Just pirate the copies of games you've already paid for if you want safety and archival.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
30 points (64.7% liked)
Steam Deck
17125 readers
215 users here now
A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
As many others have said, this is because you’re using the same account on both devices, and Steam’s DRM policies will stop you from being able to do what you described. So I won’t go into re-mentioning the many suggestions others have talked about.
What I do want to mention, however, is that this isn’t a problem that comes from having the Deck itself. Set up a separate computer in your living room and use your Steam account there, and you would have the same problem. Does that mean you should be turned off from buying a new computer that’ll run parallel to your main gaming rig?
Absolutely. This is less a criticism of the Deck (which I love) and more about my own coming up against this annoying DRM that I never even knew existed because I only had one place to play.
Welcome to the painful world of DRM that we live in :’)
And to be fair to Steam, they did recently issue a statement and tried reflecting it in their stores to say that you don’t actually outright own all the games you “bought”, as, for some, you are merely purchasing the license to play games that the publishers have decided to put behind a DRM. This has always been the case since the dawn of DRMs, and it was implied that people should understand it, but recent events have made it clear that a lot of people aren’t even aware of it. So you’d be forgiven for not knowing.
It's funny, I flocked to Steam because I was under the impression that I was owning the games. While other companies were trying to get me to sign onto their "play everything" subscriptions and Google had their "Stadia" (remember them?), Steam let me download the game and install it on my (Linux!) computer with no license key checks, working offline etc. etc. I feel like the assumption that I was in fact buying my games, rather than a license to play them when Steam saw fit was a reasonable one. This discovery was quite enraging.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Don't use the same account for 2 different people. Create another and use Steam Family sharing to fix your issue.
although you still won't "own" your games, but that's the life of a PC gamer. Best you can do is buy from GOG or find/run shady cracked versions.
Thanks, I'll look into that.
Just tested it to see what you’re talking about, I’ve never seen that before. Yeah that’s bullshit. It logs you out of the account (kind of?) and when you log back in, it logs out the other computer. What the hell.
I agree that's not a good way for steam to handle it.
Seems to me that as long as it's on the same global IP address which indicate it's the same household, it should be considered OK.
But I do understand why they don't want to do what Netflix did originally, where people could share accounts without limit.
Steam Families User Guide & FAQ: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/054C-3167-DD7F-49D4
My understanding is this should fix your issue. Also, none of that is actually a Steam Deck issue.
I think that its quite clear they don't have an issue with the steam deck - they're just voicing that it brought to light how they don't own their games and it turned them off from buying more licenses on Steam
Yeah. Only GoG nowadays allows you to actually buy and own your games.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Put your steam deck in offline mode, problem solved for anything that doesn’t need to ping a server. That’s what I do with my kids.
I don’t disagree on digital rights and all that, but I am able to game because of my Steam Deck.
Heroic Launcher and GOG is your friend. DRM free ftw.
But seriously Steam Family sharing is the way to go here.
Yeah I've recently started tinkering with GOG in part due to this issue. I'm using Lutris in Linux rather than Heroic. I'm not sure if there's a benefit to one over the other, but either way the size of the library of available games is quite small by comparison and of course I have lots of games trapped in Steam now.
Underneath they are similar, however I was in the same boat as you. Lutris first however after installing a few apps I moved towards heroic.
Heroic is easier to manage your library requires less tinkering and as a benefit for steam deck owners, has controller support in the gui by default and native integration with epic games store.
Lutris works better for non platform games, like old PC games from CDs or EA App.
How I’ve been moving my games over is rebuying games I would be gutted to loose like Fallout 3, and Doom 2016. Then waiting on sales for the rest. Also Amazon Prime has free gog games so you maybe able to get a handful of games every month to move over
This is a problem that Steam Family Share exists to solve.
the fact that I don’t actually own my games
It doesnt solve this in the slightest. Steam and game publishers can always take your games away without prior notice.
Yes, but that problem has literally nothing to do with the Steam Deck.
You never own any game, unless you code it yourself. You might hold a CD in your hands, but the game is still owned by someone else. You only have the right to use it as noted in the license you agreed by purchasing it.
It’s true. Every book, movie, game or piece of software you’ve ever used (unless you made it yourself) has been subject to some kind of licence, that can be revoked.
Sure but no one is going to come in to my home and take my physical books away in the same way that can happen with online digital services.
You can reverse this logic though. If you lose or damage your physical copy it’s gone forever, digital copies can mostly be redownloaded/recovered anytime.
load more comments
(4 replies)
You have no idea what you are talking about. You can own and resell any physical piece of game media. If you have a gameboy cartridge, nobody can take that game away from you. Also if you have DRM free game files from gog, nobody can take that away from you.
The only case where this disgusting lincense shit is possible, is when games require being online and logging in to unlock the DRM.
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(7 replies)