The general consensus seems to be that GamersGate has very good customer support. That doesn't reassure me, though, since I wouldn't want to have to contact them anyways. After such a long time using Steam, I've come to expect that no matter the game, it's just going to work. Believe me, I have a low tolerance for these things-if I purchase a product from a company, I don''t expect to have to jump through hoops to get it to work. So, if I'd had a negative experience with Steam, my opinion would definitely change. Nevertheless, I've such a large library from them, including plenty of titles that should have compatibility issues.

Looking back at this topic, replies seem to be all over the place regarding these digital distributors, which I suppose doesn't help the TC much.

Not always. Some games have certain kinds of DRM removed so they're easier to get to run on many systems.

Note I said SOME. :P

Not always though. It depends on the game.

GamersGate's Torchlight version still has the paul.dll SecuROM component and the steam_api.dll Steam component. Both "evils" at one place, I guess? <- GamersGate example for what you said. :)

But nothing a good crack can't fix. :p

On other forums, I sometimes see people posting "Steam's support is fast and very friendly". TBH I find that even more amusing :S. I'll just stop here though since this is going to erupt into another bashing thread.

The demo of Aztaka from Steam worked fine. The full version from GG = not so great. I have one more shot at this game and it's a fully patched version so I'll see how it goes.

Somehow amusing indeed. Now depends to what you compare the speed and friendliness of their support. Compared to my experience with Micro$oft's support, they are quite friendly. Compared to my experience with my national tax authority , they are even friendlier and faster. Now of course, if one compare's with the expectation one could have :-/
I'd say that 25% is quite a huge ratio of problematic games. Is there something that special about your config ?

From my own experience, Steam is fairly reliable (15 games owned plus a few dlc's, no problem with any of the games, one dlc not installing properly, still awaiting the action of steam's support team after 1 week or so ) but the games I have there are all pretty much recent

On GG, I have a large selection of Paradox titles. No problem at all with these. I have a few indies , no problem either. But 2 older games ( purchased at low prices so I don't really care ) do actually prove troublesome. Still, that's 2 games out of 35 and only 1 won't work at all (Immortal empires) . The other (alpha prime ) is prone to sporadic crashes.

/respect

BTW, Steam-ers got a thread on games that are behind retail versions in patches or miss conent.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1680032

Heh. Someone tried again, eh? Wonder how long before that one gets deleted without word by the moderators.

The only one I'm itching for a refund on is Dimensity because it's non patchable.

The others may just have to do with my card - which is not installed right now because I just got a Geoforce 7300 GT 512 MB today.

So slowly but surely I am going back and trying them all again.

Forum poster: The Steam version cannot be the latest version. No resolutions work on my system only the default, there is always text off the screen. It is pathetic, that the patch is not available for the Steam version.

Moderator's reply: It doesn't mess with the game. As to those few letters you miss... big deal.

Damn, if a person representing me says that kind of crap... he better run for his life. :D

By the way, anything special at GamersGate right now? I have around 5 euros.

I have had many problems with a number of Steam games, however on GOG the only game I have trouble with is Blood 2 with it's random CTDs, but those have been around since it's release and sometimes don't happen for a good, long time.

It all depends on your system, and your luck!

Now that I got that horrid Radeon 3650 out of my system and replaced it with Geoforce 7300 I've been able to run everything. I haven't tried Elven Quest yet but it should be no problem because I got Fantasy Wars to run.

I also got an updated and recent copy of Aztaka from Yamwa from a friend.

The only bum ones now are Swashbucklers and Dimensity simply because they are version 1.0 and patches that exist won't allow you to specify what direct to install them too.

GG seems to use a directory that is different than the game manufacturer's default.