Limit for installing a game

[Ziggurat-06]

Quick question here. How many times can I uninstall a game and still be able to download it again in the future? Is there a limit I should know of?

[Dubsky]

No limit

[Forcen]

Steam has no limit like that, they let you download stuff how many times you want.

However, some games use 3rd party DRM that can limit your installs or require you to use an account. It is less common with limited installs recently, you can check the full list here: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_3rd_Party_DRM_on_Steam

[76561198273346136]

123

[cryo]

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[wyy]

123

[Ziggurat-06]

What does "DRM" means?

[JunkyXL]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

[Forcen]

For example, most ubisoft games forces you to start their Uplay launcher thing and log into a uplay account and enter that cd-key for the game you got from Steam. And then every time after that when you install that game you need to log back in to that account.
This doesn't have to be a problem unless you forget your uplay password a lot but most people don't like it. I don't really care.

You can see those in the list under account based DRM.

Other games like this one uses secuROM (you can see the list on the link above)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/45730/
You can see that it says on the store page to the right:

Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: SecuROM™
5 machine activation limit

That means that you can only install it on five machines in theory, maybe if you change motherboard on your PC it will count as a new machine. This is way worse.
Some games are Ok with this and give you back one activation per month or something but this one never does. You might be able to revoce activations but that is not well explained.
Some games like crysis has made the limit higher to 50 activations for example. maybe not a problem anymore but still pointless.

This is called hardware based DRM and you should watch out for those, even though it is used only in like 10-15 games.

Watch the store pages for 3rd party DRM and check the list if you want to see what kind it is.

[JunkyXL]

5 machine activations means you can install it on 5 PC's.
if you properly uninstall it than you can put it on another PC(redownload)

[Forcen]

Originally posted by JunkyXL:

5 machine activations means you can install it on 5 PC's.
if you properly uninstall it than you can put it on another PC(redownload)

Properly uninstall means that you need to do stuff before you hit the "delete" button in steam right?
Seems like there is some games where this isn't true though, not very many but still.

[Spatuletail]

.

[JunkyXL]

usually just the windows uninstall feature will free it up again.

or the game would have a revoke tool or another way to free up the machine activations.

[Mr. Goose]

oki could be way off but it seams that the DRM implementation in doom eternal will only allow a limited number of re-installs, (8-10 it seams), after that point i either need to re-purchase it or do some uh, other options lets say. wtf is up with this? why can i only re-download doom eternal so amny times? i dont have a 4+ TB game drive to have all games installed on forever.

[Glimmer]

Originally posted by Mr. Goose:

why can i only re-download doom eternal so amny times?

You would have better luck posting on the Doom Eternal Discussions or contacting Bethesda rather than posting in a 5 year old thread. Any limitation on number of re-installations is implemented by the developer and is outside of Valve/Steam's control.