it worked. For DRM, it sounds relatively non-invasive and user friendly.

I did send out the promo code to the first responder, btw.

As someone who struggled for years with games using SecuROM and Starforce DRM on discs, often having games failing to load altogether because they didn't like my optical drive model, I find this generally less painful. I won't lie, I have been burned on a couple of occasions where I couldn't play when I wanted to because of one issue or another with Steam or Origin or online login or validation. The point is more it happens to me a lot less than even when it was all disc-based. Of course, I have a great internet connection as well, so YMMV if your internet is not.

No DRM is certainly the best option, but the only games I play right now that have that (er, DON'T have that) are Thirdwire's Strike Fighters series. And they qualify as "indie" since it's pretty much one guy and a couple of contractors he uses.

Right now, the worst ones are the double-dippers. Games like Far Cry 3 or SC: Conviction or Bioshock 2 or Dirt 3 that want whatever service you bought it on (Steam, Origin, etc) running AND want another service running alongside it like Uplay or GFWL. Then you have two unrelated systems which both must work to play, and the hassle factor goes up. Fortunately, GFWL is dying a slow death. Unfortunately, Uplay is relatively new and I foresee most or all Ubisoft games in the near future at least to require its use. You can buy from Uplay direct, and buy your games there instead of off Steam or Origin, but their prices are generally not as good.




The Jedi Master

Some Steam games require you to download Steam from the program, whoever, you can run the .exe without Steam being needed to be launched. Not many Steam games are like this.

As Metro Last Light seems to be a Steamworks title it will require you to run Steam whenever you want to launch the game. If you don't want to use it I'll take it off your hands. :p

Reminds me that I have a nice Flaming Cliffs coaster here somewhere.

Well you won't be playing many games these days then :-) things have changed. If you have a fast connection you will never know steam is even on. If its slow though it may drive you crazy with some of the large updates. Steam is great IMO. You Dont have to worry about patches, CD's and all your stuff is in one place. Steam has said many times if they were to go out of business they would make sure your games are still available to you. However Steam has been very successful and I Dont think they are going anywhere anytime soon.