Papers, Please Joins The Long List Of Linux Games On Steam

As well as the growing list of DRM-free Linux games in the Humble Store: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/papersplease_storefront [External Link]

I bought the DRM-free Windows version there before (playable in Wine), and now HB just automatically added a Linux version to my account.

Thanks to the author. Papers Please is an original game.

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Yes, some of them are whether they tell me or not. But whether to use the service or not I decide based in part on how they treat their users. And this enough for me to avoid Steam.

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I have a problem with Steam not letting you know before hand all that information, as well as not officially supporting it. So I don't consider it to be even partially DRM free (official service). It's a whole level worse than a mixture of DRM-free and DRMed offerings that HB has for example.

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GOG and HB provide self contained installers and packages which they guarantee will be usable without their services being present anywhere. I saw no such guarantee from Steam. Manual copying "works" as is (sometimes), but it's not what Steam supports or can vouch for.

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If you paid attention I was specifically excluding the case of copying the game directory as is. I was talking about official Steam backup (which I assume should include all the installation logic if such is present). Copying can indeed work for some games. Is it guaranteed to work for all Steam games? I have no clue. At best, such copying can be considered a workaround, but not a feature of Steam.

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So, you can unpack the backup created by Steam without the client? That's good. Is it just a simple zip, tarball etc.? Does it contain all the installation scripts (if they ever exist? I have no clue. On some systems installers have scripts).

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Kristian: Can you please focus on the installation step? I didn't say anything about distribution in the last few posts. If you are sure installation on Steam is DRM free, can you please explain how it works? You can start from after the step 3 in my list above, and explain where it was wrong.

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Quoting: Quote from KristianThere are two faulty premises underlying this post:

1) For a game to be DRM free the software you use to download it has to be open source .

No, that wasn't the point. For the game to be DRM free it needs to be installable DRM free. So, once you download it, you should have a package / archive which you should be able to install independently. Let's see how it works with Steam if you compare it to the browser. (I'm not talking about manual copying of directories which can work sometimes, I'm talking about official backup).

1. You buy a game and make a backup (offical Steam one).
2. Steam service closes down.
3. You lose access to the service, and let's say to the client as well (for example you have a new system). All you have is the actual backup.
4. You try installing your backed-up game and... It requires a client you have no way to get. Not only that, even if you get it, to restore the game it needs to connect to a service which doesn't exist anymore. That's it - no restore. Comparison to the browser is completely irrelevant, since once you download a package / archive, you store it and can unpack it at any time.

The rest of your post wasn't to the point of what I was saying.

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Caldazar: Point is, I don't consider this move from Valve to be positive. It's just a bait to use their DRMed service more. Positive move from them (of this kind) would be starting offering DRM-free games. That's why my criticism was not really off-topic.

However their efforts to improve the quality of drivers, working on debuggers and so on are positive moves in contrast to this one.

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liamdawe: I don't mind the other thread, but the amount of nonsense said above (like comparing Steam client with a browser and claiming that Steam has no DRM because of that) is just puzzling.

Caldazar: I think I explained it already. I don't mind downloading stuff. I mind inability to make backups which are independent of the service and its DRMed client. Please note the difference.

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