when the game is fist launched (regardless if its through steam or not) the game will ask for the activation CD key codes which can be copied from steam. once the game (and 4/5 AI war add-on packs) has been activated the game will not require the CD key code again. even if the game has been moved to a different file, storage medium or onto a completely different computer. once the game has been activated during the first start-up ( on the original pc) that is it for life.

I hope this is useful and if not then just ask and ill try and explain it a bit better.

Also im sure that Cities In Motion 1 (not 2) is DRM free

I don't know if this really counts as a game, per say, but since No More Room In Hell is a Half-Life 2 mod, it can be run without Steam. To make it work, just copy the second "nmrih" folder (i.e., C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\nmrih\, and then the "nmrih" folder inside there, next to the "sdk" folder) into the "sdk" folder, use the Half-Life 2 Episodes trick earlier in this thread, and boom, you're good to go.

If you try to play the game with more than one player slot available, you get an error, so make sure you check the box to make the game think it's LAN-only, and also put "1" for the number of players. The game works, but at least on Windows, it's really choppy for some reason. I'm going to have to try the Linux version later.

Yep, it is. Confirmed

Could it be that you only have games for Mac? On which OS did you tried all these games?

Also, Cities in Motion has a lot of DLCs, do they work, too (if you have some)?

NMRIH is a game, so I would say, yes - even though only the singleplayer should work.
If it's a MO, it's not that surprising that only the singleplayer works because I thought most of the games on steam are using the steam servers for multiplayer.

And here another round of games working on Linux:
Gone Home
Hate Plus
Magical Diary
The 39 Steps

I suspect Retrovirus to be DRM-free, given that the completely DRM-free installer is perfectly capable of using Steamworks if you happen to have Steam running, so it's not likely that they have a separate Steam and non-Steam version. It'll take forever for me to download on Steam to test though. Can anyone else confirm?

I have these games on windows format.

also the DLC is simply added into the game files (rather than installed) so they are equally DRM free as well as long as you don't move (outwith the game folder) any of the folders that are installed along with the DLC.

also I did not check bionic dues but it is stated on the developers site that it can do this. http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/bionic-features
it states this bellow the video.

Whoah, cool! That's the first time I see something like this officially announced somewhere.
And thank you for your information, I updated the list.

P.S.: Does somebody know how to format things clean on wikia? I can't get the list/layout straight.

An update to my No More Room In Hell finding:

All you have to do is disable the in-game vsync, and the framerate is fine. For some reason, the vsync can only be enabled if it's running through Steam, and with more than one player. Enabling vsync through something like nVidia Control Panel should work just fine.
Okay, awesome. I know it started out as a mod, but I just wanted to make sure. As far as multiplayer goes, I was hoping it'd let me run it when checking "LAN Only," but even that didn't work.

I don't know for sure but I think all the old Square Enix releases on Steam are the same versions as we've got here. So they should be DRM-free.

ok. took me a while to realise that you had a wiki dedicated to the DRM free list. (now in favourites) you seem to have missed stating that the Cities in motion DLC is also DRM free.

Status report:

The whole page has been formatted a bit to the better, new categories of "DRM-free" games have been added, old games have been moved to the right categories, a few games from the depth of this thread have been added and a few games I confirmed under windows have been updated (Gone Home, Hate Plus, Magical Diary, The 39 Steps, Thomas was Alone).

I can't point this out enough: The link to list is here.

@pedrovay2003: I forgot NMRIH again to add...

Appreciate the work you've done with that page. In case someone hasn't pointed this out already: You can add the X-Superbox games to the list of patchable games.

I think we both should calm a bit down :). Does that seem okay?

There are a few things I can't follow in your post, so please allow me some (maybe dumb) questions:

- Which list do you refer to? The one the OP made? The one I merged on wikia? I really like discussions, but without proper and common (!) definitions it's no use. I refer to the wikia page, including the list the OP made in his first post and not considering the pastebin list. The pastebin list is a list I don't really trust. There is never stated if the games really run without Steam (even if they use CEG) nor on which OS it was tested. So I don't use it to exclude games. I usually do it the opposite round. All games are excluded until there is a sign it works.
- Where did you get that F2P is DRM? I cannot recall stating nor reading it anywhere...
- I really only can see FTL on the wikia list and I tried it and it works flawlessly on Windows and Linux. Am I missing something here?

I might said that DRM changes in time but you are clearly right, normally it's static. I just said it because FTL is now DRM free. And yep, the link was from page 18, you have an eagle eye, sir. That was when I stumbled upon this thread an decided to add to this discussion a proper list. But a own thread could be a good idea, never considered that, thanks.

Oh, at last: If you have some spare time and feel like testing games if they have DRM, feel free to share your results here or if you know that there are mistakes, please point them specifically out =).