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.

  • @[email protected]
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    2810 months ago

    Steam, I can install the Steam client without any problems on moat distros, also Valve has done a lot of things to make the Linux gaming better.

    Gog doesn’t have a desktop app for Linux, they’re focused totally Windows so I don’t care about it.

    If I want “DRM free” games, then I pay for the original version with DRM and then pirate it to play whenever I want.

  • @[email protected]
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    110 months ago

    I prefer Steam because of cheaper games in my country and because of service. All those reviews, tutorials and mods matter.

  • @[email protected]
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    910 months ago

    I was all in on GOG 10-12 years ago when they said they were working on Linux support “soon”

    After so many years of promises and no action, while Valve pays developers to improve Linux gaming, I’d rather buy from Steam

    Prices tend to be similar between the platforms here, though

  • @[email protected]
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    1410 months ago

    I mostly buy on steam to have my library in one place (without manually adding games) and the free cloud backup. And the Linux support.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          Yes. Just go to your library and browse the options. It’s been ages since I did it, but it’s just inside the client. No downloads needed. Also works for other platforms. GoG galaxy is meant to be a universal launcher.

  • @[email protected]
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    810 months ago

    I buy games on Steam for the achievements. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Steam achievements, I’d have never made the switch from pirated games to buying them.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      Why pirate games at all? I never understood that.

      If games (or movies) are too expensive or not good enough to buy, why download them at all?

      • @[email protected]
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        510 months ago

        If you don’t understand why some folks pirate by this time, you never will. There are plenty of valid–and not-so-valid–reasons to pirate. If you actually care, just type the question into a search engine, there’s a plethora of well written articles on the subject.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          99% of people who pirate don’t want to pay for their entertainment. They’ll come up with any excuse as to why they think it’s justified to make them feel better. “F corporations and their drm, this will teach them.”

          The other 1% is for when it’s not available by legitimate means or if by chance something they did pay for and was then taken away or something wasn’t working through legitimate ways, then I get it… but again, that’s for 1%.

          Another option is to not download at all.

          • @[email protected]
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            10 months ago

            Defending multi-billion dollar corporations in this day and age is absolutely bizarre. And for the record, I rarely pirate these days. And even then, it’s for digital copies of physical content I already own. But I really don’t give a shit what others do, especially if they’re not hurting common folk. And if you truly think it’s okay not to fully own the digital licenses your purchase, then good for you for keeping those billionaire’s boots clean.

            • @[email protected]
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              110 months ago

              You do realize there are thousands of people who try to earn a living making the content people consume. The majority are not billionaires, they are not millionaires. Many are trying to get by… the “common folk” you speak of.

              • @[email protected]
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                10 months ago

                And how much of those profits go to those workers? Let’s take a well known Marvel movie, the Avengers Endgame. It cost roughly $220 million to make. The total global box office for that movie is estimated around $2.8 billion. That’s ~$2.6 billion in profit. Please tell me how much of that went to the film crews and various film departments? Hell, a huge chunk of the budget cost probably went to the actors to begin with.

                Anyway, my original point wasn’t even entirely around sticking it to the billionaires. Until laws are made to protect our ownership of digital licenses, I have zero problems with people pirating. Additionally, the majority of folks are going to be paying, so a minority of people–who typically have lower disposable income–pirating content are not destroying regular peoples’ livelihood, this has been proven for over two decades now.

                Bottom line: Come down from your ivory tower and just let it rest. Regardless of what either of us says or believes, pirating will continue with or without us. You can disagree with it, which is fine, or you can justify it, which is also fine. It won’t change reality either way.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        I havent paid to watch films or TV shows in decades. No subscriptions, no buying or “digital renting”. No massive amount of DVDs to keep around No risk of some company removing the licensing from the provider which subsequently means I cant watch it.

        Ill never stop sailing the pirate seas

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        And do games use it? Epic Store does achievements too, but very few games actually integrate with it.

  • @[email protected]
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    4810 months ago

    I buy keepers on GOG and then place them on separate drives. On Steam i buy stuff I’m ok with losing. It’s one Gabe away from exploitation shenanigans.

  • @[email protected]
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    1110 months ago

    First of all there’s one huge misunderstanding I see lots of people making, Steam does not enforce DRM, some games on Steam are also DRM free and you can just copy the installed folder to another computer without steam and play them, in fact games that have DRM announce it in their page.

    But also some games on GoG have DRM. So long story short, both Steam and GoG sell games with and without DRM, but only one of them tries to bullshit you about it.

    I buy from Steam 100% of the time (except for games I get f on Humble Bundles or stuff like that), my reasoning is that the money I give to Valve is being invested in making games run better on Linux, and since I use Linux I have a vested interest in seeing Valve improve that. That being said, if I was in your shoes and games were half the price on GoG I might buy them from GoG, but the lack of an official Linux launcher and no cloud saves is still annoying so some games I might still get from Steam.

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      Steam has its own DRM, try turning off your networking load up steam and try to play a single player game. Unless you put steam in offline mode prior you can’t play steam games offline

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        You can still launch the executable from the folder where it’s installed without using steam at all like you would do with DRM-dree games (assuming the game is DRM-free)

        And you can also put steam in offline mode afterwards and keep using it, many times my internet went off and steam offered me to go to offline mode, so it doesn’t need to be prior to the PC disconnecting. So even if you were to consider this DRM it’s a DRM with a button to bypass it, which doesn’t sound like DRM at all.

        But in fact going into offline mode is not even needed, for example on my Steam Deck when I wanted to play a game without people knowing I would just turn off the wireless in the configs since that was faster than putting it into offline mode and just play the game, doing exactly what you’re claiming is impossible.

        Edit: Just to confirm I tried exactly that just now, installed a game, when it finished installing I unplugged the network cable and clicked play, steam said “Couldn’t sync cloud saves” I clicked in “Play anyways” and the game launched. No fuss, no needing to switch to offline mode, nothing of what you claim happened. How about you try it before asking others to do it?

          • @[email protected]
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            310 months ago

            Not sure if sarcasm, but in case it isn’t yes they have an offline mode so you can play games and still get achievements, cloud saves, etc while offline and then when you go back to being online it syncs those up.

            Not sure why they needed an actual offline mode instead of just trying stuff and caching it for later if it fails (which I think it’s what they do now), but it’s there.

            • Owl
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              110 months ago

              I didn’t know about it. I just play my games offline as if I were online, no need to turn on anything.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          Well I’ll be damned, steam used to put a DRM wrapper on their games. Guess Gabe finally made good on his word if steam goes down you can still play your games.

          At one point the only way to play steam games was to use offline mode as I’ve previously stated

          • @[email protected]
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            110 months ago

            Again even if that was the case the fact that you have a button you can click to go into offline mode to play completely negates that this is a form of DRM. How is it the “play anyways” button different from the “go into offline mode” one?

            • @[email protected]
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              210 months ago

              No you previously had to be online and put it into offline mode if you tried to sign in and play in online mode without an internet connection you would be fkd.

  • @[email protected]
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    710 months ago

    Steam simply due to the convenience and already having a ton of games there. Steam sales are nice too of course.

    GOG is awesome, but more for older games or for games I want to play at a LAN. Like the good old days where you hang out with friends, throw a CD (or now USB stick) their way and ten minutes later you’re playing together.

  • @[email protected]
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    710 months ago

    I love GOG, and support GOG, especially when it comes to nostalgic old PC games… but… I love steam achievements, I love the Steam Deck, and I love seeing my gaming stats, like top 10 games played and such. So I default to Steam.

  • @[email protected]
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    910 months ago

    I strongly prefer GOG to the point where I often don’t buy games that are not on GOG.

    That being said, one reason to buy from Steam is steam workshop. So if I want a lot of mods, I may buy from Steam even when available on GOG.

  • @[email protected]
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    1810 months ago

    800 games on Steam, 200 on GoG. I love the DRM free stuff, but Steam has so many great features its on a whole other level to be honest.

    +Steam deck and Linux support is a huge positive.

    GoG Galaxy is great, but also doesn’t have a Linux client, which makes it less convenient. Still GoG has so many gems not available anywhere else that I am willing to split my game library just for the classics.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      If ypu haven’t tried it, you should try Heroic Games Launcher. Makes it just as easy to launch GoG games on Linux as Steam games

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        Thanks, yes projects like Heroic or Lutris are great, I use both.

        It’s just the fact that one of the all time most requested feature on GoG is Linux support for many years, yet its ignored constantly. Its just disappointing.

  • @[email protected]
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    2910 months ago

    I prefer GOG, due to being being DRM free.

    On Linux I just use Heroic Games Launcher to install the GOG games and launch them. Its just as easy as proton on Steam

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      Do you use cloud sync with heroic? It sounded somewhat beta/experimental so I use heroic for other storefronts but still use the gog galaxy since it’s sync works great and is built in.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          Same here. At some point I’ll have to try it out with a game that I don’t mind losing progress on. It sounded like you have to manually specify one or more save directories to get sync to work which sounds pretty flimsy to me.