How to Own Your PC Games: A Comprehensive Guide to Avoiding DRM
The PC Gaming industry is absolutely crazy right now. Controversies surrounding Digital Rights Management, usually shorthanded to DRM, feel as old as PC gaming itself, but the last couple weeks have seen a particularly strong anger directed at the practice. Ubisoft is under fire for shutting down The Crew, and Helldivers 2's rating on Steam has nose-dived because of a (now-reversed) PlayStation Network account requirement. With tensions between publishers and gamers growing more and more intense, it begs the question: What can we do as consumers to fully own our games?
Now, this topic ties into a larger issue surrounding media ownership in the digital age. Many individuals, including myself, are upset with the enshittification of subscription services for movies, music, or even video games. Monthly prices seem to be climbing higher and higher, features and functionality are getting worse, and the companies that run these services have the power to remove or add content at their own discretion. In contrast, Blurays/DVDs and CDs (especially on the second hand market!) have never been as cheap as they are now, and purchasing a physical disk means that the customer has access to that content until the disk is lost or stops working.
Video games can be one of the most difficult forms of media to own. Network-based DRM has existed since the mid-2000's, and we've already started to see the ramifications of this via games that can't be legally accessed anymore, which this YouTube video highlights excellently. Nowadays, physical releases of video games are practically nonexistent. Instead, most games can be bought on digital storefronts like Steam or Epic Games Store. These platforms provide extensive DRM options to their developers, so extensive that "buying a game" on these platforms is more like buying a license to play the game. These publishers can, and have, exercised their ability to remove this license, taking away the game that was paid for.
People have approached discussion of this subject from all sorts of different perspectives. One perspective that I haven't seen a lot of yet is what to do about it. Most of the discussion online revolves around the Stop Killing Games initiative. I want to clarify right now that this is an excellent initiative. I have nothing but praise and respect for those working on it behind the scenes, and anyone reading these words right now should take the time out of their day to click that link and take action.
However, I must also underscore that what Stop Killing Games aims to do will likely take a long time, years if not decades. What if someone wants to own their games right now? Well, that's where this article fits in! Where can you, the reader, actually purchase a game and not just a license to play one? Hopefully by the end of this article, answering this question should be relatively straightforward.
Before going any further, it's important to note that this guide is exclusively focused on legal methods of obtaining DRM-Free games. I'm a subscriber to the philosophy of voting with my wallet and my time. Instead of pirating a cracked version of a game with DRM, forego that game outright and play something that's legally obtainable. Piracy is relevant to the topic of DRM-Free gaming, making it important to acknowledge, but it's also complex, legally or ethically grey in many cases, and outside the scope of this guide. By extension, console games are also disqualified from conversation here unless the game has been officially released on PC.
GOG
GOG, short for Good Old Games, is the gold standard for DRM-Free gaming. While a launcher is provided for things like achievements and playtime tracking, any game on the platform also has installation files downloadable from a web browser. These files can be ran after downloading to install the game on a computer, no launcher or internet connection required! Here are some notable publishers and franchises that can be found on the platform:
- Bethesda: Many of Bethesda's largest franchises are available on GOG. The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Dishonoured, Wolfenstein, and others are all readily available and regularly discounted. The one catch is that some more recent games aren't available, games like Doom 2016/Eternal or Fallout 76 have not been released.
- PlayStation: Ironically, even while under fire for the Helldivers 2 controversy, Sony offers the Uncharted Legacy Collection, God of War 2018, and Horizon Zero Dawn for purchase on GOG. These are all excellent modern games that, despite releasing as far back as 7 years ago, still look great!
- CD Project Red: Fun Fact; GOG is actually a subsidiary of CD Project Red! Most, if not all of the studio's games are available on the platform, including The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.
- Larian Studios: Most recently recognized for Baldurs Gate 3, Larian also offers their entire portfolio on GOG.
This is extremely far from a comprehensive list, just the developers that were most notable to me personally. GOG is the place to go for buying games from recognizable franchises, without any DRM.
itch.io
itch.io is also an excellent option for buying DRM-free games, alongside GOG. this platform is mainly oriented towards indie developers, making a bit of a wild west in the context of game storefronts. What's most important to know is that not every game is free of DRM. Yes, lots of developers offer the game files as a download, but some only offer a key to a Steam installation, which could have DRM associated with it.
What makes itch.io such a great store alongside GOG is that they host a lot of the smaller developers that haven't published their stuff on any other DRMless platforms. Games like Celeste, Towerfall Ascension, Baba is You, A Dance of Fire and Ice, Skatebird, and other big names are all easy to download, backup, and fully own. It's also a great spot for discovering indie games or developers of you ever get sick of the mainstream (but still very good!) selection on GOG.
Steam and other Storefronts
This might seem contradictory at first. After all, haven't I just spent most of this article offering alternatives to storefronts like Steam, and even emphasizing how access to games can be blocked on these platforms later down the line?
The bad news is that Steam is the absolute largest digital games storefront on the PC, so most developers will choose to publish there first. The good news is that DRM is not a requirement, so lots of developers publish games on these platforms that don't require the platform's tools to run. Here are a few examples of games on Steam that can be played independent of the platform:
- Hades: A great example of a modern game on Steam with absolutely zero DRM. Supergiant have published five games (one in early access) at time of writing, and the Hades games have been their most successful so far. At time of writing, Hades and Hades 2 are nowhere to be seen on GOG (despite the rest of their portfolio being available here), itch.io, or any PC platform besides Steam and Epic Games. The good news is that Hades is completely DRM-free on Steam and Epic Games, so downloading the game files from Steam and copying them from the default directory would work just as well as a download off of itch.io. I did it myself, and it worked great! I now have a backup alongside my GOG and itch.io libraries. This made me really happy, as Hades is one of my favourite games ever and I would hate to lose access to it later down the line. I couldn't get Hades 2 to work outside of Steam, but Supergiant has yet to release a game with DRM, so hopefully this issue changes once the 1.0 version of the game releases because it's also a masterpiece so far.
- Spiritfarer: Spiritfarer is an amazing game, and is available for download on GOG! You might be confused as to why I'm discussing it here, then. Well, I originally purchased the game on Steam before discovering that GOG existed, so I paid for a version with DRM. Thankfully, the DRM is trivial to bypass. the only thing stopping it from loading is needing to create a "steamapp_id.txt" file in the root folder of the game, and adding the public ID of the game to the file (For Spiritfarer, it's 972660). Finding the ID of the game is as simple as looking up the title on (SteamDB)[tab:https://steamdb.info/]. This is also a great example of how, if achievements and other launcher features aren't of importance, double dipping on games for a DRM-Free version is not a requirement in some cases.
- Factorio: I personally haven't played Factorio, but it's a great example of how, even when DRM is difficult to bypass on one version of a game, obtaining a DRM free copy is still doable. The developer offers a steam login on their homepage, and using that login with an account that has bought the game will give players access to a downloadable copy, no DRM included.
Steam should be a last resort for gamers looking to own their games. GOG has a strict policy against DRM, while itch.io's style of publishing games means that it's very easy to determine whether the game is DRM free or not. Steam has no such safety net, and games without DRM can be updated later down the line to include it. It's still an option to check for the occasional developer that hasn't published anywhere else.
After buying the games
This really depends on a lot of things, from the choice of operating system to the personality of the customer. Want to use GOG exactly like Steam? Totally doable! Paranoid about the apocalypse and want to create three dozen backups of the installers? Cool, sounds good! I'll discuss my experience with owning the games and the installation files, but will also discuss different routes as well.
Obviously, a way to launch the games is crucial in order to play them. The installers from GOG and game files from itch.io can be used and played without a traditional game launcher, but there are also lots of options for playtime tracking, achievements, and more if that's of interest. Linux has both the Heroic Games Launcher and my launcher of choice, Lutris. On Windows, GOG and itch.io both offer official launchers for games purchased on their platforms. All of these options work great, so consider your wants and needs, research these options (or others I missed!) and decide from there.
Backups of games also are a good idea, especially when buying from a platform like Steam where DRM can be added in an update. Digital backups are an entire can of worms in itself that I won't go into detail about much here (although plan to in the future!). For now, know that Lutris supports installing games through GOG's installer files rather than downloading the game over again, a very strong selling point for those who plan to backup those installation files anyway.
Of course, doing none of this and just using these platforms exactly like Steam is an option. That's the beauty of owning games this way: customers get the options to do what they want with their games. When research started for this article, the hypothesis was that it would be a big sacrifice to only buy games this way, but in retrospect there isn't that much compromise here! Most big names in the industry have at least a few games available through GOG, itch.io is literally built for indie developers, and even some titles I had already bought on Steam can be backed up and played how I'd like to. I don't plan to buy games exclusively this way, Metal Hellsinger is my favourite game and it has DRM, but knowing that the vast majority of my game library is mine while the fight between gamers and game studios rages on makes me feel warm inside. Buying through these storefronts gives gamers a way to show studios that this is what we want, hopefully paving the way for this to become the norm, not the exception.