opinion No Steam No Buy?

[Fistandantilus]

I offered a friend of mine a gift copy of the game, He refused on the basis of this thing I haven't heard. No Steam No Buy. I don’t really see how “no Steam, no buy” is supposed to be an argument. If you’re upset at the inconvenience of clicking a different shortcut, then maybe you just don’t understand how things work. The kicker is that with Vintage Story I actually own my copy. As long as I keep my account access, that copy is mine forever. How many games on Steam can you honestly say the same about, when what you’re really buying there is just a license tied to your account?

To me, “no Steam, no buy” doesn’t mean what some people think it does. It’s less about ownership and more about convenience. Steam offers auto updates, cloud saves, and community features, sure. But Vintage Story gives you something Steam rarely does: real, lasting ownership of your game.

And that difference matters. DRM FREE. Games locked to a single platform can vanish the moment the company changes its terms, pulls a title from the store, or bans an account. Entire libraries have been lost this way, and once that happens you have no recourse because you never truly owned the product in the first place. Vintage Story sidesteps that risk by giving you control over your copy. It puts the responsibility in your hands, and with that comes the kind of security and permanence that most players don’t even realize they are missing. Ty Tyron and Irena, for not jumping on the predatory bandwagon of reclaiming our purchases from you in ten years. "Your quality shall be known amongst your enemies, for ever you meet them" -Kingdom of Heaven 2005

[HalfAxd]

I'm an older (1st gen) gamer who was around before the days of Steam...  yes when dinosaurs roamed...

You are spot on here ==>

58 minutes ago, Fistandantilus said:

It’s less about ownership and more about convenience.

I fall into this trap too, but don't hesitate to buy from and support indie developers who are bold enough to break the "ball and chain" of the marriage we have with Steam.

I wish more would do so!

Enjoy 

 

[Fistandantilus]

23 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

 

I fall into this trap too, but don't hesitate to buy from and support indie developers who are bold enough to break the "ball and chain" of the marriage we have with Steam.

 

Ball and Chain is a fantastic way to put it! I said pretty much everything i typed up above to my buddy, perhaps in a nicer tone, but it did not convince them, even for a free game. He says he has trust issues with platforms other than Steam due to some bad shovel ware viruses he received from an Epic Games Store installation. I told him I felt the point he offered kinda proved my side since your dealing DRM free with the dev, but he didn't get that. sigh and shrug. 

Edited August 24, 2025 by Fistandantilus
typo

[OBAMFSpike]

I am flabbergasted by this game. Anyone with a negative opinion is a uninformed dull-witted ninny snapper. Whatever that is. 

This game is awesome. And the little I know of the supporting team that has created it shares the same review. 

I hope to see great success with this game and It would be a pleasure to see the consumer steam nonsense stay as far away from this stellar journey as possible. Something different isn't just welcomed but encouraged and cherished! Greed is ugly and it's refreshing having a team of individuals that pursues fairness and integrity. 

Okay, that is all. Great comment. No Steam BIG DREAM. 

[LadyWYT]

8 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

Steam offers auto updates, cloud saves, and community features, sure. But Vintage Story gives you something Steam rarely does: real, lasting ownership of your game.

I'll also point out that Vintage Story also has auto updates and community features...the modding database, anyone? That, plus the fact that Tyron made the game incredibly easy to mod, even if you're a beginner. You can even look through the source code on github, I do believe. As for the auto-updates, Vintage Story will notify you if there's a new stable update(or unstable, if you're running a release candidate) when you boot the game, and then you can choose when to install it! Steam...doesn't really offer that, at least not by default. By default, Steam downloads and applies any updates it finds; you have to specifically tell it not to update particular games(I had to go through this with Skyrim SE, and it still updated automatically due to an accidental opening of the Skyrim launcher).

Cloud saves I wouldn't expect to be a feature of VS, but I mean...there's always the option of external drives and thumb drives, and thumb drives have improved quite a bit in regards to storage capacity.

[Bumber]

11 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

But Vintage Story gives you something Steam rarely does: real, lasting ownership of your game.

And that difference matters. DRM FREE. Games locked to a single platform can vanish the moment the company changes its terms, pulls a title from the store, or bans an account. Entire libraries have been lost this way, and once that happens you have no recourse because you never truly owned the product in the first place. Vintage Story sidesteps that risk by giving you control over your copy.

What actually are you on about? VS isn't DRM free at all. You can't start a singleplayer game without logging in. What would you do if Anego banned you? What if the login servers are down (as happened recently)?

Steam leaves the developer the option of whether or not to require login. Many games just let you launch with Steam once to download, then play offline whenever. Some you can even give your game files to a friend and it doesn't know any better. Even pulled titles I think it lets you launch if you already have them?

I don't think you can count on Anego's servers outliving Valve's. Valve isn't an indie dev relying on the profit of a single game. The question faced is how many eggs you're willing to risk in a single basket, and how many you're willing to risk being stepped on individually.

Edited August 25, 2025 by Bumber

[Diff]

31 minutes ago, Bumber said:

What actually are you on about? VS isn't DRM free at all. You can't start a singleplayer game without logging in. What would you do if Anego banned you? What if the login servers are down (as happened recently)?

Steam leaves the developer the option of whether or not to require login. Many games just let you launch with Steam once to download, then play offline whenever. Some you can even give your game files to a friend and it doesn't know any better. Even pulled titles I think it lets you launch if you already have them?

I don't think you can count on Anego's servers outliving Valve's. Valve isn't an indie dev relying on the profit of a single game.

Getting increasingly small with the nits being picked here, but technically you can start a single player game offline. As long as you've already signed in and I think as long as you're not connected to the Internet on game boot, it's happy to skip checking in with the authentication server.

12 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

Games locked to a single platform can vanish the moment the company changes its terms, pulls a title from the store, or bans an account. Entire libraries have been lost this way, and once that happens you have no recourse because you never truly owned the product in the first place. Vintage Story sidesteps that risk by giving you control over your copy.

If you wanna get philosophical about it, you can think of VS as locked to a store with a single game for sale. All these things you say apply to VS, just with a library size of 1. But practically, I think we can trust Anego to not fly off the handle, and practically, Valve does not have the history of random unjustified algorithmic bans that Google, Amazon, YouTube and other large tech companies have.

I've personally seen two flavors of No Steam, No Buy. First is the Linux crowd. Steam's the only one nowadays that shows them any love (Epic's completely cold to the point of making formerly Linux-friendly games Epic-exclusive, Humble has stiffed them with the Trove, and GOG still hasn't brought Galaxy over, the others are absolutely non-existent), and Valve has poured a lot of that money into basically developing Linux gaming from ashes. It's a bit of loyalty/voting with their wallet for more Linux support.

The other is driven by frustration at Epic at buying up exclusivity, threatening to bring the modern dark ages of video streaming (the balkanization of Netflix) to the games industry. 

[Cladow]

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

As long as I keep my account access, that copy is mine forever.

Assuming the terms don't change (which they can), yes, but what makes you so sure you can keep your account access forever? It relies on a centralized server.

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

How many games on Steam can you honestly say the same about, when what you’re really buying there is just a license tied to your account?

A lot, as I fail to see how VS really differs that much from the average DRM-infected Steam game. But in terms of DRM-free games: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

To me, “no Steam, no buy” doesn’t mean what some people think it does. It’s less about ownership and more about convenience.

Agreed.

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

DRM FREE.

The first thing you see when opening the game is DRM.

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

Games locked to a single platform can vanish the moment the company changes its terms, pulls a title from the store, or bans an account.

VS can do all of that.

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

Vintage Story sidesteps that risk by giving you control over your copy.

And the DRM within said copy sidesteps back into the risk.

15 hours ago, Fistandantilus said:

Ty Tyron and Irena, for not jumping on the predatory bandwagon of reclaiming our purchases from you in ten years.

They can still do that.

[ifoz]

41 minutes ago, Cladow said:

Assuming the terms don't change (which they can), yes, but what makes you so sure you can keep your account access forever? It relies on a centralized server.

Iirc Tyron has said before that if the servers/game ever shut down, the last update would be removing the login restrictions to play.

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

Iirc Tyron has said before that if the servers/game ever shut down, the last update would be removing the login restrictions to play.

I totally believe that he would, but there are plenty of situations where one could imagine the game servers shutting down abruptly due to factors Tyron doesn't have immediate control over

I don't like DRM on games, and with VS in particular I have to log in a lot because I maintain separate mod folders.

But VS DRM is better than a lot of games, so 

Edited August 25, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[CastIronFabric]

I have heard of 'no Steam no buy' and I normally am exactly that person. Steam has a lifetime of great games, so in the interest of not having 10 different places to get my games I prefer to keep them in one portal.

I do not think that is outlandish, I am glad I made an exception for VS but it did take me a year

Edited August 25, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Colaba]

my 2 cents.... when i came to the game (46 years, so dino here to as someone said before) i cant buy it (someone give it to me on reddit - and im really welcome), And i cant buy it not cause money, but i live on Brazil and dont have a international card. After the gift, someone told me (in reddit) that have a way to buy it here (i dont see it till now) but steam make this thing easier.... Put in local currency so is more acessive (i dont know if I create this word), you have the galery, etc, etc, etc.... its good in so many layers... but i understand wt the devs said about the percentage, the game itselfe and i think its fair....

 

[ArtGnat]

2 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

I don't like DRM on games, and with VS in particular I have to log in a lot because I maintain separate mod folders.

I deal with this a lot. VS DRM is better than a lot of games. but because I like to have different mod folders/instances it does get annoying the extra amount of logging in that I need to do. I wish they had a way to know that I've already logged in, but I'm just switching to a different Instance or Version of VS.
(I also have VS 1.20 and 1.21rc installed separately for easy back and forth right now since the server I play on won't be updating to 1.21 right away)

[Echo Weaver]

16 minutes ago, ArtGnat said:

I deal with this a lot. VS DRM is better than a lot of games. but because I like to have different mod folders/instances it does get annoying the extra amount of logging in that I need to do. I wish they had a way to know that I've already logged in, but I'm just switching to a different Instance or Version of VS.
(I also have VS 1.20 and 1.21rc installed separately for easy back and forth right now since the server I play on won't be updating to 1.21 right away)

I haven't seen the official text, but I've been reading that VS plans to support separate mod lists soon. That would really make my day.

I assume that multiple parallel versions are still going to require separate log-in. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have a solution for that too. Considering how much they depend on players who want to test their release candidates, it would be nice if they'd take a look at making the process smoother for folks who maintain long-term games on a stable release while testing out RCs.

I don't plan to mess with RCs until I've played through the existing story at least once 

[Thorfinn]

24 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I assume that multiple parallel versions are still going to require separate log-in.

44 minutes ago, ArtGnat said:

I wish they had a way to know that I've already logged in

5 hours ago, Cladow said:

The first thing you see when opening the game is DRM.

Yes, but one of the mods (Radast?) teased a hint that you do not have to. I feel kind of stupid for not having worked out the implications of how session keys work in practice a long time ago.

If you are a sophisticated enough user to create multiple instances, you are sophisticated enough to copy a working session key into each instance. All you have to remember to do is copy the same working session key into each new instance (across all your computers if that applies) before you start that instance. Otherwise, you will be copying that new session key into all your other instances.

I debated adding that step to @Streetwind's guide to multiple instances, but have not for reasons of abundance of caution or laziness, take your pick.

[EDIT]

Word to the wise -- clientsettings.json is your friend.

Edited August 25, 2025 by Thorfinn

[ArtGnat]

24 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I haven't seen the official text, but I've been reading that VS plans to support separate mod lists soon. That would really make my day.

I assume that multiple parallel versions are still going to require separate log-in. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have a solution for that too. Considering how much they depend on players who want to test their release candidates, it would be nice if they'd take a look at making the process smoother for folks who maintain long-term games on a stable release while testing out RCs.

That would be awesome!
 

10 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

If you are a sophisticated enough user to create multiple instances, you are sophisticated enough to copy a working session key into each instance. All you have to remember to do is copy the same working session key into each new instance (across all your computers if that applies) before you start that instance. Otherwise, you will be copying that new session key into all your other instances.

Oh cool! I'll have to give that a try. thx!
where would I find the working session key?/what does it look like? is the file just called Session Key or something?

Edited August 25, 2025 by ArtGnat

[Thorfinn]

4 minutes ago, ArtGnat said:

is the file just called Session Key or something?

I just edited that back in, but you were way too fast for a senior citizen on his first cuppa. clientsettings.json

Edited August 25, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Echo Weaver]

22 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

If you are a sophisticated enough user to create multiple instances, you are sophisticated enough to copy a working session key into each instance.

Oh, thanks! I guessed it was something straightforwardly stored in the dataPath directory, but I didn't want to do the digging. I'll try this out.

[Diff]

15 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Oh, thanks! I guessed it was something straightforwardly stored in the dataPath directory, but I didn't want to do the digging. I'll try this out.

One footgun note there, if you're copying within the same computer it's probably safe to copy the whole file, but the file contains other things besides the session key, like the folder to read mods from or the list of mods that are currently disabled. It can cause small headaches if you copy the whole file across totally different computers, but you can also just manually pull the session key out and share it across your various instances.

[Katherine K]

2 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

I haven't seen the official text, but I've been reading that VS plans to support separate mod lists soon. That would really make my day.

If there's no official support soon, one will need to be created unofficially.

I don't know if there's an easy way to make it work entirely within the game, but it'd be pretty straight forward to set up a launcher that feeds a virtual directory structure to the game. Kind of similar to how some mod organizers for Beth games work. That would let you select a mod-list you wish to apply, and this can simply only have the selected mods show up in the directory structure that the game sees.

Since something like this would also be feeding the config file through the VFS, it'd be pretty straight forward to also set up a session manager in there.

[Diff]

44 minutes ago, Katherine K said:

If there's no official support soon, one will need to be created unofficially.

I don't know if there's an easy way to make it work entirely within the game, but it'd be pretty straight forward to set up a launcher that feeds a virtual directory structure to the game. Kind of similar to how some mod organizers for Beth games work. That would let you select a mod-list you wish to apply, and this can simply only have the selected mods show up in the directory structure that the game sees.

Since something like this would also be feeding the config file through the VFS, it'd be pretty straight forward to also set up a session manager in there.

Based on this topic over here, I think a launcher would be a pretty easy way to implement it, maybe keeping separate folders for each modpack and tacking on the appropriate path with --addModPath. I see there's also flags to leap straight into specific worlds (--openWorld) and to connect to specific servers (--connect) which oughta make things very smooth.

[Percutiens]

I personally just stuck the executable onto steam and call it a day, no need to bother with navigating to my desktop nor needing to go into my folders to find it. The experience still feels basically the same as any other steam game and even has its own modding scene with one click installs which does the same job as the steam workshop. The best way to explain to your friend is that yes the game is not on steam, but operationally it is very similar. And just as I am writing this you can even enable steam overlay on the game if you enable it after adding it to your steam library as a non-steam game. Literally feels like it's on steam without needing to buy it on steam.

Another thing I would like to add is that steam isn't even that bad with its licensing of games, it's pretty lax is most areas and you don't lose that copy unless you specifically ask for it to be removed. The only times I have lost access to a game is not due to steam but the actual developers doing things behind the scene.

[Fistandantilus]

13 hours ago, Bumber said:

What actually are you on about? VS isn't DRM free at all. You can't start a singleplayer game without logging in. What would you do if Anego banned you? What if the login servers are down (as happened recently)?

Steam leaves the developer the option of whether or not to require login. Many games just let you launch with Steam once to download, then play offline whenever. Some you can even give your game files to a friend and it doesn't know any better. Even pulled titles I think it lets you launch if you already have them?

I don't think you can count on Anego's servers outliving Valve's. Valve isn't an indie dev relying on the profit of a single game. The question faced is how many eggs you're willing to risk in a single basket, and how many you're willing to risk being stepped on individually.

So in my opinion, Between this and Tyron’s outlook on DRM, I see Vintage Story as functionally DRM free, especially when set beside platforms like the EA App, Origin, Epic Games, Microsoft Store, and even Steam. Those platforms often include Denuvo on top of their own systems, and Steam itself has a long track record of siding against players in DRM matters. Examples include Steamworks requiring the client to launch games, offline mode being broken or unreliable for years, the lack of refunds before 2015 even when DRM caused problems, Ubisoft’s double-DRM through Steam plus Uplay, Bethesda stacking Steam with Denuvo, Denuvo being allowed to hurt performance on top of Steam’s own DRM, VAC bans locking players out of features with no appeal, and total library loss if your account is banned. With that history in mind, I lean toward trusting Tyron over Steam, since Valve’s priority has consistently been publishers first, not developers or players.

What would you do if Anego banned you?

There is no supported way to play Vintage Story without going through Anego’s servers. The launcher requires a login before singleplayer will even start, so if your account is banned or the servers are offline you are locked out. You can stay logged in and keep playing as long as the authentication remains valid, but once you need to log in again the barrier is there. This is why the recent outage was such a problem, it showed that every copy of the game is dependent on a single gatekeeper.

Steam’s DRM is more complicated, and Valve has often sided with developers by permitting stacked DRM and giving publishers wide control. Still, Steam has given ground when enough players pushed back. Anego on the other hand has only one game, Vintage Story, and the studio’s survival depends on it. Tyron Madlener both created the game and holds the rights, so everything is bound to him personally. If there were ever conflict between Tyron and Anego, the company would lose since the rights are his. That makes the ecosystem more fragile than with larger publishers, but if you trust Tyron, that same personal tie can feel like a strength. Anego is a middle man, in a sense of the word that Steam isn't. I don't think there will ever come a day that Tyron gatekeeps this game.

Edited August 25, 2025 by Fistandantilus
emphasis typo

[Fistandantilus]

9 hours ago, Cladow said:

 

A lot, as I fail to see how VS really differs that much from the average DRM-infected Steam game. But in terms of DRM-free games: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

 

That’s only about 3.6 percent of the entire Steam catalog, and most of those DRM free games exist because the publisher Insisted it. Steam itself functions as DRM, with the default being that you need the client to launch. The only way a Steam game ends up DRM free is if the publisher or developer ships it that way. Valve doesn’t force additional DRM if the dev doesn’t want it, but they also don’t encourage DRM free distribution. Tyron, on the other hand, has positioned himself on the side of modders and players. The source code is available on GitHub, and unlike Steam’s alignment with publisher DRM, Tyron still holds the rights to Vintage Story. If Anego ever went under, he could decide what to do, and he has indicated before that he would remove the authentication requirement if the game was no longer supported. This is why i included the quote from Kingdom of Heaven at the end, because Its in Tyron that the decision is made. 

[Diff]

23 minutes ago, Fistandantilus said:

That’s only about 3.6 percent of the entire Steam catalog

It's way more. The list is incomplete, so you can't use it to make statements about the overall proportion. I can tell you that out of the 38 games installed on my Steam Deck right now, a lot more than 3.6% are DRM-free, and many aren't on that list.

Edited August 25, 2025 by Diff