I use them, but I don't particularly like any of them. As for the hatred:

I figure the hatred for Origin is because it's EA, and also because of the FUD that was spread about the 'spyware.

Hatred for Steam likely stems from Steam's dominance of the digital PC gaming market.

Hatred for Uplay... maybe because it's Ubisoft as well as the fact the client seems to be fairly brutal compared to the previous two.

I've had only one game tied to Uplay and it was a less than stellar experience trying to navigate the client. Origin worked better for me than Steam for a long time. Now they're pretty much on par (for me). So yeah, I tolerate them, but I just don't like clients as a matter of personal philosophy. As a general rule, I avoid buying a game tied to a client if it's (legally) available unfettered elsewhere.

I fully agree with this.

But with this, only to an extent. The problem here being, what EA/Origin, Ubisoft/Uplay does, for the platform, besides hosting their specific games?
Because it gives the feeling of "artificiality" when it comes to the exclusivity of games (or the ludicrous bloatware in the case of a game bought on Steam requiring Uplay). It's not much of a competition as is lack of consumer choice. Business wise, like you've said, it makes perfect sense, but platform wise (i.e. PC) is kinda... "off" (same goes for DRM, same game, different product ... I mean... what?). I agree with the last point, but just because of the actual situation though. Nowadays would be reaaaaally hard to make people move from Steam.

Agreed again. As it should be really, just storefronts/downloaders not bloatware.

Praise.

Well I stopped playing Blizzard games but they got their fanboys who will praise/eat everything that comes from Blizzard. I cant recall having any problems with BattleNet while playing so there is that.

Ubisoft.. now thats different, tried it once an year ago , trying to play Far Cry 3, but the thing never worked right off the bat. And even if I fix it and make it work after a restart of the PC it bugs again and just stopped using it for now.

R* SC ... had only once a problem with it and that was mainly because of Steam( own GTA V on Steam), Steam servers were down so they couldnt connect to R* SC and I wasnt able to play GTA V at all... unless I turn off my internet(not only going offline on Steam) to play it in SP... so after this I dont want anymore 3rd party DRM... like 1 isnt enough nowadays.

Steam and Origin are working fine for me and yet to cause a minor or major problem to my system. Maybe because I'm used to them... using Steam as my main messanger xD

Yeah, I would also prefer that games are available on several stores/services/clients so that the customer can choose where they buy a game. EA has chosen to pimp their service by making many of their games exclusive to their service, Microsoft and I guess Blizzard does the same. I guess GOG also sells Fantasy General and the SSI Goldbox games only on GOG.com, but then CDPR sells The Witcher games also elsewhere, not only GOG.

For developers/publishers it is a double-edged sword: on the other hand it is easier to maintain a game only on one service (say, Steam), but in the end it might not be good for them either that there really would be only one store/service which has a monopoly and sets their rules as they want (unless it is your own service of course, like EA = Origin). The competition between services is good also for publishers, even if it causes the extra burden to figure out in which services and in what form to release and maintain your game.

All this just makes it even more important to me that games would be DRM-free. Once I have downloaded the games, I don't have to care anymore where I originally bought them. I can install and play all my DRM-free games just fine, whether I bought them from GOG.com, DotEmu, Humble Bundle, Strategy First, directly from the developers' homepages, etc. etc. etc...

I also dislike how even hardware peripherals like VR goggles, gaming controllers etc. seem to become increasingly store-specific. For Steam games you buy a certain kind of "Steam VR goggle" and the Steam controller, what if Microsoft will next make their own VR goggles and a new advanced XBox gamepad that works only with games bought from the Windows Store, etc.? It is like these different stores and services are becoming their own platforms within the PC/Windows platform, fragmenting it further.

Multiplayer games are a trickier question (as the services/clients or even DRM can benefit multiplayer, like with anticheat technologies etc.), but then for now I've chosen to play only f2p multiplayer games. And now even not that as the latest update has really screwed up TeamFortress 2 and made it a bitch to start and join a game I want (I can't even find the servers anymore where I used to play before, and no servers seem to usually run the maps I liked to play frequently before).


As for the question which other PC gaming service could possibly overthrow Steam in the long run: Windows Store. It will be more and more integrated to the future Windows versions and will be always be there by default, while Steam etc. clients need to be downloaded and installed separately. Over time, less and less people will possibly do that, unless there is good enough reason for it (like already having lots of games in the 3rd party service).

Plus, Microsoft can bit by bit nudge the competition out of Windows platform. Not over night, but with little moves, by making more and more new Windows features and services exclusive to games and software you buy through the Windows Store, while the 3rd party services like Steam and GOG are for the "legacy stuff", not necessarily benefiting from all the latest and greatest new Windows technology. I see it a bit similar situation if Windows 95 which certainly allowed you to still run your MS-DOS software... but it was clear to everyone that was the legacy stuff that was on its way out.

Black horse in the race is Google and Android. While Microsoft, Steam etc. are fighting for the dominance of the PC platform, Google may be getting more and more of the overall pie, especially if people start using Android devices also as PCs. You could argue that is already the case for many, like when I look at my wife who is all the time on her Android phone and tablet, and the only time she uses a PC is when doing some online banking stuff every few months that for some reason cannot be done well on the phone. I, on the other hand, are 95% of the time on my PCs, so that kinda evens it out nicely in our family. :)

Took a year or two of nagging from a fellow gamer to try steam, I just don't see the point of having to run a client to run a game & tying it strictly to that client.

Especially steam, it is terribad. Take last night, server maintenance, meaning Wizard Wars, despite being on its own server, we all got kicked off mid match & had to wait for steam to work again.

steam supp....*laugh* steam support. None existent.

Also, steam isn't free to use, as it claims.
You do get access to some parts of steam, but others, you have to directly pay for at least one game a year to use others.

Updates for music player/vr/big screen mode, no use to me at all, but hey, let's force them with no way to block them...

Origin, whilst a lot better than steam, is still just a spyware client, same as steam.
Hell, I bought Unravel recently & even in the game itself it informed you that it was spying on you, with the option to turn it off, meaning that it would.....still spy on you! o0.

Uplay, I refuse to even go near.

Didn't TB say two or three times his account was taken over by Russians who played some free to play games, or similar to the division?

My god this is all stupid.

I hadn't heard about that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Personally what bothers me is the advertising. If I've gone and bought a game from Store X made by developer Y then I find it unforgivable that middleware company Z pops up adverts and otherwise tries to insert itself into the picture.

Thankfully it only seems to be DRM companies who indulge in this behaviour. If every other company providing third party software insisted you install their storefront before you could play then games would be a complete mess - although it would at least force the developers to take a stand.

The Origin Client is probably the best behaved for me. If you're just playing the game then it starts up and shuts down more or less silently and automatically, it doesn't do it in the background, but at least it only shows your game library. Unlike Steam and uPlay I've never seen it pop up an advert when launching, playing or exiting a game.

^ this

GOG in my opinion is the only one worthwhile solely for the reason of DRM free games (that is the ones that offers a client/services) and I guess Itch.io because of the indie focus. But then again, DRM being treated like a different product kinda does my head in.
Agreed, I'm the mind that, in the end it's up to "us" to nag them about better services and a fair consumer choice. And I mean really nag. :))
Preach.

On the case of hardware tie-in, on the case of Steam I don't see them doing that in the long run (especially VR) since the Vive uses OpenVR API, so it's up to the devs/publishers to implement it. MS? I can see them doing it.

I can see why a F2P, MP only, MMO can receive the exclusivity treatment. Like you've said, their specific clients can offer the benefits of their services directly to the player on those cases (anti cheat, trading, servers, etc). I think I'm alright with them (and NO EA don't you try to sneak something into the SP focus and call it a service, fuck off with that!)

I would disagree. Years of improvements to be built upon (and especially after GFWL) and MS still haven't learned (Windows Store is a complete mess). People call it competition but it really isn't. It's just this new "general app store", clearly being something that MS pushed around trying to follow Apple Store and Google Play. Now it is this whole "ecosystem" talk and what not and this will never work on a open platform like PC. Big deal, they have their first party developed games there, with their newest UWP framework, their tidy and locked down shenanigans and in what does this benefits the player? Besides acquiring said games, nothing, the Windows integration doesn't really matter of affect the less than average user, so MS can use that as an excuse to push their "it's easier that way" to grab some attentions but, eh I don't see them gaining much ground in the long run. See the new Tomb Raider for example, 95% of sales came from Steam, and I'm willing to bet that those 5% Windows Store sales where simply people testing and or trying to support it, or abusing the store for some regional price error (that happened).
They will not be crazy to drop support to what we have right now. They simply can't. They can try to force it, but the push against it (not only from the players/consumers, but from some companies aswell) would be too big (Tim Sweeney from EPIC Games being a recent example for that).

I think that this is a different market really. Mobile stuff it's another beast, it has his own public, it has it's own set of games (more quick, casual fun, etc), and generally focus more on a public that isn't that interested in sitting on their fat arse all day like we do with PCs and consoles. :p
It could try and reach for their own piece of the pie, but in the long run, I can't see it going much further (see Ouya for that case). I believe it is a niche market.

My big issue with this whole client based business model is that it is very anti-consumer. In just about any other context these practices would be illegal. Imagine if there was a contractual agreement between a car company, let's say Toyota, and an oil company like Exxon. This agreement allows Exxon to refit all of it's gas stations with a proprietary new nozzle on every pump that only fits in the newly redesigned gas tank of all Toyotas. This ensures that everyone who buys a Toyota can only use Exxon gas stations, Exxon no longer has to maintain competitive pricing or business practices because they automatically get 100% of every driver who bought the ever popular Camry. This is known as 3rd Line Forcing, a practice where a customer must buy a 3rd party product or service in order to buy the product they want. It is illegal under most anti-consumer laws, however these laws were written prior to the concept of digital distribution therefore they are not strictly applicable.

There is also the concept of no legacy service terms. When Steam updated their Terms of Service all Steam user had to read and agree with them upon accessing their account. If the user read the new terms and did not agree they would be unable to access their account, which essentially means they lose access to all their games purchased under the old terms. In this scenario the user would be unable to simply go to another store and re-purchase those games because no matter where they buy a game it still requires them to go back to Steam. Imagine if a physical store behaved this way, upon checking out the cashier hands you a stack of paperwork and said that this was a new store policy that every customer must agree to before making any further purchases, and if you don't sign it the store would send people to your house and take back everything you ever bought from them.

Nobody would stand for this with any other product, but most people buying games today don't remember a time when these practices weren't the norm. They don't have the same base of comparison to see how unfair this is to them as a consumer as well as the barrier to entry it creates for any real competition between these various store fronts and services. And those politicians who could review these laws and update them to protect gamers won't because they still see video games a something Violent and evil that needs to be regulated and taxed out of existence "for the children."

I used to hate Steam the most, before. Now i hate ORIGIN the most, arg! That stupid EA gives games for free, but old, completely unoptimized, broken pieces of garbage that are either malfunctional, or downright don't even work! Not two days ago, i got Nox and unlike gog version, there it is full of flickers, buzzing scanlines and graphical glitches, that make it completely non-playable! And this ancient, rotten, C&C series, that stupid EA doesn't even optimize, update and calibrate properly! The lazy idiots should just allow GOG to handle those precious relics with the care, dedication and respect they truly deserve! The stooges keep this artifact tightly pooped inside their incompetence and indifference, preventing fans who payed for those to actually enjoy them! I own both The first decade and Ultimate Collection and the games i love the most, like RA2 and Yuri, don't even work!!!

But snowkatt is king. Her command reached me and her command is my wish. We should hate all those garbage shit-clients. They are the enemy. Together with DRM!