I was thinking about steam and drm and was wondering can't you just back up the games installed(except for 3rd party drm with denuvo,etc) and wouldn't have to worry about Steam? Am I missing something?

It is the same as apple store music, you can download the music you like/own from the store to a device of your choosing but once their apple tune store app is removed from your pc their.... your music won't work either. And... it is not that you can't use a music player of your choice to play those same files if the apple app is installed

Yes, your missing a few key parts.
1) your purchase a license to use product, not ownership of the files.
2) steam ceg does not work without connection to steam.
3) you have to use the steam client to download (although there are options now), which is 3rd party control.

So yes, there are quite a few games from steam, and epic, you can call drm free:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/epic_store_games_you_can_play_without_the_epic_launcher
(There is a steam thread as well I can’t find right now).

I assume nightcraw1er meant this thread:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/steam_games_you_can_play_without_the_steam_client

+1

iTunes music hasn't had any DRM for, what, 15 years? 20? You're free to play it anywhere, anytime, on anything. Like GOG. Not like Steam at all.

Only some games https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

the only thing not mentioned by others is installers - or lack of them (and therefore file size compression in most cases).


Edit: forgot - not all the "DRM Free" games are portable due to registry entries from installation and of course the required dependencies (no longer stored in the games individual folders).

Yes, Steam's own DRM... ;-) Ignoring games on the DRM-Free list above, most other games on Steam come with 1 layer (Steam client check) or 2-layers (Steam client check + CEG) of Steam's own DRM. Any 3rd party stuff added is usually in addition to this, not in place of it (and lack of 3rd party DRM doesn't mean lack of Steam's own DRM).

The Steam client's Offline Mode doesn't make games DRM-Free because the check is still happening, is actively managed by the client and can be broken by hardware upgrade. CEG in particular ties the game's custom unique .exe's to your motherboard's unique hardware ID (same thing Windows OEM licenses are tied to), so the game would stop working if you changed motherboard (thus proving the DRM is always active even for offline mode, the 'not needing an online check' effect is just temporarily hidden). The "litmus test" for this stuff is 1. Running without any client at all, and 2. Being portable between PC's of different hardware.

Interesting, I didn't know about CEG being tied to hardware ID. When it's doing a check is that online or something that got installed while installing the game and it checks even with no internet connection? btw how did you find out about this check steam does even in offline mode?

Basic Steam DRM - The game calls on the Steam client (usually via steam_api.dll) and do an online DRM check for the "subscriber's" account. In Offline Mode, the Steam Client pre-caches some client account information locally and calls on that instead. Offline Mode has been broken in the past by Windows / GPU driver updates, hardware changes and numerous other things and is certainly no substitute for being DRM-Free.

CEG DRM - In addition to above, the game is shipped to the "subscriber" minus the game's normal .exe. At the end of the installation, the client will do a hardware check for the unique ID of the motherboard the client is running on (same thing OEM Windows licenses are locked to), uploads that to Steam 3 DRMS Server which in turn uses that unique ID to create and download a Custom Executable unique to each user that will always check when starting the game to see if the motherboard the game is running on matches. These motherboard HW checks occur whenever your game is run, regardless of whether the computer is connected to the Internet or not. If it doesn't match (eg, you upgraded hardware), it'll refuse to run unless the client is allowed to download a newly created DRM'd .exe that's locked to the new motherboard.

If you buy music on itunes you don't need itunes, it will work with anything.

You're a good example of people being their own DRM. Tell enough people (often enough) that something exists and they start believing it, and acting accordingly.
Copy protection (DRM) on music purchases has been tried in the past and (mostly) abandoned. Further efforts weren't even needed! The masses has been adopting streaming (renting) without much 'enforcement' necessary.

thats correct, but there is a doc in all steam games tthat containes the infor needed so you can enter them manualy. off coure, it deprends on how confertable you are with wditing the registirry yourself.