You can archive the installed files from Steam though. An example is the pixel art program Aseprite. The devs said just to copy the binary out of the Steam folder and place it elsewhere if you wish.
That's still not "archiving" though. It's one thing to download the installer, and quite another to install the game and copy the files hoping it will all still work. Especially on windows when registry entries are involved.
You have no clue what you are talking about. Registry entries that are required by games are like a thing of the past for like 25 years or something.
I am a heavy pirate and I my favorite games come as raw files torrents with the crack pre-applied. Games these days (with DRM removed) simply execute no matter where you copy and move them they just work. The cracks themselves do not modify any registry entries or make the game write them new or differently because they simply do not use the registry. Games write their savegames in AppData or Documents and THAT IS IT. Installers are glorified copy machines with ads on them (GOG) for example. They copy files and put a shortcut in your start menu and desktop and THAT IS IT, they do not write special registry entries for a game to work. Again this has not been a thing for like 25 years. I think it was when SecureROM was a thing.
So yes some steam games actually come DRM free, and you do not even have to move them out of the original steam install folder you just need to execute the EXE without steam running and they work. So indeed it is in fact achieving if you simply keep the files somewhere. For game with basic steam DRM you can use a crack or use steamless that basically removes the steam DRM that is very basic from the exe and use Goldberg Steam Emu to emulate steam. You do all this after the fact so you CAN for all the game that to not have some advanced DRM like Denovo just achieve the games files and make them work later on without Steam.
It will if it's DRM-free. The login check is an optional call that the developer has to intentionally use. Usually if you're a small developer releasing a DRM-free game you'd make your game degrade gracefully if Steamworks doesn't work, so you can publish the same builds on Steam and on any other store.
I love steam but even if it can barely be called a DRM, it still is. People not into computer science will have no clue how to do it, and that's what matters when talking about owning your own games, you should not require knowledge to keep something you paid for
All I'm saying is that it's an imperfect but reliable workaround for archiving your games.
What other choice do you have if the game is only available on Steam?
Of course in an ideal world it would be available in a true DRM-free installer but in the real world you'll always need to reach for messy workarounds that just work. This is one of them and most people probably don't know that it exists.
"Not into computer science" lol. I knew how to copy a damn crack at 13 years or whatever and a barely figured out windows by that time. You act like people are stupid. Sure there are some console gamers who only use their phone for social media and are clueless about computers in 2026, but most people know how to copy some damn files over. They do not need to be in "computer science".
tech aware, i don't care how you call them, english is not my first language that's just the term I came up with on the spot. Non-tech aware people will not know about the steam emulators
Also that's the point. You purchased something you should not have to crack it to keep it.