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submitted 1 week ago by Yuritopiaposadism@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net

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[-] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 30 points 1 week ago

i would settle for an .iso or a self-contained portable executable with no login, DRM, no telemetry, no phone-home bullshit.

i remember getting GTA 1 because a guy at my school came over with a ZIP drive+disk and copied a folder over to my C: drive. to play multi, when just had to create a LAN and choose multiplayer at the menu.

RETVRN

[-] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 week ago

I remember the original Diablo let you install "spawn" copies on your friends' computers. This was a limited, co-op only version of the game, and you could all play together using only one full retail version.

[-] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 16 points 1 week ago

This was a feature that was fairly common in PC games at the time, I vaguely remember Red Alert being able to do this too to play LAN games.

[-] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

Missionforce: Cyberstorm (one of my favorite games of all time) came with two copies of the game so you could give one to a friend. It also had the option to do a full install (a whopping 300+ MB!) to be playable without the CD.

[-] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

I miss this with Starcraft. I still have that file for it around somewhere probably. Maybe one day LAN parties will come back as some sort of retro thing.

[-] Parra@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

Dudes on School computers had a pirate portable copy of Counter Strike 1.6 and just copied to a pen drive and to all Computers to make a Lan party at school. circa 2013

[-] Red_Shift@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

Those were the good days. I also remember with Diablo and Starcraft if I lost the case I could randomly type in numbers for the CD key and it would eventually land on a real one.

[-] ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

How companies react

[-] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026

102 points (100.0% liked)

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