[bscphil]

Not sure where the confusion lies here. If the developer wants Steam DRM, then Steam enforces it. It's not just the Steam API integration, if the game has Steam DRM and you try to start it without the Steam-specific files and your cached login present on the system, it won't work.

I call that "enforcement", and most significant games on Steam use it.

[stavros]

The sentence "Steam doesn't enforce DRM" has only one valid meaning, that Steam the platform doesn't require you to have DRM to be on it.

The alternative, that Steam DRM is used but doesn't actually do the thing that DRM is supposed to do, ie prevent copying, is nonsensical, and thus can't be what OP meant.

Therefore, we are forced to assume that they meant that "non-enforcement" means that Steam the platform doesn't require DRM for your game to be on it, which is true, it doesn't. That's the only reasonable interpretation.

[bscphil]

The context here is

>> Can you play the same game on two devices from the same steam account without hiding offline?

> Steam doesn't enforce DRM. You can usually go to the game files and just click the launcher from the file manager and the game will run without steam getting involved.

Giving this answer to that question indicates that OP really did mean that you can simply bypass Steam's DRM enforcement (e.g. of playing a game on only one device at a time) by clicking on the launcher directly.

It's not "nonsensical", it's just wrong.