That method only works while Steam is in offline mode. When Steam is launched in online mode it will check for updates to games, and I think it also checks when launching/stopping a game, but I'm not 100% sure on that. There is another, more "official" method that uses Steam console commands to accomplish this without messing with files, but it's only temporary and still needs to be done every time before a game is launched, so it's often slightly less useful. I did a walkthrough of this in this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/5zxn9d/how_to_skip_updates_for_appsgames_installed_via/ . Also, finally, if you're trying to play that online R* may require it to be the latest version of the game and not allow you to play on an outdated version -- they can force updates that way. Updates can also be forced through Steam making either of these methods fail to work no matter what, and GTA IV could be "one of those" games. Sorry.

Does the method of changing "StateFlag" to 4 no longer work? I have updates set to "download when game is started," for GTA IV, and I'll edit its' stateflag to 4, save it, and launch Steam - but it still says there is a download ready and the stateflag is automatically changed to 6.

Honestly I thought I've been doing pretty crappy, lol. Thank you; I needed this boost

Keep up the great work on GitHub

Here to spam your wall again