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Zkuq 6 days ago
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firebush03 said:
Mnementh said:

Yeah, too few people use Gog. I can see why though, Steam is very convenient and has built a reputation of trust. But all it needs is for Gabe to bite the dust and the next owner having different goals. We need actual independence, hence being free of DRM.

Wow. I just looked into GOG... I'm blown away. You download an offline copy of the game, you burn that game to a disc, and thats that. There is nothing GOG can do at that point (unless you start reselling pirated copies of their games, at which point publishers can file a lawsuit on Copyright Infringement). That sounds incredible!

Anybody see any strings attached? It seems pretty cut-and-dry. If this is as good as I think it to be, then yeah, I'm done with Steam. Unless there's a game available only through Steam and not through GOG, I will exclusively be purchasing through GOG moving forward.

There are no strings attached per se. That said:

  • GOG is a much smaller business than Steam, so the likelyhood of it toppling over is significantly higher than Steam's. It's been around since 2008 so it's probably fairly stable, but the risk is there. If you back up your games, you don't necessarily lose a lot if GOG keels over.
  • Cross-play multiplayer with other platforms, including Steam, varies. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't.
  • Sometimes prices are higher than on Steam. I think usually they're more or less the same, but when they differ, usually GOG has higher prices.
  • There's fewer games available, so it'll probably still be GOG for the games you can and Steam for the rest.
  • Sometimes games are released on GOG later, even years later.
  • Linux support is generally weaker than on Steam. Games with a Linux version on Steam might not have the Linux version available on GOG, and GOG's optional Galaxy client has no Linux support at the moment (GOG has recently expressed growing interest in Linux, so this could change in the near future).
  • Steam has a lot of convenience features not matched anywhere else. I think the most important one for me is Steam Input, which greatly increases controller support in a lot of games (mostly older ones with lacking controller support). You can probably utilize Steam Input for GOG games too by adding GOG games to Steam as non-Steam games, but I think I've done something like this only once. VR is another thing I have no idea how it would work on GOG, whereas with Steam it's built-in.

That's a lot, but for many use cases, it might not be terribly important. For me, DRM-free from GOG has generally been a great advantage despite the shortcomings, and only with Microsoft really fumbling with Windows in the recent years have I paid more attention to the Linux side of things and considered things from that perspective as well more carefully.