Question about Steam & Activation limits

WeatherMan

WeatherMan

Active Member
Hi guys,

As some of you may already know, I'll soon be in the process of putting together my new system, and I've also made a new steam account, and purchased quite a sum of games for it.

My plan is to run my games straight from my SSD, which is a 128GB Samsung 830.

I also have a 2TB SATAIII Drive, and I want to use this to back up all of my games.

However, I am weary about DRM, specifically activation limits.

The total space of storage needed for all my steam games is roughly 140GB, obviously I cannot have all games installed at once.

I will be running my most played games from the SSD, and will occasionally swap them around, so I have the chance to play other games.

What I want to do is download my steam games one by one, and back them up individually onto my storage drive, which I know is possible.

My question is, can I download each of my games, back them up, and then delete the ones I don't want to play at the time without using an activation?

I do know that many games will only prompt for activation on their first run, so as long as I don't try to run them before backing them up I should be good?

I don't often reformat, and have no plans to change hardware so I'm all good there.

I suppose I'm just paranoid because I've heard that some games have an activation limit that is just install based, for the single machine, say 5 and you're out.

Also, some of the games apparently 'require' EA Origin to be installed, but can I still download, backup and play these titles through steam?

Could fellow members try and shed some light on this for me? :)

Thanks!
 
You can uninstall and reinstall any game you bought on Steam as much as you want. Steam games don't normally prompt for activation, as their activation codes are stored inside the download already.

If a game requires Origin (AKA Battlefield 3) then yes, you need to and can only use Origin for it.
 
I was under the impression that games really didn't benefit much from an SSD except loading screens were quicker.
 
Only games with other third-party DRM (such as Crysis, which has SecuROM) have install limits. All other games on steam just use steam and nothing else.
 
In most cases you can just move a game's files from the steamapps folder and store it somewhere else. If Steam shows that the game is still installed, then it is just a matter of moving the files back and you can play. If you've uninstalled the game or had to reinstall Windows or Steam, then you can just move the files back and install the game via Steam. Steam will just check that all the necessary files are there and up to date.

There is also the possibility of storing games outside of the .../Steam/steamapps/ folder by using things like symbolic links. It enables you to place a game's files anywhere on your computer while Steam still thinks that the files are in the normal place. Probably the easiest way of describing this is to think of it as placing one portal where the game's folder should be and another portal where the actual folder is. Link Shell Extension adds context menus for this when you right-click a file/folder, which makes it much easier than having to use a command line interface. Here's a video tutorial on moving Steam games with symbolic links via a command line interface. The principal idea is the same but Link Shell Extension makes it easier, if you are going to do this with a lot of games.

Most, if not all, games specify 3rd party DRM (Securom, TAGES, Uplay, etc.) and any activation limits on the game's page on the Steam store. There's also an excellent site called "The Big List of 3rd Party DRM on Steam". Usually you can get more activations by contacting a publisher's support team.
 
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