The misconception of pc gaming wiki mistaking pc store as drm.

[jacob2232 1]

There is a big misconception of this website mistaking pc store as drm even though there is a clear difference between a pc store to distrubute and buy games and drm. 

For example pc store is to buy games, kept in your libary forever, installing and playing as many times as you want on how many different PCs/laptops you want no matter the era playing them fully offline without any issues, whereas drm is requiring always online connection being limited on how many different PCs/laptops a game can be installed on in a day and in total as a whole among many other issues. In which most games since the steam era started are 98% drm free thanks to valve making drm obsolete while yes some new games implements drm such as 3rd party drm denuvo or enigma being the most popular use case when drm is implemented but even there in most some of these new games is removed some point after the game was releasead for example in the case of square enix it is usually 6 months or with other publishers takes slightly longer but it still removed and sadly in some older games drm has not been removed yet but it is very few of them. Also every game on steam when has no 3rd party drm can be run without the launcher running in the background by creating in the game folder steam_appid as it was shown with this reddit post thus it can be stored for example in usb pendrive to preserve it even further.

In my opinion, pc gaming wiki should change how drm is listed because of it some people creates misconception about pc store as an drm which should not be the case.

 

[Aemony 160]

Hi,

PCGW already makes that distinction where possible, however the incorrect DRM tracking stems from editors assuming that a specific store-provided DRM option is used for a game at the time the article was created, which is often months or years before the release of the game. The intention is for editors to always follow up and validate the claim upon release, if possible.

The ”store DRMs” that we supports refers to those store-provided DRM options, e.g. Steam DRM for Steam, EOS/EGS based DRM for Epic Games Store, EA’s DRM for EA App, etc. So they do not technically refer to the storefronts themselves, but the clients/underlying platform used to enforce said DRM.

This is also why PCGW support flagging a DRM such as ”DRM-free*” (with a star/wildcard), in scenario where digital distribution releases (e.g. Steam games) requires a few manual steps to ”access” its actual DRM-free nature (e.g. steam_appid.txt for some Steam games).

PCGW also note the ”default store DRM” assumption discrepancy over on the DRM-free lists: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Basically, there’s not a lot PCGW can do in this regard than what we already do.

P.S.: That Reddit thread is inaccurate and only concerns games that uses the Steamworks API but does not use Steam DRM to protect the game. Such games don’t have a dependency on the Steamworks API client — they only have a dependency on knowing the Steam App ID which the embedded Steamworks API should engage in. These are supported and tracked on PCGW as ”DRM-free*” (star/wildcard) due to the manual methods involved. For games actually protected by Steam DRM, the method will have no effect at all.

[jacob2232 1]

3 minutes ago, Aemony said:

Hi,

PCGW already makes that distinction where possible, however the incorrect DRM tracking stems from editors assuming that a specific store-provided DRM option is used for a game at the time the article was created, which is often months or years before the release of the game. The intention is for editors to always follow up and validate the claim upon release, if possible.

The ”store DRMs” that we supports refers to those store-provided DRM options, e.g. Steam DRM for Steam, EOS/EGS based DRM for Epic Games Store, EA’s DRM for EA App, etc. So they do not technically refer to the storefronts themselves, but the clients/underlying platform used to enforce said DRM.

This is also why PCGW support flagging a DRM such as ”DRM-free*” (with a star/wildcard), in scenario where digital distribution releases (e.g. Steam games) requires a few manual steps to ”access” its actual DRM-free nature (e.g. steam_appid.txt for some Steam games).

PCGW also note the ”default store DRM” assumption discrepancy over on the DRM-free lists: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Basically, there’s not a lot PCGW can do in this regard than what we already do.

P.S.: That Reddit thread is inaccurate and only concerns games that uses the Steamworks API but does not use Steam DRM to protect the game. Such games don’t have a dependency on the Steamworks API client — they only have a dependency on knowing the Steam App ID which the embedded Steamworks API should engage in. These are supported and tracked on PCGW as ”DRM-free*” (star/wildcard) due to the manual methods involved. For games actually protected by Steam DRM, the method will have no effect at all.

I have noticed that as well recently that pcgw in recent new games makes that distinction already in place which is great, but there are many older games since steam era on this website suffers from it which makes then people confuse if this has drm or not because while yes these pc stores has their own "drm" they actually are not the usual drm because once buying the game on these pc stores for example steam valve is giving users Custom Executable Generation which creates encrypted copy of the game that then allows people to install multiple times on multiple hardware and once they logged in to steam account, they can simply play it offline without any issues launching directly from the desktop, even allowing to create backup for example by transfering game folder to the usb pendrive to then pasting it to the disc drive folder person wish the game to be installed on, double clicking game exe icon thus everything installs locally on steam. Even by valve own admission the reason why created their pc store steam is to make "drm obsolete" Source: Steam (service) - Wikipedia .  

[jacob2232 1]

23 minutes ago, Aemony said:

Hi,

PCGW already makes that distinction where possible, however the incorrect DRM tracking stems from editors assuming that a specific store-provided DRM option is used for a game at the time the article was created, which is often months or years before the release of the game. The intention is for editors to always follow up and validate the claim upon release, if possible.

The ”store DRMs” that we supports refers to those store-provided DRM options, e.g. Steam DRM for Steam, EOS/EGS based DRM for Epic Games Store, EA’s DRM for EA App, etc. So they do not technically refer to the storefronts themselves, but the clients/underlying platform used to enforce said DRM.

This is also why PCGW support flagging a DRM such as ”DRM-free*” (with a star/wildcard), in scenario where digital distribution releases (e.g. Steam games) requires a few manual steps to ”access” its actual DRM-free nature (e.g. steam_appid.txt for some Steam games).

PCGW also note the ”default store DRM” assumption discrepancy over on the DRM-free lists: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Basically, there’s not a lot PCGW can do in this regard than what we already do.

P.S.: That Reddit thread is inaccurate and only concerns games that uses the Steamworks API but does not use Steam DRM to protect the game. Such games don’t have a dependency on the Steamworks API client — they only have a dependency on knowing the Steam App ID which the embedded Steamworks API should engage in. These are supported and tracked on PCGW as ”DRM-free*” (star/wildcard) due to the manual methods involved. For games actually protected by Steam DRM, the method will have no effect at all.

My proposition is perhaps adding for example a new tab on the left side near the drm tab inside the pcgw page of the game showing in what pc store the game is published in and on the right is what type of drm use for example "requires always online connection", "limited use on installing only 5 different pc in a day" etc., this would make way more intuitive experience because beside this issue everyhting else is great surrounding this website.

[Mastan 18]

On 11/20/2025 at 11:43 PM, jacob2232 said:

My proposition is perhaps adding for example a new tab on the left side near the drm tab inside the pcgw page of the game showing in what pc store the game is published in and on the right is what type of drm use for example "requires always online connection", "limited use on installing only 5 different pc in a day" etc., this would make way more intuitive experience because beside this issue everyhting else is great surrounding this website.

All that info is already provided via icons and text, any specifics are mentioned in notes.

Examples:
Activation limit: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Mirror's_Edge
Constant Internet connection: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Battlefield_2042

Description of all DRM types: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Digital_rights_management_(DRM)

 

Custom Executable Generation seems to be obsolete btw:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Digital_rights_management_(DRM)#Custom_Executable_Generation

[jacob2232 1]

1 hour ago, Mastan said:

All that info is already provided via icons and text, any specifics are mentioned in notes.

Examples:
Activation limit: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Mirror's_Edge
Constant Internet connection: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Battlefield_2042

Description of all DRM types: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Digital_rights_management_(DRM)

 

Custom Executable Generation seems to be obsolete btw:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Digital_rights_management_(DRM)#Custom_Executable_Generation

My overall point of this thread was to make a clear disctinction between pc store and a drm, because there is a clear difference between the two. Even a lot of people here on this website has pointed out that issue the website has when it comes to pc store mistaken as drm.
 

 

[ponam45 1]

Yeah spot on steam gOG are just stores with offline play  not the always online crap like old Ubisoft DRM. Wiki needs to split  launcher required from actual DRM to kill the FUD.

[jacob2232 1]

On 11/20/2025 at 9:16 PM, Aemony said:

Hi,

PCGW already makes that distinction where possible, however the incorrect DRM tracking stems from editors assuming that a specific store-provided DRM option is used for a game at the time the article was created, which is often months or years before the release of the game. The intention is for editors to always follow up and validate the claim upon release, if possible.

The ”store DRMs” that we supports refers to those store-provided DRM options, e.g. Steam DRM for Steam, EOS/EGS based DRM for Epic Games Store, EA’s DRM for EA App, etc. So they do not technically refer to the storefronts themselves, but the clients/underlying platform used to enforce said DRM.

This is also why PCGW support flagging a DRM such as ”DRM-free*” (with a star/wildcard), in scenario where digital distribution releases (e.g. Steam games) requires a few manual steps to ”access” its actual DRM-free nature (e.g. steam_appid.txt for some Steam games).

PCGW also note the ”default store DRM” assumption discrepancy over on the DRM-free lists: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Basically, there’s not a lot PCGW can do in this regard than what we already do.

P.S.: That Reddit thread is inaccurate and only concerns games that uses the Steamworks API but does not use Steam DRM to protect the game. Such games don’t have a dependency on the Steamworks API client — they only have a dependency on knowing the Steam App ID which the embedded Steamworks API should engage in. These are supported and tracked on PCGW as ”DRM-free*” (star/wildcard) due to the manual methods involved. For games actually protected by Steam DRM, the method will have no effect at all.

also even valve literally says that steam wrapper is not anti piracy solution, it simply ensures that steamworks features works correctly in which steamworks is not drm as well

Steam DRM (Steamworks Documentation)

[Aemony 160]

On 12/4/2025 at 2:10 PM, jacob2232 said:

also even valve literally says that steam wrapper is not anti piracy solution

The Steam DRM wrapper is DRM -- there's no question about that. It's however not a proper full-blown anti-piracy solution because of the basic and standardized protection measures it employs. As Valve themselves says, it protects against extremely casual piracy (and tampering) and wouldn't prevent a motivated actor. But that's all besides the point for PCGW -- the site doesn't make a distinction between a "successful" DRM and a "so well documented and reverse engineered it's functionally useless" DRM. They're both equally treated as DRM on PCGW.

 

On 11/21/2025 at 11:38 PM, jacob2232 said:

My overall point of this thread was to make a clear disctinction between pc store and a drm, because there is a clear difference between the two. Even a lot of people here on this website has pointed out that issue the website has when it comes to pc store mistaken as drm.
 

That thread is insanely out of date and harkens back to the very early design and guidelines the site had over a decade ago. The modern approach and coverage of DRMs and stores (where Steam/Epic/etc games can be flagged as DRM-free) were introduced later sometimes around 2017-2019 or so.

 

As I said in an earlier post, there's not a lot PCGW can do about this to improve it further as we've already built and implemented everything that's required to flag DRM-free titles on Steam/Epic/etc as such since years ago. Your issue, at its core, is with older unmaintained game pages and potentially incorrect DRM tracking within them and there's nothing the PCGW staff can really do about. Those pages and DRM claims needs to be gone through by an owner of said games, and then verified and updated/corrected where possible. And it is pretty much all of the game pages that would need to be gone through as most of them almost certainly lack an actual reliable reference to the DRM claim being made.

And when it comes to that kind of job, PCGW is a community project where literally anyone can edit the game pages so anyone would be able to take on that kind of project upon themselves and go through and do it. The staff itself, however, will pretty much never have the time to do anything like that since their focus is on other areas.

[jacob2232 1]

4 hours ago, Aemony said:

The Steam DRM wrapper is DRM -- there's no question about that. It's however not a proper full-blown anti-piracy solution because of the basic and standardized protection measures it employs. As Valve themselves says, it protects against extremely casual piracy (and tampering) and wouldn't prevent a motivated actor. But that's all besides the point for PCGW -- the site doesn't make a distinction between a "successful" DRM and a "so well documented and reverse engineered it's functionally useless" DRM. They're both equally treated as DRM on PCGW.

 

That thread is insanely out of date and harkens back to the very early design and guidelines the site had over a decade ago. The modern approach and coverage of DRMs and stores (where Steam/Epic/etc games can be flagged as DRM-free) were introduced later sometimes around 2017-2019 or so.

 

As I said in an earlier post, there's not a lot PCGW can do about this to improve it further as we've already built and implemented everything that's required to flag DRM-free titles on Steam/Epic/etc as such since years ago. Your issue, at its core, is with older unmaintained game pages and potentially incorrect DRM tracking within them and there's nothing the PCGW staff can really do about. Those pages and DRM claims needs to be gone through by an owner of said games, and then verified and updated/corrected where possible. And it is pretty much all of the game pages that would need to be gone through as most of them almost certainly lack an actual reliable reference to the DRM claim being made.

And when it comes to that kind of job, PCGW is a community project where literally anyone can edit the game pages so anyone would be able to take on that kind of project upon themselves and go through and do it. The staff itself, however, will pretty much never have the time to do anything like that since their focus is on other areas.

but like one person said above, isn't it possible to split the launcher from actual drm?

[jacob2232 1]

4 hours ago, Aemony said:

The Steam DRM wrapper is DRM -- there's no question about that. It's however not a proper full-blown anti-piracy solution because of the basic and standardized protection measures it employs. As Valve themselves says, it protects against extremely casual piracy (and tampering) and wouldn't prevent a motivated actor. But that's all besides the point for PCGW -- the site doesn't make a distinction between a "successful" DRM and a "so well documented and reverse engineered it's functionally useless" DRM. They're both equally treated as DRM on PCGW.

 

That thread is insanely out of date and harkens back to the very early design and guidelines the site had over a decade ago. The modern approach and coverage of DRMs and stores (where Steam/Epic/etc games can be flagged as DRM-free) were introduced later sometimes around 2017-2019 or so.

 

As I said in an earlier post, there's not a lot PCGW can do about this to improve it further as we've already built and implemented everything that's required to flag DRM-free titles on Steam/Epic/etc as such since years ago. Your issue, at its core, is with older unmaintained game pages and potentially incorrect DRM tracking within them and there's nothing the PCGW staff can really do about. Those pages and DRM claims needs to be gone through by an owner of said games, and then verified and updated/corrected where possible. And it is pretty much all of the game pages that would need to be gone through as most of them almost certainly lack an actual reliable reference to the DRM claim being made.

And when it comes to that kind of job, PCGW is a community project where literally anyone can edit the game pages so anyone would be able to take on that kind of project upon themselves and go through and do it. The staff itself, however, will pretty much never have the time to do anything like that since their focus is on other areas.

because like valve said these launchers are not anti piracy solution as the people whom know how to, it can be easily removed. Also these launchers simply ensure every single feature tied to the pc store/libary launcher work before launching said game "ensures that Steamworks features work properly by launching Steam before launching the game." (from steamworks steam drm documentation) and drm is used as anti piracy which as I said before steam and other launchers are not used as anti piracy solution, only against "extremely" casual piracy.

[jacob2232 1]

4 hours ago, Aemony said:

The Steam DRM wrapper is DRM -- there's no question about that. It's however not a proper full-blown anti-piracy solution because of the basic and standardized protection measures it employs. As Valve themselves says, it protects against extremely casual piracy (and tampering) and wouldn't prevent a motivated actor. But that's all besides the point for PCGW -- the site doesn't make a distinction between a "successful" DRM and a "so well documented and reverse engineered it's functionally useless" DRM. They're both equally treated as DRM on PCGW.

 

That thread is insanely out of date and harkens back to the very early design and guidelines the site had over a decade ago. The modern approach and coverage of DRMs and stores (where Steam/Epic/etc games can be flagged as DRM-free) were introduced later sometimes around 2017-2019 or so.

 

As I said in an earlier post, there's not a lot PCGW can do about this to improve it further as we've already built and implemented everything that's required to flag DRM-free titles on Steam/Epic/etc as such since years ago. Your issue, at its core, is with older unmaintained game pages and potentially incorrect DRM tracking within them and there's nothing the PCGW staff can really do about. Those pages and DRM claims needs to be gone through by an owner of said games, and then verified and updated/corrected where possible. And it is pretty much all of the game pages that would need to be gone through as most of them almost certainly lack an actual reliable reference to the DRM claim being made.

And when it comes to that kind of job, PCGW is a community project where literally anyone can edit the game pages so anyone would be able to take on that kind of project upon themselves and go through and do it. The staff itself, however, will pretty much never have the time to do anything like that since their focus is on other areas.

my proposition is for example split the launcher from actual drm and show if the game "requires" launcher to be running in the background or not and third tab being drm like in recent pcgw pages such as requiring always online connection, 5 differenc pc activation a day etc.

[Aemony 160]

There is no need to split anything as the way it’s being tracked is already fine enough. The issue isn’t with how PCGW handles it — it’s with how users, and typically in the past, filled out the information and that issue would remain regardless of what change was implemented.

 

6 hours ago, jacob2232 said:

because like valve said these launchers are not anti piracy solution as the people whom know how to, it can be easily removed.

Steam DRM refers to the DRM component of the game. It doesn’t refer to the Steam client (the launcher) at all. And regardless of its efficiency, it’s still DRM and treated as such by PCGW. As I mentioned, we don’t care about the efficiency of a DRM solution. If it’s DRM it’s DRM, regardless of how reverse engineered and easy to remove it eventually becomes.

And to clarify PCGW does not consider the Steam client as DRM, nor have we done that since around 2017-2019.

[Aemony 160]

So to summarize:

• Steam client == the digital distribution client used to download and install games. This client alone is not regarded as DRM from the perspective of PCGW nor have been since around 2017-2019. This corresponds to the Source column of PCGW's availability table.
   
• Steam DRM == the actual DRM component provided by Valve to game developers, and which are embedded as part of the game executable and applies various forms of piracy and tamper protection to the executable. This is tracked as "Steam" within the DRM column of PCGW's availability table.
   
• Steamworks API == the "Steam API" used by games to communicate/interface with the Steam client to unlock achievements and such. This is technically not DRM per se (it doesn't inherently have a dependency on the Steam client) but common misuse of it by game developers can result in it acting as DRM (not allowing the game to be launched without the Steam client running). This is tracked as "Steam" within the DRM column of PCGW's availability table when it acts as such despite using a steam_appid.txt file to provide it with the App ID of the game.
   
• DRM-free == A Steam game is DRM-free if it fulfills both of these requirements:
   
  1. the game does not have the Steam DRM wrapper embedded in the game executable and
  2. the game does not have the Steamworks API act in a DRM-like capability when provided with an appropriate steam_appid.txt file.
     
     If a Steam game fulfills both of these requirements, meaning they can properly be launched separately without the Steam client installed or running on the system, it's marked as DRM-free within the DRM column of the availability table

Our main issue isn't with the way the templates are treating this -- it's with people filling out the fields without improper testing (which only education and training can resolve) and legacy data provided and inserted from PCGW's younger years before we separated the client/launcher from the DRM tracking (which can only be resolved by someone going back and retesting all of the games).

[jacob2232 1]

59 minutes ago, Aemony said:

So to summarize:

• Steam client == the digital distribution client used to download and install games. This client alone is not regarded as DRM from the perspective of PCGW nor have been since around 2017-2019. This corresponds to the Source column of PCGW's availability table.
   
• Steam DRM == the actual DRM component provided by Valve to game developers, and which are embedded as part of the game executable and applies various forms of piracy and tamper protection to the executable. This is tracked as "Steam" within the DRM column of PCGW's availability table.
   
• Steamworks API == the "Steam API" used by games to communicate/interface with the Steam client to unlock achievements and such. This is technically not DRM per se (it doesn't inherently have a dependency on the Steam client) but common misuse of it by game developers can result in it acting as DRM (not allowing the game to be launched without the Steam client running). This is tracked as "Steam" within the DRM column of PCGW's availability table when it acts as such despite using a steam_appid.txt file to provide it with the App ID of the game.
   
• DRM-free == A Steam game is DRM-free if it fulfills both of these requirements:
   
  1. the game does not have the Steam DRM wrapper embedded in the game executable and
  2. the game does not have the Steamworks API act in a DRM-like capability when provided with an appropriate steam_appid.txt file.
     
     If a Steam game fulfills both of these requirements, meaning they can properly be launched separately without the Steam client installed or running on the system, it's marked as DRM-free within the DRM column of the availability table

Our main issue isn't with the way the templates are treating this -- it's with people filling out the fields without improper testing (which only education and training can resolve) and legacy data provided and inserted from PCGW's younger years before we separated the client/launcher from the DRM tracking (which can only be resolved by someone going back and retesting all of the games).

then perhaps as launcher cannot be split from drm on this website then can it be possible to call it differently than "requires steam drm" which is listed below  on these pcgw pages, for example "requires the use of launcher in the background" rather than this "requires steam drm" term? I think this is good alternative which does not require changes to the website while also preventing confusion even further. Because I like this website a lot being very informative and it's cool these two the launcher and drm are starting to get varied on this website.