Offline Mode

[FrozT]

I found myself without internet access for a few days and figured I'd kill some time playing a few games when I hit a brick wall with Steam. I cannot play offline? I paid for games that I'm not allowed to play now. There's got to be a law against this.

So when I returned to civilization and got online this was the first thing I googled and to my disbelief the very first instruction in starting steam in offline mode is this.

1.) Start Steam online

What!! In order to play offline, I need to be online? How does this make any sense? How does that help me when I'm out of cell range and kilometers away from any internet access? This is ridiculous. If I pay for a game I should be able to play it no matter what.

Not cool Steam...

[Ogami]

To play a game offline you have to start it at least once while you are online.
After that it works in offline mode just fine.
Also you need to have set your Steam to " remember login details on this PC".
If you dont have that you cant use Steam in offline mode since it cant verify that you are the account owner and there are no saved login credentials.

If you do those two things then a large majority of Steam games will run just fine in offline mode, even for extended periods of time. I used Steam offline for multiple weeks in the past without a problem.

Mind you, some games with 3rd party DRM like DENUVO will require you to go online every few days to verify ownership with their servers.

[Junglejim5]

The idea of playing off line is to reduce the time online so you don't chew up your data. I do it all the time when not playing online games.

[Speedy]

i had this issue what i done was purchase one of those usb broadband dongles with a sim car topped it up got steam online started games then closed them down and remove the dongle. you can use steam offline for a maximum of 14 days then you need to go online again then you can go back offline for 14 days.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Speedy:

you can use steam offline for a maximum of 14 days then you need to go online again then you can go back offline for 14 days.

That is not true.

[☆ƧQυiяяєL♫]

Some games are "online" only.
Even their "single-player" campaigns/career-mode are online only.

It seems like you got a game update scheduled and it wants to connect online.

[FrozT]

I've been logging in for years on this PC and "Remember" is always checked. It still would not allow me to login last weekend without internet.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Originally posted by FrozT:

I've been logging in for years on this PC and "Remember" is always checked. It still would not allow me to login last weekend without internet.

Unless it's changed sometime you need to do Steam>Go offline at least once while you're connected to the internet.

[aguevardo]

I've been logging in for years on this PC and "Remember" is always checked. It still would not allow me to login last weekend without internet.