Running a steam game without steam

[Nover]

I'm looking to run a game I have on steam, like ARK Survival Evolved, without ever looking at steam. Is it possible to put my games somewhere else, and never think of steam again?

[eram]

Publicado originalmente por feytharn:

Publicado originalmente por eram:

As opposed to playing with steam, so without steam. What you trying to say?

He did not tell him to leave Steam and play on console. He told him that if he wanted to (leave/not use) Steam and play Ark, he could only do so on console. That is something very different.

Glad we agree, was told to check it out on console not use steam.

[feytharn]

Publicado originalmente por eram:

Publicado originalmente por feytharn:

He did not tell him to leave Steam and play on console. He told him that if he wanted to (leave/not use) Steam and play Ark, he could only do so on console. That is something very different.

Glad we agree, was told to check it out on console not use steam.

OP said he didn't want to use Steam. No one told him not to use Steam.

[Sammy]

Publicado originalmente por Nover:

Publicado originalmente por ReBoot:

Start the game from Windows' start menu. Or stop playing drama queen.

Maybe you could explain your stupid ass answer?

ReBoot, like many posters on this forum, are serial Steam white knights and apologists. Because your post seems vaguely anti-Steam, he jumped into this thread to insult you in the name of Steam. Really quite pathetic seeing as he isn't even a mod.

[[SK] Kaldaien]

Publicado originalmente por Start_Running:

Publicado originalmente por ReBoot:

Start the game from Windows' start menu. Or stop playing drama queen.

This. When you install a game you have the option of creating a desktop shortcut, and a startmenu icon. If you did not you can simply do that from the library.

Either one of these options is going to use steam://rungameid/<AppIdHere>.

Since the only software that recognizes steam:// URIs is Steam, Windows is going to start Steam if it's not already running and then Steam is going to launch the appropriate executable for the AppId's default run command.

[Brian9824]

Publicado originalmente por eram:

when moderators are telling you to leave steam and play on console you know it's bad.

Except no moderator said that. The moderator did say how he could have steam minimized and run the game without having to go into steam.

However that developer does not allow the game to be run without steam being open. So it has nothing to do with steam and Ark's developer's are requiring you to have steam open to play it.

Publicado originalmente por eram:

Publicado originalmente por feytharn:

He did not tell him to leave Steam and play on console. He told him that if he wanted to (leave/not use) Steam and play Ark, he could only do so on console. That is something very different.

Glad we agree, was told to check it out on console not use steam.

Someone is trying to troll and doing a piss poor job. He was never told to not use steam

Publicado originalmente por Spawn of Totoro:

You can have Steam start minimized with your system and keep a desktop icon on your desktop for ARK. Then you can start ARK with out having to look or think about Steam.

[Sir Czexican]

There are a few games that are actually DRM free or can be run standalone and don't require you to run steam after installing but those are usually small indie or older games.

Almost any game (although not all every game) that is online will want steam running in the background for steam integration for things such as DRM, friends/matchmaking, achievements, cloud sync, etc.

A couple of alternatives for running games without having the UI show up are:

• Creating custom windows shortcuts or batch files for your games:
  
  Example 1: using the -silent parameter. Make a new windows shortcut or .bat file and use this line:
  

  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -silent -gameidlaunch <game id>

  Example 2: using the URI style command. Use this in your shortcut instead:
  

  C:\Windows\explorer.exe steam://rungameid/<game id>

  
  
  
• Using an external game library such as GOG Galaxy 2.0 or Playnite.

[[SK] Kaldaien]

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

* Steam Wrapper DRM, which according to its details (linked here) says it obfuscates some of the game's stuff.

The DRM wrapper just obscures application startup and then after it finishes trying to confuse debuggers the game is functionally identical to any other version. It does nothing useful for anyone, and I genuinely mean that :) Once you see the wrapper run once you know how to defeat it in 100% of cases and it has no justification for existence.

The only thing worse than this is when a developer tries to be clever and create their own anti-debug because the only thing that accomplishes is future software compatibility problems. We can at least thank Valve for distinguishing anti-tamper and DRM in that documentation, because most people swear up and down that they are the same thing.

[hoodini]

If you buy a game without steam it won't work I tried

[Nover]

Thank you all for your reply's. I read them all. Even the stupid ones. For you guys, it's called options. I'm allowed to look for them, thanks for your inquiry, but others here have helped me. To those that have and are helping, thank you for your information. I will try these tips out and see what happens for me. To those that ask why, I disagree with the way steam is operating recently, so I am looking to not use them anymore. Just hate that my games will be lost and wanted to avoid that if possible. Thanks again for the help/info.

[hoodini]

Oh ok

[BlazingRaven495]

maybe he doesn't want to run steam because of the CPU it eats up.

[Zac Starfire]

Its really amazing mankind has actually achieved, isn't it?

[Emma]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.