Of course I see great value in owning DRM-free copies of games - I try to own nothing else ! I have rebought many games on GOG which I already own disc versions of, mainly because the GOG versions have had the DRM removed and/or have been optimized for Windows 7. I wish I didn't HAVE to rebuy games though. I don't have to rebuy books, unless I drop them in the bath or something. It's something I don't like about the grasping, wasteful mess which is the modern games industry. All games were once DRM-free so gamers didn't need to buy more than one copy of a game, though of course it is great to have older games optimized for newer operating systems. "Rebuying" is something gamers never used to have to think about, let alone thought of as normal practice. It's pretty much accepted now but it's such a waste of money.

I would love to see the old XComs come to GOG. Or should I say I would love to HAVE SEEN then come to GOG - before I caved in and bought them from Gamersgate. It was actually a GOG employee who suggested I buy them from Gamersgate, so I'm guessing they won't be coming here anyway.

At least some games on Steam can be installed and then moved to a different folder, so that then they can be played without having to launch Steam. For example, Mortal Kombat HD Collection. Also, anything that uses Dosbox, you should be able to run it using your own Dosbox install and avoid Steam.

I have a Steam account but I'm not especially fond of it and I only use it for games I've obtained at minimal prices through PWYW bundles or huge discounts. I don't particularly like the layout of the site and it drives me crazy that if I want to access my account from a different computer, I have to log-in with a code they send me that has never worked. I'm a single-player-only guy, too, so the multiplayer features that are so often used to justify the client mean nothing to me.

OTOH, if you want certain releases like the Batman Arkham games or Dead Space, or just some games that have yet to come to GOG (e.g., Vampire Bloodlines), it's handy to have a Steam account.

I left steam back at 2012 and have never looked back since.

A company that forces you to abdicate the ownership of your games, retroactively and unilaterally, doesn't deserve my money.

The good thing is that i don't lose anything by not buying from steam.
There isn't a game i have been interested in the past two years that is steam exclusive.
Because i am European, games are more expensive on steam, because they charge Europeans more than Americans since they believe that 1$ = 1€.
For example, the Blackguards Deluxe Edition was cheaper on GOG than the standard Blackguards on steam.

stream yuck
I say that within reason simply because I just recently purchased two games
the boxed versions and guess what it wont let me play them unless I use the stream client
no I will stick with GOG games forever I just cant understand why when you buy a boxed version of a game
you have to play it on stream.
this is the second time this has happened to me and their wasn't any mention of it being stream play when I purchased the two games. ok so now can I have some popcorn please.

I used to dislike Steam because I had to login to the client just to be able to play, and even to put it on offline mode. It's not really a problem with Steam but had more to do with my shitty internet connection. After switching to another provider (still slow but a considerable improvement over the previous one), I no longer had any problems with Steam. I prefer to get newer games with larger sizes from Steam because of the auto-update feature. Downloading the whole game again whenever there is a new patch available is a pain in the ass. For smaller and older games, I'm fine with GOG.

I hope you never get a whole game that just starts downloading again. I'll keep my small patch .exe files!

I've been with Steam for a long time now, and while the DRM aspect of it is obviously everyone's largest complaint, the platform does offer quite a bit more than just a centralized place for downloads and game inventory. The updating and content delivery (I've not had an issue with this that some other people seem to have), network/multiplayer infrastructure, title availability, cloud save games, etc are all awesome features. I've felt very comfortable with splitting my purchasing between GOG and Steam, they both serve their purposes and niches.

The "extra features" which Steam offers are utterly trivial and unimportant. Who cares about "achievements"', for instance ? I can't believe that this feature is so important to some gamers : it is just a gimmick and nothing more.

As regards client updates, if you use Steam regularly then you will inevitably suffer less than someone who uses it only now and again. But it really shouldn't make any difference how long it has been since you last played a game : it should always load IMMEDIATELY and you should always be able to play it IMMEDIATELY. As regards game updates, you should have the freedom to update a game only if and and when you want to : it should NEVER be a compulsory, automatic process under the control of a third party. You've already paid for a finished product, after all : you should be in TOTAL control of the item you have purchased as soon as you have purchased it. The way Steam operates is criminal, and it's my hope that in the future this will be recognised and the company will be punished and closed down.

Well, many people don't care about achievements, I know I don't. But, you really don't want to antagonize someone who cares about AND like achievements, because this is a non-debate, its usefulness is just a matter of opinion (like discussing if something is funny or not).
That's just a friendly warning that's all.
(Edit : "The first rule of the virtual retailers club is that you don't talk about achievements")

Not everyone does care about "achievements", like you (nor me). However, like you say, some people do, regardless of if I view it as a gimmick or not. Everyone games for different reasons - relaxation, entertainment, competition, etc. Those who do it for competition and prizes (which a lot of Valve gamers are by nature of the games) probably appreciate the achievements aspect more than someone who doesn't. But the "achievements" are only one aspect of the few examples I mentioned (multiplayer infrastructure, title availability, cloud saves) - all of which are important to me, personally.

You feel pretty passionately about forced game updates, which I'm sure other people agree with. However, a lot of people (myself included) aren't bothered by this. Again, I was trying to stress with my post that for my situation, I like using both Steam and GOG, and others who identity with my situation may as well. If it doesn't fit for you, then that's cool too, don't use it. But to "punish and close down the company" is a bit extreme - there are actual criminal organizations hurting people in real ways out there that deserve this time and attention - not a gaming company.

Yes I do feel strongly about it and why shouldn't I ? Should I just cave in like the rest of you ? I don't think it would be an extreme measure to outlaw DRM and to close companies such as Steam down. It was an extreme - and grossly unfair - measure to introduce DRM in the first place. Companies such as Steam must have made enormous profits out of gamers already. The inconveniences far outweigh the little perks and gimmicks such as "achievements". I recently had to wait about 45 minutes for a client update to complete : Steam really ought to have reimbursed me for wasting my precious time. It ought not to matter how often I use Steam : **** Steam - I don't WANT to use Steam often !

The fact that the modern gamer can't see anything wrong with the "service" which Steam provides - which is more like a form of servitude than a service - is almost more worrying than the existence of Steam itself. Do you want to own your games or do you want to rent them ? - because that's effectively what you are doing when you buy a game which you must play via Steam. Really you ought to have complete freedom when you have bought any type of product from any store. What kind of "a customer" is the modern gamer when he/she is prepared to put up with being treated in such an insulting manner ? I'm kind of glad that I'm relatively old now and will probably give up gaming altogether in the next ten years, or maybe earlier. It was such a wonderful thing to start with but it looks like it has been swallowed whole by moneymaking types (same as pretty much everything else, sadly)? I can no longer follow the strange "logic" of the games industry nowadays, in these very forums, for instance : Business talk, legal mumbo-jumbo, all day, every day, gamers who seem to want to have all their freedom taken away ..... strange ....

You seem to be very passionate about this issue. There are issues going on in domestic and foreign politics, economics, various global injustices, etc that I get worked up about - but the distribution practices of a video game company don't really register on that same scale for me. I'm guessing that the people you are frustrated with for "caving in" may be in the same boat.

Again, all I was originally saying was that Steam was nice for some things, and I listed a few examples, and that I liked both Steam and GOG. I wasn't trying to incite anger in anyone with the post, just sharing my experiences.

I agree with you that there are bigger issues to get passionate about, but this IS a gaming website so I'm talking about games. As a keen gamer since the eighties, and having experienced the halcyon days of gaming (in my opinion late 90s- early 00s) the whole industry feels totally alien to me now. The release of Half Life 2 and the introduction of Steam was the starting point . Before then the games industry had operated in pretty much the same way as any other industry. Since that watershed moment gamers have been treated like economic slaves, at first on the pretext that we were all potentially pirating games. Nowadays it is blatantly obvious that pirates are still pirating, and yet Steam and DRM continue .... There's no morally / ethically acceptable justification for the continuance of either DRM or Steam, and DRM should never really have come into being in the first place.

I was pretty disappointed with Steam, but it was because I expected that it was being run like GOG. I was familiar with Steam for a long time, but caught the GOG wave a couple years ago, and never ended up using Steam at all. Looking for a cheap copy of Skyrim, I found that Steam had it on sale for like $5. I registered an account, bought it, and downloaded what I thought was the game. When I went to find the directory to install some mods, I discovered that I did not in fact have the actual game, and that I had to be connected to Steam to even play it. I am sure that this is covered in all of their literature, agreements, and whatnot- I just assumed, like GOG, you pay for it and you download it for keeps. I find this to be a poor model for purchasing games online next to GOG. I'm really not interested in expanding my library any further with Steam (I did buy some of the old Doom, and Hexen games though) :)
Just my 2 cents...