On the one hand I like GOG because it has no DRM and has better prices (in my country) than Steam and I have the feeling that on the one hand it follows more the open source philosophy than Steam itself, but Steam has helped enormously to play Windows games on Linux, so I haven’t really made up my mind.

On the one hand I want to buy on Steam for the convenience, but on the other hand I prefer GOG because (in my country) is cheaper. Which platform do you prefer and why?

To give an example, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is currently $15 on Steam with regional pricing, but on GOG it’s worth just $6.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I agree that most of those are non-issue, which is why I specifically pointed at the EAC one.

    It’s still nothing compared to Steam’s requirement of being online to at the very least install

    This is a requirement everywhere, you need to be online to download the installer from GoG. And before you say you can backup the installer you can also backup the installed game on steam so they’re equivalent.

    and first start of the game

    Nope you don’t. This is game dependent, and many games don’t require it. I have several games that I backed up the folder and run them, some of which I’ve even copied to computers without steam to play in multiplayer lan mode with the games on Steam.

    (so in 2 decades time when the Steam client doesn’t support any version of the OS supported by those games, they will be unplayable)

    As long as Steam still supports Linux, and because of the strong backwards compatibility there (especially on wine) you will still be able to play them. If Windows breaks backwards compatibility with current GoG installers you’ll lose your GoG collection just as much.

    and how due to Steam themselves having heavilly promoted amongst developers the tight integration of game features with Steam cloud, a dependency on Steam servers is very common even for Indie games, whilst almost all of the AAA stuff comes with their own additional (i.e. on top of Steam itself) sign-in to accounts on the maker’s own servers in order to play the game.

    Here’s the thing, they don’t need to promote it, those features are good enough that developers want to integrate them. But lazy developers rely on them which is bad. Some game developers don’t though, it’s not Valve’s fault that a game doesn’t launch without steam, if I submit a game that requires GoG galaxy for offline play It would also not be on GoG’s hands, if it weren’t for the fact that they claim 100% DRM free.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Backing up a previously installed game isn’t even in the same universe as having right there in the main UI of your store the links to download an offline installer: claiming that one is equivalent to the other is just ridiculous.

      I can seen you’re a commited fan of Steam and have a tight emotional bond to it, which is fine, just not conducive to having a fair and honest pros-and-cons take about one’s beloved game store in conversation with others.

      I’m not really going to dive into a fanboy discussion with you - I’ve made it very clear the one quality of GoG which makes me favour it because I value it more than other things (such as supporting Linux with proprietary solutions) and am not going to, like an idiot, side with a bloody online store as they’re not my family, they’re not my friends and they don’t care about me any more than they care about any other source of money for them.

      My point is made, your clarification that it’s less perfect that I thought is also made, the rest is just bollocks.

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Why do you think backing up an installer is anything different from backing up a folder? What do you think an installer does that’s so special?

        You claim I’m emotionally attached to Steam and claim you use GoG because it’s DRM free, and yet I show you GoG is not DRM free and that Steam has DRM-free games and your answer is that “but that doesn’t count because the folder is not inside an installer”.

        It’s okay that you prefer GoG, but it’s not because of them being DRM free because they’re not. It might be because you prefer your hames backed up in installer format, or you might have developed an emotional bond over the DRM free claim. You’re the one making an argument from emotion, because you feel that different methods of backup are better or worse, and stick to GoG despite the reason you claimed being false.