this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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This is why anytime I buy content like this, I mirror it locally. DVDs, CDs, videos, music, whatever. GoG and Steam both allow local offline copies. Storage is cheap and not only can I continue to play these items if the store goes away, but I can also access them where and when I want thanks to things like Plex and Jellyfin.
What do you mean that Steam allows a local offline copy? You can switch Steam to offline mode, but I haven't heard of an "Offline Copy". It would certainly be useful for some games.
You can make backups of games through the backup and restore menu. I assume that's what he means, unless he's referring to the limited selection of Drm free games
Steam DRM is about the equivalent of having a lock that you can open with either a key or a security torx driver, it's not even riveted much less cast in one piece.
Are those backups playable?
If you then restore them into Steam, yes.
So, they still require Steam to run, so it's not really an offline copy, it's a backup that you could restore if the files got corrupted and you didn't just want to re-download it. But, it still requires Steam, etc?
Yes. Was just explaining what was available / suggested by OP. It's definitely not the same as a DRM-free backup
So, I’ve got a vm setup to booth and do steam auto installs with steam running periodically. It can be set to offline mode and in such a mode, if another machine on my network needs to pull the install it will do so locally from that vm without going on it to the internet. If I block external access, again steam will pull from that machine to install on my main gaming machine. Periodic backups of the machine makes sure that I have full installs ready to go for any of my truly offline machines.
It’s actually pretty cool to get gig speeds installing something from steam because it’s already somewhere on my local network.
It’s not as nice as GoG though. Definitely recommend that method if you can.