SteamCMD is an official Valve-made tool.
It was created for (MEANT for) multiplayer server admins *.
It runs entirely from console/terminal.
You can (among other things):
- download depots
- install / upgrade software
- download workshop content
- manage mp servers (to a degree)
- fetch data with usual Steam API commands
- requesting product licenses (not something average Steam user would be interested in doing by hand)
Plus many others.
But most of usual Steam functionality is trimmed out.

It supports scripting, as well as "anonymous" login, latter allowing downloding some depots (not a whole lot).

* Technically speaking you can download singleplayer games this way.
But it wasn't intended purpose, still, many people do use it that way.

Also, btw, there *might* be a way to LAUNCH games with SteamCMD (I gathered this impression from extensive read-ups of documentation) but personally I had no success trying to do so.

I'd probably choose to keep my promise.
Edit: Never mind, didn't see the rest of the thread when I replied for some reason.

I don't use clients. Many of Steam's games require their client and it's not clear which do and which don't.

Steam Command is the headquarters and evil lair of Valve's employees. It's where they come up with their diabolical schemes. Everytime you buy a game from Steam, Gabe laughs like Skeletor.

Didn't you say you don't mind drm?

You may want to reread my post 2740 - I made an error when posting it and had to edit in what I forgot to paste into it (you might have missed it since few minutes passed between original and edited).
I provided some info there ;)

I may be wrong, but from what I read online, I got the impression it's not Valve-made, just Valve-hosted.

This page
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man6/steamcmd.6.html
lists Alexandre Detiste as the author, I believe.

I already did. I didn't reply because I was already familiar with it all. Thanks.

It depends on the type, but I indeed do not oppose all forms of DRM, only some.

I do currently oppose all video game clients, though. But even that may change if someone implements a client that adds some unknown benefits that prove useful to me. Hasn't happened yet.

I may be wrong but I think mrkgnao doesn't mind bypassing *some* forms of DRM by hand (such as, using SteamCMD / DepotDownloader instead of Steam, to lower the amount of "client overhead").

That footer is confusing AF. It almost makes it look like it's the copyright for the manpage itself.

The name may have something to do with this custom wrapper script:
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/steamcmd?h=steamcmd
It may be that the script is custom-added in Debian repo (to already be included by default) and the "author" notice relates to just the package modification.

But I am fairly sure the steamCMD itself IS made by Valve themselves.
I don't have time to ask them (HQ, yes I mean HQ, not support) anytime soon.
Feel free to email someone from Valve technical department (dunno, maybe Linux related person).

Either way, when you first fire up SteamCMD it very evidently sucks up core package that is Valve originated (the tar from the developer page is a stub after all).
It's easy to compare it with usual Linux Steam package and some files are either very similar or same.

I too decided not to spend any money on GOG until they clean up their act.
My main reason for halting my buying here is as follows:

I am a Galaxy fan, and there has not been any significant updates or development for far too long. I will not be spending here until I see substantial updates of the Galaxy client (i.e. New features, improvements on the features already present).

Several minor reasons:

The lack of communication with the community;
The support is mysteriously overwhelmed again;
Some decisions of the company I am not entirely comfortable with;

Edit: Another minor reason: GOG has promised integrations with the major stores. The integrations do not function properly, and probably never will, as GOG has obviously promised something they cannot do without the consent and cooperation of the other stores (that is why these crappy integrations are "community made").

That is all.

Good day

Interesting. Other than CDPrs antics with cyberpunk, Galaxy encompasses everything I am boycotting for. Online requirements for certain content, online only games, sales from epic, failure to get parity with offline installers, no resource put into anything but galaxy etc. In fact you can trace when most things start going bad right back to just before galaxy first release.

Well, everyone has their own reasons. I happen to be a customer that uses Galaxy. I am not satisfied with the lack of progress (some features of the old client are still missing). I only back up installers in case GOG goes belly up or if I happened to not have any internet connection (which is rare, and I cannot see myself being without any connection for a period longer than a week). Also, if games are very large it is nice to not download the whole 90 gb again (you can make back ups with steam as well). I guess since offline installers are not my main way of getting games, I was not aware of the issues related to them. That said, the money of a galaxy user is worth the same as the money of a non-galaxy user, and I feel like galaxy users have the same right to expectations as non-galaxy folks. If GOG knew they could't deliver both quality client and offline installers, then they shouldn't have offered the client in the first place...

Yes, that response is the norm. DRM free means putting the control back in your hands, and then you rely on the internet to store it for you. If gog switch off the servers (which they did before, and they have no reason not too) immediately, you have lost access, I.e. control is outside your hands, meaning your products are drm’d. Simply put, there used to be a choice, have the client and all those features by using steam, or don’t have those features and have drm free on gog. Gog is nothing now, not drm free (to a degree) and it’s not steam.
“ and I feel like galaxy users have the same right to expectations as non-galaxy folks.” - this line really made me laugh out loud. Gog does everything possible to push its client, only updates the client, pushes giveaways and such like out with the client, and favours it above everything else, and you are complaining you don’t have the same expectations as offline users? The website, the offline installers, all get nothing, the only update since galaxy came out was to change the installers to first include the whole of galaxy, and now just components and a galaxified installers. Galaxy users get everything!

I have to agree with this. From the point-of-view of a non-Galaxy-user, it seems that Galaxy is pretty much the only thing GOG has been dedicating any resources to over the past few years. The core website, forums never get any maintenance attention and there is a list somewhere of many offline installers that are behind the corresponding Galaxy versions.

It begs the question though: if Galaxy users are complaining about lack of maintenance of Galaxy ... what the heck are GOG spending their resources on?

Empty Witcher fandays, and pushing more DRM’d content. Sorry, yes, in before the usual lot turn up, online only content, not DRM because denuvo was not mentioned!

Perhaps every last penny is going into paying CDPrs top dogs huge bonuses for their “excellent” content production?