I'd like to see CEG listed on a game's Steam store page

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FireCrow1013 Dec 10, 2014 @ 3:56am

I'd like to see CEG listed on a game's Steam store page

When third-party DRM is built into a game distributed through Steam, it has to be clearly stated on the Steam Store page of said game. I'd like to see Valve's own CEG listed, as well. CEG is an optional component of Steam; not every game utilizes it. There are a few games I would not have purchased had I known beforehand that CEG was built into them. If potential customers are warned about DRM from other companies, (as we should be), like GFWL, Origin, and Uplay, then we should be told in advance about Valve's CEG as well, and this feature wouldn't even require modifying the actual Steam client to implement it.

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Showing 1-10 of 10 comments

Raiden Dec 10, 2014 @ 6:59am

Steam is the DRM itself, CEG is just an "add-on".

Satoru Dec 10, 2014 @ 7:49am

Note that many games that "require" Steam don't have CEG. They just have a bad Steamworks implementation.

aiusepsi Dec 10, 2014 @ 7:57am

There's multiple layers. A game on Steam can:

(a) Not employ any measures at all, and be able to run with Steam not running
(b) Ask the Steamworks API if the account it's running under has the right to play
(c) Call Steamworks to restart the game running under Steam if it isn't already
(d) Only allow itself to be used if the Steam client has a connection to the Steam backend.

A game which is doing (b) & (c) (and potentially (d)) can use CEG, which is intended to attempt to protect the game and the protection mechanisms from reverse engineering and subversion, by using encryption and obfuscation. Now what you class as DRM is a bit of a matter of opinion, but CEG itself is relatively transparent from a user perspective. Certainly it's not much different from c above.

What perhaps you're really asking for is information about which games are have (a) behaviour, which is fair enough. Interestingly, it is possible for a game to support being launched without Steam being available and still use Steamworks features on the condition that Steam is available.

aiusepsi Dec 10, 2014 @ 8:01am

Originally posted by Satoru:
Note that many games that "require" Steam don't have CEG. They just have a bad Steamworks implementation.

I wouldn't say bad necessarily; Valve's Steamworks example game (Spacewar) uses the restart-if-not-run-under-Steam method, which is what a lot of developers imitate. Perhaps it's implemented in that way for expediency and for clarity, but it becomes a sort of implicit recommendation. It simplifies development because it means you can assume the APIs are available.

I don't think developers necessarily consider that it's not necessary to do so, but I'm not sure that could be considered bad.

FireCrow1013 Dec 10, 2014 @ 7:09pm

Originally posted by aiusepsi:
There's multiple layers. A game on Steam can:

(a) Not employ any measures at all, and be able to run with Steam not running
(b) Ask the Steamworks API if the account it's running under has the right to play
(c) Call Steamworks to restart the game running under Steam if it isn't already
(d) Only allow itself to be used if the Steam client has a connection to the Steam backend.

What perhaps you're really asking for is information about which games are have (a) behaviour, which is fair enough. Interestingly, it is possible for a game to support being launched without Steam being available and still use Steamworks features on the condition that Steam is available.

I actually don't mind games that require the Steam client itself, since the client installation is completely portable and Offline Mode works just fine. I just don't see CEG necessary at all, and it makes transferring games without an Internet connection impossible. It'd just be nice to see CEG listed before I buy, that's all.

I'd LOVE to see completely DRM-free games listed as such, but I'm not as concerned about that, since the Steam client can just go with your games.