Posted September 24, 2021
high rated
NOTICE - For want of a better name, the following program was called Steam Games List. I have been working on an updated version, that also supports DRM-Free games at Epic, so my program will be renamed to Epic Steam Cure ... or ESC ... escape if you will from the tyranny of DRM.
As many of you know, some games at Steam are or can be made a version of DRM-Free, especially amongst the many Indie games provided at Steam.
Reasons Why GOG Is Still Better for DRM-Free (in my opinion)
(1) Offline Installers, which are much smaller in size than an installed game folder.
(2) Straight download, no installing and having to back up a much larger folder.
(3) Don't need to be logged into another OS to download the game for that OS.
(4) Everything that might be required, is in the Offline Installer, looked after by the install routine.
(5) No waiting for the Steam Client to do its verification checks and download an update.
(6) Doesn't support the DRM model in any way, as it doesn't encourage it when buying at GOG.
(7) Updates & Patches are far simpler and less troublesome to backup. They won't maybe turn your game into a DRM one.
(8) You don't need to search a listing to find out if a game is possibly DRM-Free.
(1) Steam game versions are often more up-to-date and better supported than at GOG.
(2) Steam often have a lot of free games, many of them being DRM-Free.
(3) Steam version is often cheaper than the same game at GOG.
(4) Games you just cannot get at GOG, that are essentially DRM-Free.
The Steam Store is a fact of life, and let's face it, most gamers use it, and individually we can have no impact on it, and even collectively we would have very little if any real impact on it, so why deny ourselves some benefit, especially if its for free.
Now maybe some, even many perhaps, are quite content to just backup the install folders of Steam games that are reputedly DRM-Free. Maybe you don't have many of them, or you have plenty of drive space and can easily afford more, so you don't much care about the space issue. Maybe some of you don't even mind using the Steam Client to get your games (installed).
There Are Ways Though To Improve The Situation With DRM-Free Games At Steam
Steam provide a command-line version of the Steam Client, called SteamCMD.
SteamCMD does all the similar verification and updating of itself, just like the Steam Client, but you miss out on the bloat of the GUI version, and so usage is often much quicker.
To use SteamCMD though, you need to know what you are doing scripting wise.
In light of that scripting requirement etc, I have made my own much simpler GUI for SteamCMD, that has additional benefits to improve the disparity between Steam DRM-Free and GOG DRM-Free.
My program for now, is called 'Steam Games List', and can be downloaded from GitHub.
Reasons To Use My Program
(1) It grabs the full list of the games you own at Steam, lists them alphanumerically in an easy to browse scrolling List or use the search option.
(2) It downloads the data from two sites (currently) that list which games are or can be made DRM-Free at Steam, and what you may need to do to make them so.
(3) You can select a game on the List, and it will indicate whether it is DRM-Free, and shows notes about that, including what you need to do, if anything.
(4) You can also search for DRM-Free games on the List, by enabling that checkbox to the left of the search (FIND) button.
(5) You can choose which of the two DRM-Free listings is currently active.
(6) Buttons next to fields provide benefits like going to an online Steam game page or DRM-Free listing or downloading the game icon image or saving DRM-Free notes.
(7) Simply and easily download your Steam game to a folder of your choice.
(8) Backup your installed Steam game folder to another location, either as a folder or two choices of zipped (compressed) method - 7Z or EXE.
(9) Both zipping options use 7-Zip to compress to either a 7Z file or EXE self extracting file with a basic install menu. Both also split to multiple files at need ... currently set to 2 Gb maximum, but I am considering adding other options in an update, including changing from the default compression level (percent). DONE - See the notes for v1.2.
(10) Easier to backup a much smaller zipped file than a folder, taking up much less space in the process.
(11) Various other minor but useful things (i.e. Log record).
Here is a screenshot of my program in LESS mode
https://github.com/Twombs/Steam-Games-List/blob/main/Main_GUI_less.png?raw=true
Here is a screenshot of my program in MORE mode
https://github.com/Twombs/Steam-Games-List/blob/main/Main_GUI_more.png?raw=true
INFO - https://github.com/Twombs/Steam-Games-List
DOWNLOADS - https://github.com/Twombs/Steam-Games-List/releases
DISCLAIMER - While I have tried to ensure that nothing untoward happens, you use my program at your own risk (no guarantees). Third Party programs which have no ties to myself are required for some processes to work (i.e. 7-Zip, SteamCMD and TeraCopy).
Please feel free to give feedback, especially if there is an improvement you know about. Posting stats similar in style to those below, but for other games, would also be nice and possibly helpful.
Enjoy!
Stats For Games I Have Backed Up So Far (on my low powered PC)
10 second ninja x
Downloaded and installed in 2 mins 39 secs.
Installed Size = 307 Mb.
Zipped Size = 190 Mb
Zipping Time = 9 mins 1 sec.
Downloaded and installed in 6 mins 4 secs.
Installed Size = 636 Mb (303 + 333).
Zipped Size = 480 Mb
Zipping Time = No need, two zip files were downloaded and leftover after extraction (installation).
NOTES - Even though the website specified 300 Mb of space required, it proved to be much more than that, as two versions of the game were downloaded & extracted (installed), a LOW version and HIGH version. So along with the leftover zip files, took up 1.08 Gb.
Downloaded and installed in 3 mins 25 secs.
Installed Size = 1.34 Gb.
Zipped Size = 163 Mb
Zipping Time = 14 mins 27 secs.
NOTE - That is a huge amount of compression, and a great saving of space.
Average PCs these days will be much faster at the compressing, than my old web browsing PC, which also only has USB 2.0. So expect to get much better results than me, especially if you have a faster web connection.
Post edited October 15, 2021 by Timboli
