You are saying it yourself, you are describing a physical release and not a physical game.
A physical game will do the full installation and just ask for the serial on the back of your manual.
That's the first I ever heard of that.
I always thought of a "physical release" as the release of a physical game. In this context, they were meant to be synonymous.
After all, unless you can differentiate between games that will do the full installation and those that won't, without first having to buy the game and try it, I don't think the distinction is all that useful.
With that in mind, I just asked ChatGPT: "
difference between physical game and physical release", and this is what I got:
Physical game refers to a game that is sold as a physical copy, such as a cartridge or disc. Physical release refers to the release of a physical copy of a game. The difference between physical game and physical release is that physical game refers to the format of the game, while physical release refers to the availability of a physical copy of the game.
Now, I'm not saying ChatGPT is a reliable source, but its claims
are based on the sources it can find on the internet. This means that the more widespread a claim is, the more likely ChatGPT will mention it, even if the claim is wrong. In other words, it sounds like your distinction of "physical game" and "physical release" is something you pulled out of thin air. If that's not it, would you mind sharing a source for your claim?
Also, I believe another thing I said myself was:
"
But let's be generous and assume you can actually install those games offline with just the physical release. Well, you still can't play them, because you need to be online at least once to activate the games before they can be launched.
Can you even log in or activate a game with an out-of-date client?"
Consider Half-Life 2: According to your own definition, that would be a "physical game". It was sold physically, would do the full installation, and just ask for the serial on the back of your manual. And yet it earned a lot of criticism for forcing people to connect to the internet to activate the game at least once.
That's the point if the storefront closes and you lose the installed game you are screwed unless you also have the physical game, and then many games get updates that could completely change the game and you will be stuck with the first version of it.
And with Steam, you don't even have the option of playing your physical games either. At the very least, you have to activate the game through Steam. Good luck with that, when the servers refuse to connect with your outdated client.
And why mention updates? Do you think it's better to not play the game at all, if the alternative is to remain stuck with the first version?
Is there a specific reason why you keep trying to
move the goalpost?
If you have a steam game on your PC and you checked that it can run without steam then you can also keep it safe, archive it, burn it to disk, whatever, and run it without having to connect to steam or anything, that's what DRM-free means, it's the same thing as GoG.
There are currently 964 DRM-free games out of 40 198 on the list you so kindly provided. That's almost 2.4%, which is not a lot.
With that said, how many Steam games have you archived already? Not that it matters. Given your tendency to move the goalpost, I don't trust you to be truthful anyway.
My point is, nobody's going to buy Steam games expecting them to be archivable. Those who care about archivability will have more luck with GoG or with building a physical library of console games.
I didn't say it's an option you can choose, I just said that it's not completely true that you always have to resort to piracy.
Alright, I'll take that back. You will only have to resort to piracy in 97.6% of the cases.
Not that it really makes a difference, though. Once you've resorted to piracy for your 98 games, you might as well add those last two ones to the mix.
Join the 21nd century where we can just ask google to tell us the answers.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
I can be snarky too: "Join humanity where we can just use our brains."
Did I do it right?
Your source clearly states:
Total number of unverified or DRM protected games: 39,260 out of 40,198 games in total.
Notice the word that says "unverified"? Do I need to explain what that means? It means, you're still going to waste the majority of your time downloading and verifying games, because you don't know which of the 97.6% of your games are actually DRM-free.
Nice try, though.
PS:
Here's an interesting fact: the number of verified DRM-free games (964) and unverified or DRM protected games (39 260) is greater than the total number of games (40 224 > 40 198). I thought that was interesting.
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