Free Valve Games For Debian Developers

"4. You try installing your backed-up game and... It requires a client you have no way to get."

Not true in the case of for example Half-Life 2 it doesn't require any client.

"Not only that, even if you get it, to restore the game it needs to connect to a service which doesn't exist anymore. That's it - no restore. "

Not true in the case of Half-Life 2, no client needed to "restore" the back up and so no service needed to restore it. CTRL + C followed by CTRL + V is all that is needed to "restore" Half-Life 2.

The fact that some games on Steam use DRM(in some cases the DRM Steam provides as an option to developers, in some cases 3rd part DRM and in some cases both) doesn't mean that all games on Steam use DRM. In fact is it not the case. Some games on Steam like Half-Life 2 don't use DRM. 

So, you can unpack the backup created by Steam without the client? That's good. Is it just a simple zip, tarball etc.? Does it contain all the installation scripts (if they ever exist? I have no clue. On some systems installers have scripts).

Quoting: Quote from ShmerlSo, you can unpack the backup without the client? That's good. Is it just a simple zip, tarball etc.?

It is not a compressed backup of any kind, it is a simple copy and paste of the game directory created without using the Steam client at all.

Edit:

Although if you wanted to you could compress the backup when creating it, in which case you would uncompress it on the target computer using the appropriate tool for the compression format you used, this was however not what I did with Half-Life 2. 

If you paid attention I was specifically excluding the case of copying the game directory as is. I was talking about official Steam backup (which I assume should include all the installation logic if such is present). Copying can indeed work for some games. Is it guaranteed to work for all Steam games? I have no clue. At best, such copying can be considered a workaround, but not a feature of Steam.

Quoting: Quote from ShmerlIf you paid attention I was specifically excluding the case of copying the game directory. I was talking about official Steam backup. Copying can indeed work for some games. Is it guaranteed to work for all Steam games? I have no clue.

So what? Why restrict yourself to an official Steam backup?  GOG and Humble Bundle don't provide official backup features unlike Steam. Copy and paste is all you have got with them too. It is an arbitrary restriction. The fact that I didn't use the official Steam backup feature doesn't suddenly make Half-Life 2 any less DRM free.

Edit:

Look to clarify the debate, this is how I see it:

We are debating if certain games are DRM free or not. Your claim is that if a game is on Steam is is automatically DRMed, my claim is that that is not the case and that the mere fact of being distributed(even exclusively) via Steam does not render an otherwise DRM free game DRMed. How a game is packaged if it uses standard Windows installers or .deb packages or .rpm packages or a ZIP archive is irrelevant to its DRM status. Copy and pasting directories is a perfectly valid installation method.

GOG and HB provide self contained installers and packages which they guarantee will be usable without their services being present anywhere. I saw no such guarantee from Steam. Manual copying "works" as is (sometimes), but it's not what Steam supports or can vouch for.

Quoting: Quote from ShmerlGOG and HB provide self contained installers and packages which they guarantee will be usable without their services being present anywhere. I saw no such guarantee from Steam. Manual copying "works" as is (sometimes), but it's not what Steam supports or can vouch for.

Does Steam provide DRM free games? Yes several in fact(But maybe not as many as some people claim). Does Steam advertise that fact? No, but nobody claimed they did.  Is that something they guarantee for all their games? No, but nobody claimed it was. You have been maintaining that the mere fact a game is on Steam means it is not DRM free, that is not true.

Edit:

To reformulate my claim, using some of your wording, it is this:

1. There exist games on Steam that will be usable without Steam's services being present anywhere. 

Edit2:

DRM is 100%, totally and utterly a technical matter and has nothing to do with guarantees or the lack thereof. As a purely empirical matter Half-Life 2(as one example among several) will continue to work forever even if Steam were to shutdown.

I have a problem with Steam not letting you know before hand all that information, as well as not officially supporting it. So I don't consider it to be even partially DRM free (official service). It's a whole level worse than a mixture of DRM-free and DRMed offerings that HB has for example.

Quoting: Quote from ShmerlI have a problem with Steam not letting you know before hand all that information, as well as not officially supporting it. So I don't consider it to be even partially DRM free (official service). It's a whole level worse than a mixture of DRM-free and DRMed offerings that HB has for example.

The games are DRM free whether they tell you about it or not. Should they tell you about it? Yes. Should they have complete and accurate information about the DRM status of all their games? Yes. Does the fact they don't do that mean none of the games they offer on Steam are DRM free? No. 

Yes, some of them are whether they tell me or not. But whether to use the service or not I decide based in part on how they treat their users. And this enough for me to avoid Steam.