Steam, does it have to be loaded to play a game bought there?

The Game Room
1

There is a sim game that available, unfortunately it’s available on Steam. Last time I tried that, Steam wanted to load their program on my PC and log me into Styeam to use the game. I really didn’t have any need for Steam or any of it’s features, other than downloading the game. It was just useless overhead to me.

Is there anyway to use Steam withoug having it loaded on your computer and loading when you want to play the game you bought through them?

2

It depends on the game.

Kerbal Space Program, for example, does not require the Steam software to run - you can just go to your Steam folder and double click on the KSP executable and it will run directly.

3

You do need to install Steam in order to download & install purchases. Other that than, what Grumman said.

4

Generally, Indie games are much more likely to let you run their games without Steam in the background, and the AAA published games much more likely to require Steam running as a form of DRM.

What’s the game? Should be easy enough to find out.

5

Thanks all.
American Truck Sim. Awesome graphics. Only $19.99 so it’s worth the gamble. I just didn’t want Steam running in the background all the time.

6

Steam’s resource footprint is minuscule. Having it running in the background will have no noticeable effect on your gaming or productivity experience on your PC.

Even if you don’t care about friend’s lists and screenshot/video streaming management, and the other bells and whistles that Steam offers, you probably want your game to be fully updated without having it interfere with your gaming time, so background updates to your game are likely something you’ll appreciate having Seam running in the background for. Cloud saves are another biggie for me. I no longer have to worry about backing up save games, I can reinstall an old game and continue where I left off.

You can turn all of these features off if you want to though, and if the game supports it, you can even lunch it without steam. If the game does require Steam to run, you can always exit Steam after running the game, no biggie. Steam does not auto-load on windows startup by default, just make sure you don’t check that setting when installing and you only have to see it when booting up the game.

But really, Steam is good peoples. There’s no need to be worried about it crippling your performance or anything.

7

I’ve been trying to see if this particular game supports being run without Steam in the background, but haven’t found anything definitive yet.

The developers do mention full Steam workshop support for mods, which is yet another good reason to have Steam for this game, btw, and also mention that Steam is srequired ot install and ‘activate’.

So it’s possible that you only need to have steam running for the first time you run the game.

Steam offers full refunds for games you purchased within the last few weeks and played for less than 2 hours with no other restrictions, so you can always try it and, if you’re not satisfied, return it.

8

I happened to buy that on my lunch hour. Lemme see if it’ll work without Steam running…

9

Nope, sorry, if you want to play this you need to have Steam up.

'Course, you can exit Steam when you’re not playing anything.

10

Thanks all. I got steam all sorted out now and plan on getting the sim tonight. Love the graphics in it.

11

You don’t have to guess at this stuff any more. Steam’s refund policy is now quite reasonable; if you don’t like any game or object to it requiring Steam to be running (I can’t imagine why, but I know people do) then you can get a refund no-questions-asked within two weeks of purchase, as long as you’ve played it for under 2 hours.