[HN Gopher] Archiving Steam games for fun and profit
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Archiving Steam games for fun and profit
Author : LorenDB
Score : 130 points
Date : 2024-01-05 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lorendb.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (lorendb.dev)
| jesprenj wrote:
| Profit?
| raspyberr wrote:
| http://www.phrack.org/issues/49/14.html#article
| LorenDB wrote:
| You could technically profit by selling pirated copies of your
| games, but please don't :)
| cybrox wrote:
| If you intend to - and are able to - create and distribute
| cracks, downloading the game's depot in the first place
| should probably not be an issue you're facing. :)
| test6554 wrote:
| Profit can mean gaining personal benefit of any kind. Time
| savings, etc.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| There's also DepotDownloader as a more generic tool that lets you
| download anything from steam, including past version.
| https://github.com/SteamRE/DepotDownloader. Being more generic,
| it probably can't archive your whole library in one go.
|
| I use this to download historical versions of a game to help with
| reverse engineering to archive dialogue trees from a game
| https://dialogue.destiny.report
| techdmn wrote:
| One thing that drives me crazy is the current trend of never
| calling a game "done". It's one thing to ship bug fixes, but I'm
| talking about a constant stream of updates that add elements to
| the game, change the rules, change the balance, etc. I blame
| Minecraft for starting the trend, but Among Us and Polytopia come
| to mind as additional recent examples. It's weird when I start
| playing a game at, say, v1.6, really like it, then suddenly it
| can't be had anywhere because v1.7 is a different game.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| There's more games that can be called "done" now than ever
| before. Stop playing live service games and games that aren't
| actually finished, and you're good to go. There's more finished
| games on my Steam account that I'll ever have time to play, and
| I don't even have that many games.
|
| If you're annoyed by games that were better before an update,
| that's on you. Before online distribution you'd never even have
| a chance to experience them before they're "done". Now it's
| your own choice that you're complaining about.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| >I blame Minecraft for starting the trend
|
| >It's weird when I start playing a game at, say, v1.6, really
| like it, then suddenly it can't be had anywhere because v1.7 is
| a different game.
|
| Counter Strike immediately comes to mind but I'm sure there are
| earlier games than that.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I think Minecraft is a poor example to point to for this.
| Minecraft is a sandbox game, and doesn't have a story. While
| you can certainly decide your sandbox game is 'done', it
| doesn't have a endpoint that a story-driven game has.
|
| Minecraft also 'incredibly' has first-party support for
| downloading and playing any previous version of the game.
| There's and incredibly vibrant community playing the game on
| years old versions of the game (mainly for modding).
| bombcar wrote:
| Minecraft is perhaps the quintessential example of _how to do
| it right_ - you can play today on the latest, or you can
| download still-developed 1.7.10 modpacks (and play them on
| Java 21 if you want muahahah).
|
| Contrast this to World of Warcraft where you cannot play
| anything but the current latest (except via the now-released
| Classic, which still isn't the same as "preserve this version
| forever").
|
| Factorio has also been "never really done" but they work hard
| to make the modding interface (and especially save games)
| stable.
| piperswe wrote:
| Can you actually run 1.7.10 modpacks on Java 21? I thought
| 1.7 was stuck on Java 8
| bombcar wrote:
| You can, because 1.7.10 modders are _insane_.
|
| https://github.com/GTNewHorizons/lwjgl3ify
|
| https://wiki.gtnewhorizons.com/wiki/Installing_and_Migrat
| ing...
| piperswe wrote:
| Ah, makes sense it would be the GTNH people figuring that
| out
| shagie wrote:
| Paradox - Stellaris would be a good example of this.
|
| However, this gets into a question of game economics and "how
| do we keep paying developers?"
|
| The "buy, one and done, no patches ever, bye" model for game
| development gets "this game is abandoned" and the initial sales
| splurge doesn't always cover the cost of development. Thus
| you've got DLC. If there are servers to be hosted for
| multiplayer lobbies, that expense needs to be paid somewhere.
|
| So a constant trickle of updates / fixes / DLC / changes keeps
| the player base interested, and can provide the revenue stream
| to maintain those updates, fixes and servers.
|
| On the other hand, looking at Stellaris DLC (or Crusader Kings)
| and you go "I'm gonna pay _how_ much for that game? " while
| players who started from the start see it more as a "pay $20 /
| year for something new added to the game".
| bombcar wrote:
| The usual way that is handled is every few years release a
| "catchup pack" for $x that gets you to a DLC or two behind,
| which looks like a good deal to new players and old players
| can ignore because they have most of it already.
| shagie wrote:
| Aka "Steam {season} sale"
|
| This season didn't put Stellaris on sale, but I not
| infrequently see 50% off on it.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| It has some advantage, The games are growing with the
| community, improving on what the players are doing with it. And
| the company is usually making more money long term, as the
| constant improvement creates more attention and satisfied
| customers who will spread the message. I think to some degree
| this is also mirroring what the players often are doing
| unofficially with mods. Among Us, bus also Minecraft is very
| guilty of this.
| jzb wrote:
| Indeed. Most games seem to be targeted at folks who have all
| the time in the world and play games daily. If I'm _very_ lucky
| I get a few hours on the weekend and maybe an hour or two
| during the week. It 's frustrating to sit down and think, "OK,
| time to have some fun" and then be met with "game has 500MB of
| updates" and so forth.
| sizeofchar wrote:
| It is as old as MMORPGs, at least. In 2001 you couldn't play
| Ultima Online like you did in 1998.
| jdsully wrote:
| Starcraft was doing that in the 90s including the tweaks to
| balance the different races. IMO it made the game better as
| clear imbalances got fixed over time.
| milesvp wrote:
| Interestingly the balance was for multiplayer and they didn't
| update single player missions to accommodate the changes. I
| liked to replay the single player campaign periodically, and
| there was one base infiltration mission that became insanely
| difficult due to the balance changes. I'm fuzzy on the
| details but it was related to static defense buffs (protoss
| cannons if I recall), that meant the limited number of units
| you were stuck with for the mission couldn't reliably get
| past what was supposed to be a simple blockade without
| significantly upping your micro game.
| bonton89 wrote:
| Starcraft is mostly fine since the place where the changes
| really matter was multiplayer and those games are ephemeral.
|
| Awhile back I was playing through darkest dungeon and they
| did two rebalances that changed how most characters work. I
| had spent time leveling up characters and building teams only
| to have the game change out from under me. It was annoying
| even if the final rebalance was better since I made decisions
| that were based on obsolete information.
| Contortion wrote:
| Stellaris
|
| I've lost track of how many times I've had to relearn that
| game.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Totally true-- but that went from a game I could barely stand
| to one I really love. It is a much deeper game today then the
| one they first released. I am OK with them updating it for
| that reason.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Software and products changed fundamentally when ubiquitous
| internet access rolled out. Now every such product comes with a
| string attached (figuratively but literally), be it a game, a
| robot vacuum or a car.
| peruvian wrote:
| This is a trend because it's an incredibly successful business
| model and most gamers want new content delivered monthly or so.
| They might not like the company or pricing, but Gaas/live
| service is popular for a reason.
|
| There's also plenty of new games that are "one and done"
| outside of patches, probably more than ever.
| politelemon wrote:
| > Seriously, while I don't expect Steam to disappear tomorrow
|
| So this has me curious but what if Steam did disappear tomorrow,
| or they banned your account accidentally... wouldn't the archive
| be un-runnable? Or is there some way to run those archived games
| without Steam?
| fsmv wrote:
| Most steam games other than AAA ones with their own launcher
| and extra DRM actually run perfectly fine without steam if you
| just click the executable in the folder
| admax88qqq wrote:
| Try it without steam installed, I think most of them still
| load steam.dll if steam is not actively running.
| notpushkin wrote:
| There are libsteam_api replacements that stub API calls to
| Steam. It should be possible to use those to let your games
| run without Steam. (Obviously, you should only use this on
| the games you own and make sure you don't break your local
| copyright laws.)
| politelemon wrote:
| Interesting I did a search and found this, it seems to
| try to emulate the Steam 'environment'
|
| https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/blob/mas
| ter...
| dns_snek wrote:
| I've tried this before - it works for games that don't go
| out of their way to add more than the baseline level of
| protection offered by Steam (which, I think, is most of
| them).
|
| It's easy to test, just exit Steam and try to launch the
| game (.exe) with Goldberg installed. If Steam doesn't
| open, it's working.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| There are a few of these and Goldberg is my preferred
| method. Most games that enforce a check beyond this
| default are also trivially bypassed with another
| application that simply rips the validation out in the
| first place.
|
| There are also quite a few games that don't institute any
| validation and will happily run without steam at all.
| It's up to the developer to enable either level of
| validation and many don't.
|
| The only games on steam that have any meaningful DRM are
| the ones that go out of their way to do so. Nothing about
| steam is actually meant to serve as DRM that is more than
| paper thin. Valve tried to make a push a lot time ago
| with the custom executable generation technology around
| the time Civ 5 came out (2010) and it didn't hold up for
| long and the appetite was not there.
|
| Broadly speaking only Denuvo and very niche solutions for
| obscure games that are completely homespun (so the demand
| just isn't there for people to properly crack them) are
| the only pure DRM being used on steam now.
|
| (I own over 1500 games on steam to be clear, I do however
| often pirate games to try them out because 2 hours is a
| pretty narrow window for most games, especially the ones
| I enjoy. I buy what hooks me.)
| grotorea wrote:
| I haven't tried that all that much but I don't remember that
| being my experience. PCGamingWiki has a list for games for
| which this is true
| https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_DRM-
| Free_G... and you can check individual games if the steam
| store version has DRM and it feels like a small minority of
| games.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| cyberpunk 2077 doesn't need steam after you've downloaded
| it
| chmod775 wrote:
| CDPR leadership has repeatedly gone on record about their
| loathing of DRM, so that doesn't surprise me.
|
| They also run GOG, which is mostly DRM-free games.
| Another major recent title available DRM-free on GOG is
| Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian.
|
| The common theme for both studios seems to be that they
| don't use a publisher, which is the likely reason neither
| add garbage like Denuvo to their games. I feel like
| DRM/no-DRM might be a good indicator for whether
| developers or MBAs were in control of a project.
| jadbox wrote:
| I had no idea CDPR also owned GOG!
|
| "GOG.com is a digital distribution platform for video
| games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a
| wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Warsaw,
| Poland."
| chaostheory wrote:
| Gog?
| LorenDB wrote:
| I don't use GOG, but somebody on Reddit linked this:
| https://github.com/MattMills/gog_content_system_downloader
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I need one for bigfishgames
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Given how slow GOG downloads for me, that is going to take a
| while.
| m463 wrote:
| I have used this tool: https://github.com/eddie3/gogrepo
|
| I have a system with a bunch of VMs on it.
|
| I run this script and sync all games to a games partition on
| the machine.
|
| Then I can mount the disk in a VM and install and play the
| games.
|
| For example, I have a windows 11 vm without a network device,
| and can play with no annoying updates, no nags, no games
| phoning home.
|
| I got annoyed because some games phone home (anything built
| on unity), and others have spyware (check out kerbal space
| program)
|
| I have a steam library from years ago, I wonder if I can do
| something similar to play offline
| MoSattler wrote:
| Once everything is downloaded and archived, will this enable me
| to play the game without it having to talk to the steam servers?
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Depends on the game. Often the main exe still launches steam
| for bootstrapping.
| RunningDroid wrote:
| IIRC, this is mostly because the example for initializing the
| steam API library causes a crash when the library isn't
| available. As a result, a fairly common "crack" is to drop in
| a DLL that provides dummy functions.
| test6554 wrote:
| I've accumulated quite a few steam games over the years (300+)
| and one thing that bugs me is how only one player can play any
| game in your library at a time. I can't play one game while my
| son plays another even though I bought both.
|
| I've tried setting up different accounts for each game I buy, but
| switching between accounts crashed my computer. Ideally there
| would be a steam launcher launcher where you pick the game and it
| launches steam into the correct account for you. It sets any
| settings/preferences as well. Each game would be installed in
| different locations on the file system.
|
| If I have 10 games, I have 10 accounts. I play on one pc with one
| account and my son plays with another account on his pc. But then
| I can switch to a different game my son was just playing by using
| his account after he stops and he can play a different game on
| yet another account. All rightly and fairly paid for.
|
| As it stands, I've bought a couple games from Steam competitors
| just so I could for sure play them when my son is gaming.
| pjc50 wrote:
| That's odd, I thought the intention of Steam family sharing was
| precisely to enable that use case.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Maybe it should, but that's not how it currently works. You
| share at the _account_ level, and only one user can be using
| (read: playing a game) an account at a time.
|
| Personally, I get around this by using Offline Mode, but I
| know that workaround doesn't work in all cases, such as
| playing an multiplayer game while you kid plays something
| else.
| parasti wrote:
| I think this was the original idea that quickly mutated into
| "how do we stop the rampant account sharing enabled by this
| feature".
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| A feature that works at the intersection of actual parents
| who want to let their actual minor children in their actual
| household play games and random friend groups who are
| unrelated to each other except for shared Netflix passwords
| is really hard to locate.
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| You can play someone else's shared library if they're offline
| ;)
|
| And you can be offline and still play most singleplayer games,
| so enjoy!
| forward1 wrote:
| Unfortunately the Steam client is simply abysmal offline.
| Even basic functionality such as caching game title
| thumbnails and viewing screenshots appears to be nerfed on
| purpose. You can't view your own achivements. Some games
| simply won't launch on the Deck offline. Now I will always
| try to buy a game on GOG first if it's available to avoid
| this sort of DRM.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| So your plan is to stop using a client that is abysmal
| offline in order to avoid a problem that's only "better" on
| the other client because it doesn't implement it at all ?
| forward1 wrote:
| Yes, on principle, against user-hostile software
| development practices.
| iamcreasy wrote:
| Recently I was playing a game on my Steamdeck through family
| share for a week. I only used suspend and wake feature while
| in the game, and never closed the game process. I later found
| out the owner refunded the shortly after purchase, but Steam
| did not kick me out of the game. I finished the game, and I
| was online the whole time.
|
| On a separate occasion, I played a game for 10 hours through
| family share, and then decided to get a copy of my own.
| Wanted to return it after 15 min, but Steam won't let me
| because it is considering prior 10 hours play time makes me
| ineligible for 2 hour refund window.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I was under the impression you could lend games to another
| account. So you and your son each have your own account, you
| lend him one of your games, and he can play it while you are
| playing a different game.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Not that I know, only family sharing. My wife and I have the
| same issue
| alt227 wrote:
| Yes, however the 'leant' game to your friend can only be
| played whilst you yourself are not playing any games on your
| account.
|
| Basically the rule is you can share and lend your games, but
| only 1 game from your account can be played at any one time.
| DistractionRect wrote:
| For a lot of games you can simply copy out of Steamapps/common
| and run the exe and it'll run like a standalone copy.
|
| For games that use steam features, you can drop in a steam
| emulator[0] to shim the API calls. I use this for when I want
| to run multiple versions of the base game with different mods.
|
| Typically this works fine as long as there's no real
| Drm/anticheat (which is common in multi player games but rare
| for single player).
|
| So this should allow you to clone parts of your library for
| your son to play (as well as consolidate your many accounts).
|
| [0]
| https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/blob/master...
| pixxel wrote:
| I buy games via Steam and then grab a DRM-free backup
| elsewhere. Same with movies and music. I own my media just like
| the good old days.
| crtasm wrote:
| Good to throw GOG some money too, to support selling games
| with offline installers and no DRM.
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| Epic Games store only has a 15% cut vs Steams 30%
| pixxel wrote:
| I like Steam, including the work they've done with
| Linux/Proton and their hardware access. I wouldn't give
| Tencent Epic Games a single penny.
| Arroyommerel wrote:
| > Games 1 through 9 aren't on the platform anymore
|
| I would just like to add that Steam assigns ten IDs to an app,
| making appID 10 the first game, 20 the second, and so on.
|
| Though Steam has delisted games, they are still available from
| one's user library, provided they have a valid license for it.
| If, for any reason, it's not visible in the library, one could
| use the DepotDownloader[0] to download any version, past or
| current, directly from Steam's servers. I've had some fun with
| it, visiting release versions of favorite games, seeing how much
| they've changed.
|
| Great script! This will definitely help some game archiving
| enthusiasts.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/SteamRE/DepotDownloader
| jquery wrote:
| I mean, this is one way to archive. The way I did it was just to
| use the steam client and shift-right click install everything I
| wanted to backup on a compressed drive. The games aren't actually
| installed until you run them for the first time.
|
| Gog, on the other hand, doesn't let you do this, so I resorted to
| lgogdownloader.
| LorenDB wrote:
| As I mentioned in my post, I wanted to archive directly to my
| server and due to the (rather unique) circumstances I wasn't
| able to run Steam on the server.
| aperrien wrote:
| You can download the independent installers for all games on
| GOG either through their website directly, or through the GOG
| launcher. I regularly do this to have the installers for my
| games on my local NAS.
| butz wrote:
| Is anyone removing launchers from games for fun and profit?
| ProfessorZoom wrote:
| IIRC, Steam removes games from the store, not your library. I
| have tons of games, like Deadpool for example, on Steam that have
| been removed from the store for like ten years but I can still
| download it
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