hehehe... Ok, I'll rephrase it:

I didn't know that Steam causes people to upgrade their PCs. Games on the other hand...

Actually I'm still kind of a fan of Steam when it comes to getting new releases but I must admit that it often annoys me. I've had indeed lots of problems with the offline mode, I am annoyed by the fact that some releases have DRM with installation limits (and Steam could force publishers to drop custom DRM if they wanted to), the Steam Cloud often causes conflicts for me and additionally I do often have to deactivate the Steam overlay for some games to run properly (mostly in case of older releases). Then there's lots of minor bullshit such as downloads stopping whenever you run a game, even if it's a pure singleplayer game - Steam has been around for almost ten years and they still haven't done anything about this.

When it comes to service I must admit that Steam is pretty good, for example they gave my buddy a refund when he bought a game at full price just a couple of minutes before it went on sale but I've also had some bad cases. For example: when visiting my parents in Germany (while I was actually living in Poland) I unknowingly bought a censored version of a game because I directly added it to my cart from a promo list, so I didn't even get a message that it's censored. They DID give me a refund when I explained this but they told me that it's my own fault and that they won't give me another one if the same thing happened to me again. Well, it did (I got a "German only" version of Dawn of War, a game which isn't even censored in Germany - but has partially awful voice acting) and they stayed true to their word: they didn't give me another refund. By the way: why do they provide censored versions anyway? A guy from a big publisher told me that Steam doesn't even have to adhere to the German rating organizations and GOG is proof that you can provide the same version to all regions in the world. So why do they do it? Steam supports one of the most terrible habits in culture.

Oh yeah, not to mention that Steam has falsely banned accounts for cheating because those guys played certain Half-Life full conversion mods that used mechanisms that would count as cheating in Counter-Strike or Team Fortress and only few people regained their accounts after explaining this to Steam support. That's really just disgusting.

I still like Steam and that's where I will buy any game that isn't on GOG yet, but even I must admit that there's many bad things about it.

My 2 cents on Steam, since we're all ranting and whatnot.
I appreciate what Steam is about, and I like it fine, but I don't like the way they act.
I read that one guy violated their terms of service in some way, so they banned him from ALL of his Steam games. It's crazy. If you illegally watch a cable channel, you don't get banned from TV.
So hats off to GOG for letting you download it, and that's the end of it. This kind of approach makes me prefer GOG over Steam any day. Steam reminds me too much of "Big Brother".

Yes, steam is horrible DRM !

I stopped using steam last year after dealing with a number of problems caused by steam. Being forced to connect to steam to play single player, having to spend 32 hours + (via broadband) downloading content for a game a purchased boxed off the shelf. Seeing my rigs resource usage spike and having programs become more unstable when steam booted up. Having steam be the source of game client crashes, lockups, freezes etc. (not only did I independently test this I had other tech savvy gamers I know do the same to make sure it wasn't just on my rig). But what really took the cake was the utterly abysmal customer service. I was never given any kind of useful support by the steam tech department, I've gotten better customer service from EA (and for those who've dealt with EA in it's current form you'll know how awful that is), in point of fact the only response I've ever gotten from the steam "support" team was a cut and paste e-mail (with no real follow up) directing me to contact the developers because my issue "wasn't a steam problem" ... I got this message even when the ticket opened was about the steam client itself. Oh and to make matters even better the devs when I tried to get support from them gave me a cut and paste response directing me to steam for support because my issue "wasn't a game issue it's a steam issue."

I eventually fixed the host of problems which prevented the game from running (tho the steam client continued to cause resource drag and application instability) and finished a full play-through of the game (on it's hardest settings) in less time than it took me to get things working because of steam. Needless to say this, combined with the "ping pong" method of "support" employed by steam (and which steam enables devs to employ) left a bad taste in my mouth. Any form of DRM which causes that much trouble isn't worth the hassle (and steam certainly IS DRM) no matter how many "features" it has.
Especially when all those features can be had via other services (often for free) without being integrated into a DRM methodology.

I'm not attempting to speak for everybody but my rage regarding steam is because of the above. I just don't like having DRM sprung on me as if it's somehow a "service", nor do I like dealing with a company who won't even provide the absolutely minimal support required to even get their DRM application to run properly much less configure (let alone optimize) with the games it's supposed to 'help provide'.

Closing note for contrasts sake, I have not had any trouble with a single GOG dl "out of the box" yet (unlike steam) in fact the only ticket I've had call to open with GOG was due to trouble using the downloader for bonus content. GOG support responded promptly (unlike steam "support" which took their sweet time before supplying me with their pre-generated brush off) and provided me with a simple solution in their first message (turns out there was an update to the downloader which I'd overlooked, the current version works like a charm. Unlike steam which is not only unstable/increases instability in other applications even with all software up to date but is also mandatory for use of games I've already purchased even physical copies. The GOG downloader isn't required at all, not even to download and play the digital copies purchased here. The contrast between DRM free gaming here at GOG and the DRM infused gaming of steam couldn't be clearer.

I buy games on Steam only with price 75% off. I can get a DVD for full price, often even cheaper. I'm noticing that the more games I have the more problems I get with Steam. It often refuses start, freezes... I prefer GOG.

I used to be a big fan of Steam but since discovering GOG, if I can find the game here I'll buy it here, and avoid steam altogether.

I have had more than few problems with them, but I try to be easy-going and ignore the small things, but I couldn't continue in that mode after I bought two new releases with them over a two week period - not big things, an independent game and the graphical remakes of the first 2 monkey island games - and I had no end of trouble. The independent game I actually bought after playing a demo of the game on the developers website; a demo which as it turned out was the full game, but had your progression locked after a point (which you needed the game code to unlock). Still, seeing as it was on steam and I trusted steam at that time, I bought it. The steam version didn't work - on multiple PCs (which funnily enough covered both ATI and Nvidia as far as hardware went and I was running windows 7). The game was supposed to work and didn't so I contacted them. And they game me the same blanket statement saying that they don't give refunds.

Monkey Island was a slightly different story, the game ran but was made for sale on Xbox live arcade, and was never properly optimized for PCs or, more specifically, a mouse. Where the point sat and where it actually clicked were so far apart they made the game unplayable and after 3mins into the game I had already had to switch from new graphics to old (where the mouse pointer remained as it had been all those years ago) more than a half-dozen times. It was ridiculous.

I had always valued steam because I was under the -false- impression that they tested and ensured that the games they sold, worked. Again, I contacted them about a refund. Both of these incidents happened within a two week span and were resolved separately; the first after a lengthy debate where the woman I was dealing with directed me to read the Terms and Conditions about their policies. For the independent game I was able to go through the situation blow by blow when she tried to blame my machine and I threw the specs for 3 machines I had tested the game on. When she had no way to weasel out of the fact that the fault had to lie with them (strangely enough, this was what the developers actually said too, but she refused to take that into account) she fell back on the terms and conditions and told me the game should work. I asked her how she knew this, "has it been play tested?" She told me it had, as all Steam games were.

Funnily enough, it was the Terms and Conditions that buried her, as it states there that no game is play tested by steam, that isn't a valve game. So I called her on the lie and then pointed out that the line about no refunds broke international sales laws as not only was the product not fit for purpose, but that they never tested it in the first place and so could not ensure the quality of 90% of what they were selling. She refunded the price of the game to my Steam Wallet.

Having been through that, the monkey island issue was resolved far more quickly, and I resolved then to avoid buying from steam whenever possible.

Steam in itself is a DRM too, and I did not mind that in and off itself because it was more useful as a community gaming tool than it was a hindrance as a DRM, but then companies started piling on more and more DRM on top of that. And let's face it, if someone is determined to pirate something, they will. Throwing on multiple layers of DRM that only hurt the legitimate customers (and game sales as a result), is an insanity that it amazes me hasn't vanished by now!

Overall, I think the idea of steam worked for a while, but now many games developers (most notably EA) don't even value it. And for me, if I see a game I like on steam, I check elsewhere first. Steam's prices where always madly high anyway (Dungeon Siege 1 is £10 on Amazon and runs perfectly on w7, while it's only recently dropped from more than £30 to £22.99 on Steam). The difference now is that, even if it's part of a sale, I'll not only hit the forums about it's performance, I'll do everything I can to find something close to it elsewhere, even if it's a little more expensive.

And it blows my mind when you want to install a game but because they have a sale on and the servers are getting some serious use, you can't play the game you paid for! Hell, there are even those times you'll double-click a game icon and it'll tell you that the game is not available, try again later!! It's my game. I paid for it. It shouldn't matter what steam is doing, it should be among their highest priorities that their loyal customers have full access to the products they've purchased at all times. MMO developers understand this and often, if a server goes down for whatever reason, it's all-hands-on-deck to get it back up and running again. The principle here is exactly the same - if customers don't trust that they can buy and play their game, they will stop paying the company in question, they will stop using the service, the service will lose revenue!

Steam have made it clear to me (especially with their policy of no refunds) that their focus is profit above all else. Personally, I'd rather spend a little more money on GOG game, because they've proven they actually care how their customers get on, and do their utmost to ensure a game works (nevermind the fact that they are more than upfront with you about what you're purchasing and so far as I've seen, very quick to solve problems; even those that may only appear in 5% of systems - something Steam couldn't care less about).

But then that's my experience. Sorry for the overlong nature of the post. :b

I love the direction your going!!! You Guys are the best!!!!!!!

This is why I will always buy from GOG instead of Steam whenever possible. Or if it's a game I'm not absolutely in love with, I just don't buy it at all if it's not available from GOG or from retail without invasive DRM.

Thumbs up!! I love seeing new releases on GOG!

I don't mind seeing newer games here as long as older titles are not neglected *at all*, but seeing games for over $9.99 here was a bit of a surprise, and if that is what it means to have newer games at this site, I am not sure the news is very exciting to me. Also, Heroes of Might and Magic 5 isn't exactly a brand spanking new game and its being sold for $19.99. It appears that the days of no games over $9.99 are over.

I was just made aware of your site thru Kickstarter for Carmageddon. I just purchased the first of MANY older games that I LOVED! Thanks for being here! i appreciate it a lot!

So they charge extra for newer games? So what? There are other sites to get newer games for cheaper(usually) if price is your concern. Also most recently released older games are still 10 bucks and under as before(We even got one pack/series of 5 games for less than 10 bucks recently.).

Also it's often the publisher setting the prices, not GOG. GOG can lay down a maximum price point, and suggest pricing options to/negotiate pricing options with the publishers, but that's about it. So if you want to complain to someone about the prices then complain to them, not GOG.

this is nice but please GOG, do not forget multi-langage games, I have the feeling more and more games are coming here to English only.

thanks

KaN I HaZ SizTum ShAwK 2?

Why does this thread refuse to die? Is it still linked to from the front page or something?