OK, so now some odd fanboyism comes into it. More like anti-Steam than pro-GOG, I admit. Not only are you making the comical assumption that a major company like Valve are "stealing" DOS emulators, you're also back-peddling on your earlier claim that Steam has compatibility issues and instead switching to some vague implication of unfairness.

Steam works just the same way that GOG does, legally speaking. Neither GOG or Steam games open up with a big splash screen saying "Thanks DOSbox" or "Thanks ScummVM". But of course, both companies have deals with the third party companies that make it possible. The only difference is that GOG has no DRM at all whereas Steam has relatively light DRM (i.e. it doesn't care how many computers you install it on and even has the "Steam Cloud" thing that shares your save games over all PCs you install it to, if you want it to).

Steam has to have some DRM or the modern publishers wouldn't let their current games be sold on the service - it's a lot easier to convince someone to do a DRM-free Gabriel Knight than it is to do a DRM-free Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. When a certain company did insist on putting their own DRM into a Steam release of one of their major games, bound to either be EA or Ubisoft, Valve removed the game from Steam themselves and Gabe Newell issued a statement that Steam isn't going to stand for that on their service - so GOG and Steam are more similar than fanboys would like to think.

I love steam's ability to redownload my games if I mess up my pc and the new cloud save feature sounds good for saving my progress if the aforementioned bad things happen. Plus they have awesome sales, and if you avoid the forums except for the odd support question you should be able to avoid most of the fanboys and enjoy the service on the whole.

I like both gog and steam.......although I must say I like GOG just a tad more. Still both are good in my books.

I'm not assuming, I've talked to the DOSBox creator personally, and he's not happy about it. I wasn't back peddling, I was being more precise with my complaint. To back peddle would be to say Steam doesn't have compatibility issues. Some games do -- that much was consistent. I'm not anti-Steam, I'm just saying there's no sense in buying old games from Steam (excepting those that use emulators) when they're updated for compatibility here. As with GOG, Steam does a lot of good things, but they certainly have flaws. Not interested in semantics.

I realize they're not required to do so, I just think it's the kind, human thing to do. If we all only do what we should all the time because it's legally required, well...goodbye humanity. They owe some success to DOSBox -- they should at least get approval from its creators.

The DOSBOX author has issues with steam but isn't issuing ntoices or warnings? Why not? Money lacking? I'm pretty sure DOSBOX supporters would love to help them fight a legal battle or two after all the use they've gotten from it, after all.

Also yeah. Steam is more for newer games or independant titles rather than old games. I agree with that much if not more.

As said, Valve isn't legally required to do anything, so there's no grounds for a legal battle. If there were, I'm sure they wouldn't be so stupid as to use DOSBox in the first place. It's just about being decent.

Well then if all they have to do is say they use DOSBOX copyright year and author name on every installer and/or on their site and they do so then there should be no problem. Lots of game creators use freeware and public use stuff all the time and get away with it by posting such notices on their products or service sites.

To be honest, I can't think of a single Valve game that uses DOXBox.

I'd probably suggest that the games that DO are supplied that way by the publisher. The likes of iD and Lucasarts both employ DOSBox on their Steam games, I think. Also, the UFO/XCom games, which is 2K Games, I think. To these people I would probably suggest that the author of DOSBox directs his ire.

A purely optional implementation of such features is always okay. However if you want to gift me a game I could just tell you a number of possibilities. :)

What if you want the gifting itself to be a surprise and not just the title of the game? ;)

Opps . . . sorry . . . didn't realize it was another "let's make GOG just like Steam" thread . . =)

**tip-toes out***

And what's wrong with adding some steam-like features here as logn as the fanboy forum "features" and DRM are kept out? ;)

I would also like to add that the DRM of Steam amounts to having to be logged into Steam to play - hardly a problem since it's always up and pretty much everyone has the internet now. You can burn your games to disc as much as you like and install it on every single PC you find. DRM is only a real pain in the ass when it limits how many times you can install it and if it kicks you out of the game if connection to the server is briefly lost - like some EA stuff has done.

GOG does need some improvement. The GOG downloader is worse in every single way than Firefox or Opera - there's literally no point to use it - and the customer support is famously lacklustre. Also, and I know this is more of an issue for GOG because it's 99% very old games, but the compatibility rate is pretty poor. I've bought about 6 games in the last week from GOG, one doesn't work at all, the other frequently crashes, another has horrendous slowdown every so often and another has repeatedly crashed although seems to be over it now. And GOG, predictably, don't do refunds despite selling products that frequently don't work. So I have DRM free stuff? Meaning I don't have to be on the internet? But my PC is always on the internet anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I think GOG is great. But this "GOG = GOD, STEAM IS EVIL" mentality does not hold water at all.

Raw steam based DRM doesn't even require you to be permanently logged into the internet. Thanks to the offline mode, it's perfectly viable to use on laptops.