Because it must happen to everyone for it to be true.

Steam offline mode is really, really bad and has rarely worked for me.

I don't know for the list to be honest, for defense grid, I thought it was the same case as Defense grid 2. Here, at the 6.DRM :
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hiddenpath/defense-grid-2/posts/991671
It could be different for Defense grid 1. I'm quite sure it has been sold drm-free by the past, but now I'm not certain if it was DRM-free on steam or not. Just noticed the "you should be able to play offline" by the way. :)

Well... Don't really care :)
A service drm-free only when it wants to is of no use to me. :)

No worries, and thank you. If it did work as advertised, then you should have been able to play by quitting steam first and running it from the executable directly, but it is possible that it's not as DRM-Free as advertised.

That can well be. Just because Steam was not asking me to update for some time doesn't mean it could have asked. Maybe it just didn't want to but wants now. On the other hand I tried my best to stop Steam with the inbuilt Windows firewall. I know I stopped at least 2 steam components and shut down a Windows service but maybe not more. Harden the Steam offline mode and make it really offline seems to be a tough job indeed.

What makes it more difficult for me is that with the Windows firewall you cannot whitelist, only blacklist. With a whitelist mode I might have a lot to do for all the other programms but blocking Steam would be definitely easier.

So maybe this is an interplay effect of sneaky Steam and porous Windows. But still even then, Steam knows that I want to stay in offline mode. Still it disregards my wishes. I feel like not being in control. Of course they do not do what I want, so I will not regard them when buying games - couldn't be simpler.

To sum it up: Normal people have a hard time ensuring that Steam mode is really offline and after some time usually Steam finds a way. There might be ways to keep Steam off the internet but that is quite complex to achieve.

To also sum it up. Current tests so far (StingingVelvet and OldFatGuy) show that Steam can work indefinitely in offline mode while the computer is actually offline. If the computer is online, offline mode may at some point require going online to update itself, because it has become aware of an update. Further tests require to see if it's possible to properly block steam while keeping the computer online, and if Steam will then stay in offline mode indefinitely or not.

I am pretty much always offline, unless i need to play a match of CSGO pretty much. I didn't link FFXIV with Steam so i play with its standard client.

While not fully explaining the nature of my beliefs, I'll still let Ash give you my feelings on Steam offline mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-gJMs6DwuE

These are not the only possibilities. For example did you try all these things? If not you may not see any problems but it would neither have anything to do with luck nor with lying. Or maybe you tried these things but then always when Steam wanted to connect you let it.

I just complain that Steam is not respecting my wish to use a game in offline mode. If you don't use it then you probably never have this problem. But accusing me of lying is not nice. Then I prefer if you call yourself a lucky guy. ;)
Just an as afterthought. From a purely practical perspective it doesn't matter much, what something is designed for. The thing that matters in real life is what you can use it for.

Problem with the Steam offline mode is that chances are high you will need to go online from time to time. It minimizes the online checks but not completely erases them. As a pure offline mode it might be dysfunctional on computers connected to the internet. A reliable recipe to harden Steams offline mode is currently not easily available. And Steam is definitely not respecting the offline mode in all cases. If somehow it gets to know that it should update and will go to online mode. I guess this could already be seen as kind of a design flaw.

Oh I never claimed the contrary. The argument with timppu was nearly purely semantics and dissection of a single sentence of Steam's dev.

i have been running steam in offline mode on a old pc for more than 6 months , i never connect that pc to the internet since its running windows xp and ms dropped support. so its still running stuff in online mode games on steam that run better in windows xp .

The main thing is that from using offline mode frequently what i have seen is if you close the client properly using exit it will go into offline mode with a high probably next time you dont have internet connection.

However if you crash your client the chances of it booting into offline mode next time are far lower , i already sent a message to steam support about it . It might get fixed when half life 3 comes out :P

Seriously though from my experience offline mode = works fine if you shutdown the client properly last time aka via exit .
offline mode = screws up if you crash the client or force close it in the wrong way.

While I can't follow the discussion through my smartphone right now (too many pages/ quotes etc.), I would like to share my experience. I have Steam installed on my PC and I have bought the licence to run 7 games I would like to play and couldn't find them DRM-Free. (Not a fan of Steam BTW and I doubt I'll buy any more games in the future - it was just for these games only* I had to accept this DRM platform).

I've been using Steam in offline mode without any problems so far eg. phoning back home or requesting to go online for some reason. My windows pc does not have access to the internet - I use Linux for that. So, the last game I've installed was more than a year ago and I could play any of my games without the need to go online in that timeframe. I just went online to install the game patches (all my steam games are retail dvd editions straight from the bargain bin ;-) ), then clicked offline and it didn't bothered me since then.

Recently I won a GA here on GOG and the prize was CK2 so after all that time I went again online to download the game, then again I pressed "Offline mode" and all went well.. Nearly a month passed and it didn't forced me to go online or something like that since then.

I'm not writing all this to convince you to join steam or say that steam is good. Actually I don't like Steam (not even 1%) but had to deal with it to play Skyrim plus some other games. (* if you're curious: Dishonored, Borderlands 2, Shogun 2, Human Revolution, XCOM: Enemy Uknown, Half-Life 2). I'm just writing all these to say that at least for me, offline mode works good enough. (At least for now)

My 2c. - cheers!

Edit: yep, I wrote the above wall of text using a 4" screen... freaking touchscreens..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine

Ah, if only we could return to the good old days of only having to load windows and click on an EXE file.

We live far enough out that our internet is measured.
Online games are out of the question, they would eat up
our data limit in one evening or less.

M ostly play old games and GOG games that do not require internet.
I an able to download the GOG games at work, they have high speed
and unlimited internet.

I do not like someone "spying" on my game playing time, nor
have a ability to "call back" the game/book(aka Amazon).

I still have discs from the early 90s that still work.
(Have to use an old DOS/Win 95 machine we still have)

Hello there.

I was a huge fan of Steam, I used to say it was the only reasonable DRM... that was before I started working on a ship (no internet for months sometimes).

The offline mode never worked, so I had to "find a way" to get my games working. It was an absurd because I bought all the games and I had to look at shady and potentially risky means to play them. It seems Valve never fixed the offline mode, I can't say for sure though since I've never bought any other game on Steam.

The 'offline' players are a minority on Steam and Valve only look at the numbers. We certainly are <1% so there's absolutely no respect for us.

GOG on the other side is just brilliant... I only think it could have more anti-piracy protections, because piracy is running wild for GOG games and it's a fact that more pirates=less buyers, and less buyers=pricier games (sorta). And some games in GOG are kinda pricey imho.

GOG is hassle-free for both buyers and pirates... the ideal would be something hassle-free for buyers and hassle-filled for pirates. Steam is getting hassle-filled for buyers and hassle-free for pirates (except online features, Steam games are pirated on day 0, with unlocked extras and dlcs included), and most other distribution services (specially from big companies) are exactly like that. They make you regret not having pirated their games because the pirates are happily enjoying their games while you are dealing with their moronic DRMs.