Buying a Steam game when it's on GOG. Why?

[Durante]

Very few games work like this, because there is pressure from Steam fans for games to include Steamworks features like trading cards, leaderboards, etc. All of these require the DRM.

Steam is DRM, but a tiny number of games aren't fully implemented on the platform so lack steam features, the first of which is always DRM

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Others have said it already, but it bears repeating since it's a common misconception:
This is 100%, entirely, completely wrong.

Unlike most other platforms, Steam DRM is not only completely optional, it's actually opt-in rather than opt-out. As in, you have to actively work on integrating DRM if you want it. You can also integrate all other features without DRM (though of course people need to be connected to the network to use features with an online component such as cloud saves).

 

[Ohto]

Prefer gog cause it doesn't shove updates down my throat. Be it client or have updates I'd much prefer not to bother with them and gog gives me that option. Even consoles don't anymore.

Hell, I played God of war 3 for the first time last year and had to cancel the update WHILE I WAS PLAYING at least 5 times until it popped up at just the exact moment I was pressing O, so I kinda got forced into installing the thing.

And one extra middle finger steam gives me? The thing that pops up with desks is called UPDATE news. Pointless but still feels like me and my desire to play games instead of eating time downloading updates are being told to screw.

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This is the reason I uninstalled Steam. I will never again install it. If a game won't come to other stores, I won't buy it. Fuck Steam with a rusty fork.

GoG lets me play games that don't have latest patches (oh boy it would've been nice to have this when Steam tried to force me to install an update to Skyrim, I had a loooooooooong savegame with over a hundred mods. That patch destroyed a lot of thsoe mods).

Steam has always been clumsy, cumbersome, utterly ass app. It never worked as well as the others (well, UPlay used to be even worse).

 

[Deleted member 5167]

This is the reason I uninstalled Steam. I will never again install it. If a game won't come to other stores, I won't buy it. Fuck Steam with a rusty fork.

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Because God Of War 3 on not-steam required an update while playing?

 

[Parfait]

The excuse most people say is "because I want it all in one place", to that I say create desktop icons for games you regularly play and there ya go. It really is sad people prefer DRM + license agreements over DRM-free with full control and ownership just because the games aren't on 1 singular client. GOG now has Galaxy, with cloud support, achievements and time spent in the game, so there's no excuse.

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Haha, no
I don't even see my desktop regularly. I hate the start menu. No, having the stuff over in one place is much nicer in the end. I'd rather launch everything through steam than have a bunch of other programs open. Also, steam friends. I also have over 400+ games on steam compared to the 9ish on GoG. Also, GoG Galaxy's client is an ugly, bright white on light grey text monstrosity of UX design that needs to be drawn and quartered. Not having a dark theme is piss.

 

[NEE HEE HEE]

After seeing my copy of Azure StRiker not boot without Internet, I started to go GoG over steam. It has to be the stupidest DRM implementation I have ever seen. Even when appearing offline and booting with an active Internet connection, it fails to boot lmao. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Lurkyseas]

How can I make backups of games that I've already bought on Steam & other places like GoG? I'm just getting into Steam now.

 

[lazerfox]

Steam Big Picture Mode is why I buy most of my games on Steam. It made comfy couch gaming really convenient for my two screen set-up. Sure, you can add the .exe to Steam but I'm lazy af.

Also, being able to take Screenshots with a simple controller bind and upload it to the cloud. Not to mention all the other features Steam provides.

 

[Deleted member 5167]

How can I make backups of games that I've already bought on Steam & other places like GoG? I'm just getting into Steam now.

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Steam menu item ->. backup and restore games
But tbh you don't even really need to do that. You can just move your entire steam install directory somewhere else and point to it within steam settings for install folder, and it will recognise them.

"Backup" games to not use a steam login at all is a seperate matter and for obvious reasons starts falling into yo-ho-ho territory.

 

[3bdelilah]

I'm going to have to echo the "never had a problem with Steam's DRM" comments, since I have internet like 364 days of the year. Once a year or so I'm six hours out of internet because of some scheduled maintenance.

I mean, I appreciate GOG and I definitely applaud competition, but if both games are on both platforms for the same price, I'm going for the Steam version without hesitation. Why? Probably because of most people here, the fact that I prefer having most of my games at one place. Sometimes that's not possible, but if there's a choice, I'm on Steam.

 

[HamCormier]

Haha, no
I don't even see my desktop regularly. I hate the start menu. No, having the stuff over in one place is much nicer in the end. I'd rather launch everything through steam than have a bunch of other programs open. Also, steam friends. I also have over 400+ games on steam compared to the 9ish on GoG. Also, GoG Galaxy's client is an ugly, bright white on light grey text monstrosity of UX design that needs to be drawn and quartered. Not having a dark theme is piss.

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But can't you add your own games to Steam?

 

[3bdelilah]

I've already invested in the steam eco system and GOG allows you to transfer library sometimes

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True at the bolded. While very customer friendly, GOG Connect ironically makes me less likely to buy on there because it's much, much more likely that I end up getting a free GOG version of a Steam version that I bought instead of the other way around.

In fact, my GOG library consists of around 80 games and only two (!!) games have been bought from it, Witcher 3 (and its expansions) and VtM:BL. The rest are from /connect or from frontpage freebies.

 

[Ebullientprism]

Steam has local pricing. GoG is more expensive.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

In my gaming world Steam is a massive continent that houses the majority of my gaming library. I enjoy it's features and it's where I've bothered friending people most.

GoG is a cute little island built mainly of Steam games that I received GoG copies via Connect. I just don't invest into GoG because I see no reason to split my library up.

 

[Deleted member 14735]

I used to be more open to GoG but I've read of cases where their games don't get updated to the same extent the Steam versions are, are updated much more slowly, or lack features and content. It seems like a lot of devs themselves treat GoG as more of an afterthought, or perhaps it's that it's more difficult for them to keep their titles updated on that platform. Whatever the case, I don't want to have to worry about researching into every game I want to buy to make sure that it has parity with the Steam version, and I like having games centralised as well. I don't mind using GoG for older games that don't wind up on Steam, but if a game is on both then I go with Steam.

 

[Spacejaws]

Steam menu item ->. backup and restore games
But tbh you don't even really need to do that. You can just move your entire steam install directory somewhere else and point to it within steam settings for install folder, and it will recognise them.

"Backup" games to not use a steam login at all is a seperate matter and for obvious reasons starts falling into yo-ho-ho territory.

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This is what I do so I don't have to redownload. My entire steam library is on a 5TB external that I just move the game folders around depending on if I'm playing it or not and use symbolic links steammover to manage it. Good if you've got an SSD for a main game drive. Honestly though I play games off the external all the time and have no issues. That way if a game needs an update with the external plugged in I can keep everything up to date and not worry about redownloading.

Works for me an my 900 games because I work on a ship and if I get a hankering to play Fallout 2 I can't really just redownload and trawl the internet for the fan patches to get it all working. I've spent a lot of time trying to ensure that every game in my library can be run in one fashion or another without having to go online and tweak them.

The extra bonus with Steam compared to other clients, GoG Galaxy included IIRC is Steam doesn't really mind if the game folder is missing and lets you copy it back in later. Origin and Uplay in my experience flag it if they notice the game folder is missing and want to recheck all files online when you cooy it back and try to play it again. For them I always leave them installed on the drive until they I've beat them, after that I move then to my external in case I want to go back but effectively write then off until I can have an 30mins online for them to recheck their files. Bit of a bitch because it still uses quite a lot of data on the ship, would be fine if the recheck used minimal data (I'm talking in excess of 250mb which is a $10 charge for me).

 

[Deleted member 5167]

This is what I do so I don't have to redownload.

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Yeah, its what I did the last time I built a new PC - my new chassis had a lot of drive bays so I just literally used my old drive as my dedicated games drive and pointed steam at its new location.
Worked fine.

 

[dock]

This isn't right. The Witcher 3 is DRM-free on Steam but supports trading cards and other Steam stuff anyway.

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That's good to know! Just a shame it's such an exception. Quite a few indie games launch without DRM and end up with it later when Steam is fully integrated.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Unlike most other platforms, Steam DRM is not only completely optional, it's actually opt-in rather than opt-out. As in, you have to actively work on integrating DRM if you want it. You can also integrate all other features without DRM (though of course people need to be connected to the network to use features with an online component such as cloud saves).

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Are you referring to CEG or the Steam API in general? I've found that the (vast) majority of my games will refuse to run without Steam, not necessarily because they have CEG but because they aren't coded to gracefully handle the steam api not being available. The result, intentional or not, is basically the same as DRM.

 

[Ge0force]

That's good to know! Just a shame it's such an exception. Quite a few indie games launch without DRM and end up with it later when Steam is fully integrated.

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I wasn't even aware of this. I've got several DRM free Steam games from Humble Bundles, and most of them support trading cards, cloud saves etc. Do you have any examples of indie games that added DRM later?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I used to be more open to GoG but I've read of cases where their games don't get updated to the same extent the Steam versions are, are updated much more slowly, or lack features and content.

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Citation needed. What games? This hasn't been my experience at all.

Patches sometimes take a couple of extra days on GoG, but not more.

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

Citation needed. What games? This hasn't been my experience at all.

Patches sometimes take a couple of extra days on GoG, but not more.

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https://www.gog.com/mix/games_that_treat_gog_customers_as_second_class_citizens

Here are some cases if you search for "patch".

 

[Parfait]

But can't you add your own games to Steam?

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Oh, for sure. I haven't tried with games from other launchers, however, and I especially experienced annoyances from trying to make shortcuts for blizzard games to also use the overlay, so I could get screenshots saved (something I used to do a lot for things like WoW and the like), but it's a hell of an annoyance to do so. From what I recall even doing this with Guild Wars 2 is awful, as just pointing it at the launcher doesn't get the overlay in game.

So if anything adding non-steam games and making them work properly with the overlay is my biggest problem with the platform, and that's by a game by game basis.

 

[Kuosi]

Steam has local pricing. GoG is more expensive.

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In here GoG is cheaper as you get the dollar vs euro exchange deficit as gog store credit if the games are of equal price in euro and dollar(most are)

 

[Custódio]

This is what I do so I don't have to redownload. My entire steam library is on a 5TB external that I just move the game folders around depending on if I'm playing it or not and use symbolic links steammover to manage it. Good if you've got an SSD for a main game drive. Honestly though I play games off the external all the time and have no issues. That way if a game needs an update with the external plugged in I can keep everything up to date and not worry about redownloading.

Works for me an my 900 games because I work on a ship and if I get a hankering to play Fallout 2 I can't really just redownload and trawl the internet for the fan patches to get it all working. I've spent a lot of time trying to ensure that every game in my library can be run in one fashion or another without having to go online and tweak them.

The extra bonus with Steam compared to other clients, GoG Galaxy included IIRC is Steam doesn't really mind if the game folder is missing and lets you copy it back in later. Origin and Uplay in my experience flag it if they notice the game folder is missing and want to recheck all files online when you cooy it back and try to play it again. For them I always leave them installed on the drive until they I've beat them, after that I move then to my external in case I want to go back but effectively write then off until I can have an 30mins online for them to recheck their files. Bit of a bitch because it still uses quite a lot of data on the ship, would be fine if the recheck used minimal data (I'm talking in excess of 250mb which is a $10 charge for me).

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Just so you know, you don't need to mess around with steammover and symbolic links anymore since some time ago. Now you can create multiple libraries folder that you can choose when installing and also there's an option on Steam Itself to move a specific game that is already installed to another folder (right click > properties > local files tab > move game, or something like that, I'm on a mobile now)

 

[Cantaim]

For me it's those digital trading cards. after playing some games I get in a sale I usually have enough cards to sell and buy one more deeply discounted game. Got around 8 games from this over the years.

 

[Spacejaws]

Just so you know, you don't need to mess around with steammover and symbolic links anymore since some time ago. Now you can create multiple libraries folder that you can choose when installing and also there's an option on Steam Itself to move a specific game that is already installed to another folder (right click > properties > local files tab > move game, or something like that, I'm on a mobile now)

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Yea I know but I've found if I use that feature steam needs to be online to recognize the new library location. I kinda like managing it myself, kinda like iTunes vs managing all my folders myself.

I'll give it a try but I usually swap drives on the fly and when I tested it on steam in the past it wanted to do a fike check with the new library location which would ocassionally lead to Steam attempting to redownload the full game which once initiated you can really struggle to get Steam to realize the 50GB it need sis already there. Sometimes it actually delete's the directory contents and redownloads. Not sure why it did it in the past but I've not been eager to test the waters much since.

 

[L4DANathan]

If GOG had made "all versions must be available for download" and various other consumer friendly stuff they've done mandatory, even for big publishers, they'd be worth the hassle of multiple game services easy. As it is, they seemed to bail on those ideas when the AAA games started coming onto the service.

 

[Deleted member 9237]

GOG did a count down for their end of service, and then posted a comedy video revealing the hoax. It was very obnoxious, even worse than the terrible 'potato' portal 2 campaign on Steam.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/22/good-old-games-gets-new-relaunches/

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It was a shitty stunt, but hardly worth boycotting them forever for. It seems like their heart is in the right place for the most part.