Steam is the video game store that has allowed the PC to remain as one more gaming platform within the current panorama in which it competes with PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo. However, it suffers from a cardinal sin that many users do not forgive, such as the need to be connected almost always to verify the legitimacy of the game that we want to launch.
The famous DRM
This need to verify with the servers that the legality of the copy that we have installed works thanks to the DRM that the game carries and that prevents us from launching it anywhere other than through the ecosystem devised by Valve . This removes any possibility (for now) that in the future, once the platform itself closes, our purchases will be available if the servers are taken down.
That fear has led many gamers to prefer options like GoG. The CD Projekt RED store has always been transparent in this regard or allows us to download DRM-free versions to the PC that we can install, copy and manipulate their files anywhere without having to carry a connection on our backs that verifies all the time that that purchase belongs to us. What’s more, the best of all is that we can make a backup and rest easy for the next few years.
So why are we talking about DRM-free games on Steam? Well, because GoG, until recently, had a download program linked to the Valve store that was the jewel in the crown of PC users.
Goodbye GoG Connect
GoG quite discreetly launched an initiative that tried to bring Steam users to its store. And the way he devised was as cool as it was risky: offer a DRM-free digital copy of purchases they had on Steam through GoG Connect . You only had to connect the two libraries so that the CD Projekt RED store would add those titles you had purchased (not all of them were there) and offer you the opportunity to download them without paying an extra euro.
This allowed thousands of users to finally have backup files of their purchases in the Valve store, even if it was in another application, to store them on personal hard drives, their own servers or in their contracted cloud services… but the dream ended . And it has done so suddenly, without warning from the Poles who have turned off the GoG Connect faucet overnight. Maybe due to pressure from Valve? Through the intercession of the distributors themselves who were seeing how they lost the option of selling a few more units?
Be that as it may, the players who knew about the existence of GoG Connect have been left with a span of noses and returning to the harsh reality that all their purchases on Steam have a DRM like a castle that prevents them, in the future, from counting with their own versions capable of running without having to be connected to the internet.
That said, goodbye to the dream of DRM-free games on Steam. Again.