Offline installer please

[Uhuru N’Uru]

I'd like to buy this game, but not from Steam, or any online client.
My preference is DRM free from GOG.
My actual requirement is for an offline installer, from anywhere.
As long as no online client is required.

This is an SPG, but even if a multi-player mode exists, I want no part of it.
I buy a SPG to play the SPG, if I buy MPG, I only play MPG, but even then expect custom online functions built into the game, not Generic storenetcode, built to the lowest common denominator (Mediocrity incarnate).

Give me a means of buying your game, that's not forcing the client onto me.

To those who like Steam I say, that's fine, I don't want to stop you getting it on Steam.
Exclusives are now unacceptable to me, on any site. I want more choice , not less.
On 1st January 2016, i decided online clients were not acceptable, I stopped getting new games.

Fallout 4 and XCOM 2 were the last ones, I only got them for modding, which is ironic, as the complete unsuitability, of forcing updates, for modded games, s the main reason I hate using Steam, but I love modding, so nuch, and No Seam exe;s exist, just like Nthe NO CD ones I used to use, when I own the game, it's mine to mod how I like.

Not actually done that yet, but each time a dev patch, breaks my mods, i'm tempted.
DEv patch's are great, but mods need time to update, afdter a few days, I update the lot, and keep playing, on Steam, I have a brokren game, those type of updates I can do without.

I had 130 games on Steam, GOG releases have shrunk it to 86 games.

I immediately buy every Offline installer, for a game I own on Steam, which essentially means a GOG release, or direct from the Devs.
Then I can't give my Steam key away, so I enjoy destroying another Steam Game forever.

Note: I refuse to use Stean Guard, so I can Start a discussion on Steam, but I can't reply to any, not even those I started.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or what?

[Edit] Well I don't accept it's difficult to rip out uneccesarry online features, I wouldn't use or need rubbish that Steam adds. it's always been disabled on my PC.
No hassle to disable them in the code, a modder would do it easily. So disabling all the Steam features is fine. I say that "Can't" is a flat out lie.
Without an offline insraller, I will never play this game.

Dev loses the money, I keep it to pay, the many devs who do manage, quite easily, to support a Steam and GOG release, mostly small indies with much less success, than these devs had. they can do it, but made a feeble excuse not to.

Simple fact is online clients are unnaceptable to me, I wish I could get every game without such a client, even GOG's.
I'm done buying games on Steam, Origin Uplay, or any other client.
I made the same choice about consoles, 11 years ago.
I have never bought a console game since, now I apply the same rule to the PC.

I neither expect or care, what anyone else does, I've asked on the Forums, linked from the game page, that comes here, I wont beg or ask again,
Dev can keep on Steam and I'll play another game.

We all know I don't need to buy, to play, but I just won't play, at all. No big deal.

[VShadow]

If you don't want games updating, just set the game to not auto-update. Then, before playing the game through Steam, just make sure steam is in offline mode. As far as I'm aware, you can continue playing a game without updates for as long as you want that way.

[NoMercy Rider]

Hate to break it to you, but it's not going to happen. Tried to find the post directly from the developers, but it is just too much work with too little return on investment. In order to ship the game to DRM-free distributors like GOG, they would have to strip the game of several features that rely on Steamworks to function. After that point, they would have to test and support two separate updates to the game and is just too much for a small development team.

Croteam experimented with releasing games on GOG before... and sales compared to Steam were so abysmally low that they decided it wasn't worth investing time and money for future games.

[LeeC]

I usually check GOG before Steam for the same kind of reason. You should be able to just run the game without the client being active, especially if like myself, the client is nothing more than a game launcher. I have no friends, I never play online, yet I have to load up the shop (disguised as a client) before I can do so.

TBH though, it's leaking into non-Steam games as well. Take GTAV for instance, I bought the DVD version because I refuse to pay over £12 for a digital game. So you'd think that escapes the problem... however, because RockShark are trying to force online down your neck at every opportunity, you have to put up with the stupid Social Club thing all the time.

You can play offline, but once a week it will insist you log in. When you run GTAV, six processes are active and four of those are the social club. Then again, RockShark seem to treat single-player gamers like some kind of pariah, it's like our money isn't as good as those who play online.

So sadly, the only way to get client free games, is via GOG if you're lucky, or the proverbial backdoor. When you're a single-player gamer and get treated so badly by developers though, it's hard to put yourself on the developer's side of the fence... and I say that as an ex-developer.

[daniel.mantione]

I think the crux of the matter is that the account based DRM that Steam does, both satisfies users as well as developers. Few people have problems with Steam DRM, and while not that hard to crack, it is still effective in the way that many people prefer the legal supported way via Steam over the illegal and unsupported way via Bittorrent.

And yes, Steam has an off-line mode, so you can perfectly play your games when you happen to be without internet in the train.

If both users and developers are happy, why go through the trouble of doing alternative releases?

[TZODnmr2K5]

Originally posted by VShadow:

If you don't want games updating, just set the game to not auto-update. Then, before playing the game through Steam, just make sure steam is in offline mode. As far as I'm aware, you can continue playing a game without updates for as long as you want that way.

Steam auto-updates, even if you're on offline mode, the only way it won't is if you never go online again while steam is running, either in offline mode, or not.

Once you are connected to the internet while steam is running, steam automatically phones home so if you are online and switch steam to offline mode the client istself will still phone home and flag any game with an update as such, it will effectively lock you out of your game until you update it...You cannot play any game that is flagged for an update, period.

So steam will update your games whether you want to or not, it's mandatory!

And no, there will never be a non-steam DRM free version as they still frequently require varification on all their games even if it's been installed on your system for an extended period of time, you just might have to pass this title up until they decide otherwise...

Don't fret, there are plenty of DRM free games coming to gog, we even got every Tes and fallout game except for syrim/FO 4, so there is hope!

EDIT: Necro-posted for proper updated info!