Will Witcher 3 be DRM-free on Steam?

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I'm not 100% if that works for ALL games on the list the same way. Some just work if you move the game files without any installation needed others might need a new installation. I haven't tried it myself for each and every game as you might understand... ;)

But I agree with @Dragonbird
If you don't want to use Steam after all why not just buying the GOG version???

I already have gog version preordered :) but now I'm interested how it really works on steam. I have quite a few games on steam and some of them are from that list, actually.
 
I already have gog version preordered :) but now I'm interested how it really works on steam. I have quite a few games on steam and some of them are from that list, actually.
Well, I can give you an example.

Let's take the little game "A Virus Named Tom". It's completely DRM-free on Steam (initial download excluded). If you want to play the game on another PC without using Steam you just have to do the following steps.

1) Download the game via the Steam client on PC A.
2) Start the game once on PC A because Steam loads some needed files not until you start the game for the first time.
3) Exit the game.
4) Navigate to the game file in your Steam directory (.../Steam/SteamApps/common/A Virus Named Tom) and copy the whole file to a USB stick.
5) Copy the file to a random destination on PC B (where Steam isn't running).
6) Start the game by clicking on the AVNT.exe in the directory.
7) Enjoy the game without using Steam on PC B.

Of course the same works on PC A. You can close Steam after you downloaded and started the game once. The game will continue to run without any problems.

A Virus Named Tom by the way offers Steam achievements, Steam cloud saves, Steam leaderboards and Steam trading cards in case you use the cient for playing. Being DRM-free doesn't seem to limit your freedom as a developer to implement basic Steam functionalities. ;)
 
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3dub

Forum regular
Valve is not going to let a major AAA game play without the client installed.
Yeah I don't mind steam that much, better then the other one who's name should not be mentioned but I can't believe this was a serious question.
It's steam for fecks sake drm and steam are synonymous
 
others might need a new installation.

Which means those aren't DRM-free (since for installation Steam will be needed). So the list is simply misleading.

I would expect it to be the developer's choice, not Valve's. Why should Valve care, as long as they get the money from the sale?

Valve don't try to promote such choice for developers. Even their own games require Steam client. So while in some cases manual copying will work, in practice Steam doesn't discourage DRM - so it's proliferating it as a whole. So saying that some games have no DRM there is a weak argument if you consider how Steam affects DRM globally.
 
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Which means those aren't DRM-free (since for installation Steam will be needed). So the list is simply misleading.
I said might because I haven't tried all of them myself. That says nothing about the validity of the list. But I gave an example above which proves that DRM isn't mandatory on Steam.

Valve don't try to promote such choice for developers. Even their own games require Steam client. So while in some cases manual copying will work, in practice Steam doesn't discourage DRM - so it's proliferating it as a whole. So saying that some games have no DRM there is a weak argument if you consider how Steam affects DRM globally.
Steam doesn't promote or dispromote DRM. They just offer Steamworks CEG themselves as part of Steamworks to each developer which can be used or not. It's up to each developer/publisher to decide whether they want to use it or nor, no matter if indie game or AAA game. Imo not Valve is responsible if a dev/pub decides to include Steamworkd CEG or any other third party DRM.

Also this topic is not meant as a discussion about whether Valve's own stance on DRM is good or bad for the whole industry (your argument about Valve imposing Steamworks DRM on all their games is also wrong because you can play for example Half Life 2 without the client).
Everyone is free to like or hate Steam for whatever reason but the question here was if Witcher 3 will be offered DRM-free on Steam or not (given the possiblity).


@Slimgrim
Why should Valve force AAA devs/pubs to include Steamworks CEG? What should the benefit for Valve be in such a case? Valve earns money by every game sold on Steam. That doesn't depend on whether a game has Steamworks CEG or not at all. There is no actual reason why Valve should impose DRM, no matter if indie or AAA.
 
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