Comment by roxolotl
1 day ago
I always search GOG before Steam. It’s slightly less user friendly in the most minor ways and sometimes a bit more expensive. But getting DRM free games is worth every penny and extra few moments. Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them. Excited to hear GOG might get more focus and investment.
> you’re not buying games you’re leasing them
Counterpoint, the cost of "owning" offline games is not zero and their lifetime is not infinite.
I have a stack of old games on CD (or older) and getting them to run on anything is a massive pain in the neck. (In fact, for nearly all that I care about I also have bought a Steam license in addition).
Ultimately, everything comes down to user experience. We can pat ourselves on the back for buying something forever, but experiences and the media they are stored on are both transitory.
Yea 100% it’s not as easy to use. But as far as I’m aware Steam doesn’t provide any guarantee games will keep working and GOG actually has it as a mission statement that, as least those selected as “Good Old Games”, will[0]. Now of course that requires GOG to survive so it’s sorta the same thing like you’re saying.
But I’d argue there is a material difference between “if you try hard you can run an original copy of Doom” and “if business X decided so you can never access those things again”.
0: https://www.gog.com/en/gog-preservation-program
GOG's mission statement is applied very selectively. For a long time they did not support windows 10, and even now it's really spotty. It's frequently on a per-game basis, and sometimes games that used to work, don't anymore.
1 reply →
Not to disagree, but proton has made it quite easy to run games I've previously struggled with. The nice thing is that it works with any binary, not just those you've purchased. Yes, it's wine, but valve has done wonders for its performance and compatibility.
1 reply →
> I have a stack of old games on CD (or older) and getting them to run on anything is a massive pain in the neck.
Anything? Inc. the recommended spec platform?
Same but I strangely miss the social aspect of achievements on Steam. I prefer GOG but wish the achievements synced.
You are the first person I hear that seems to care about that.
I typically think of myself (and try to act like) a rather rational person. The amount of hours of my life that I've done silly, mindless and occasionally annoying things because some Steam achievement required it is something I can't quite square with that. There's something oddly satisfying about getting them.
It's certainly not a primary purchase decision factor but I've not bought games because they did not come with steam achievements.
2 replies →
Its one of the main reasons why I buy on steam. Makes games much more engaging, especially for me because I prefer hard action games with little to no story.
I care about it a little, not comparing with friends, but I do like the "X% of players" stats.
It seems to me (speaking from a non-gamer perspective) that Steam has nailed down the "app store" vibe better than GOG. I haven't looked much at GOG Galaxy, but AFAIK it's not a Steam-like app to search, buy, install and update games and DLC. I think that's a big part (the only part, maybe?) of Steam's value proposition.
Galaxy is a woefully unmaintained product. It's had known and unfixed CVEs for years now.
https://app.opencve.io/cve/?vendor=gog#:~:text=The%20GalaxyC...
Steam does an amazing job at convenience, but GOG scratches a completely different itch
> Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them.
And you are not paying the large Valve tax (30%), so the publisher gets significantly more money from your purchase.
> you’re leasing them
For the duration of your life, to be fair.
No, for the duration of whenever Steam decides to say "fuck you".
Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers.
Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload.
I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works.
Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally.
32 replies →
Which is the same as what can happen to GOG if you don't have the files backed up. And if you do happen to have them backed up, is there such a large difference between having the installer vs the full game installation stored?
9 replies →
For the duration of gaben’s life, to be fair. Beyond that there be dragons.
For the duration of the businesses’ life.
How is GOG functionally different from Steam? They're still just a middle man. For actual DRM-free software, both GOG and Steam are nothing more than a convenience layer. If they're anything more than that, the software simply isn't DRM-free.
Not sure what you're trying to say here. The distinction is pretty clear: GOG distributes standalone installers without any DRM, and Steam does not.
What does the installer matter for DRM-free software? For software with other forms of DRM built-in anyway, who cares if the installer has it?
2 replies →
Compared to Steam directly, yeah, sometimes a bit more expensive. But as soon as you go to sites selling steam keys (proper ones, not resellers), it's "almost always, a lot", as steam itself rarely has good prices. Now that might still be worth it, but it's relevant
> But as soon as you go to sites selling steam keys (proper ones, not resellers),
What is a company/individual if not a reseller if they're selling Steam keys? You cannot sell Steam keys without being Steam or the developer itself, and not be called a "reseller". Or what sites are you referring to here, stuff like Humble Bundle where you get Steam keys with the bundles?
Resellers sell something they bought. Or that's the idea. The sites are marketplaces, sometimes having people sell keys from different countries, sometimes stolen credit card keys. There are several game devs saying they'd prefer people pirating over using those sites.
Real stores sell steam keys because they are selling directly from the developers. Steam is actually nice (or preempting monopoly talk, depending on your view) in that it allows that (I think there are limits, but IIRC rather generous)
6 replies →
I’m just going to go ahead and plug is there any deal dot com.
You can sync up your Steam wishlist (it’s a little weird to setup but once you figured it out it works).
I almost never buy games directly from steam anymore, there’s almost always someone else with a discount on steam keys.
And sometimes GOG has the best deal!
I love ITAD! If you use a search engine like kagi or duck duck go supporting bangs, you can use !itad to search there.