Steam or gog

[Gfted1]

With all my games of the last several years being digital, literally the only thing the CD drive has done on my current rig is upload my music CD's to iTunes. Be gone clutter!

[SonicMage117]

That's the terrible truth of it, isn't it? Leave it to those types to discredit Steam as a whole for a few bad indie titles here abd there and disregard all the great games. Localized games, indie games, etc.

 

I, neither, have anything against any of the business models. Seems like Steam just gets despised for great things that it does right. Steam cards, achievements, and big picture mode a bad thing? When GoG catches up, suddenly it will be okay

 

 

Anyways, I prefer digital on pc and physical on console. I don't know why, it just feels right to me I guess. Uplay is amazing, it's really improved as of late. I haven't used Epic Games new launcher app or Battlenet... 2 things I intend to stay away from as I don't need or want any other apps really.

[Mamoulian War]

Quality Control is not trivial matter. Valve makes ****loads of money, but they couldn’t be arsed to hire few people to make som QC.

 

If a brick store has “bums” all over place, who disturb your contentment from shopping, you just go to the different store, where they take care more about having it all tidy.

 

GOG makes maybe 1/1000 of the Valve’s money, and they still have employed people to curate their catalogue, so no ****ware get’s into their catalogue.

 

I do not get a flying **** about achievements, trading cards and whatever other stuff some shop offers, if I have to spent hours searching through the garbage to find what I want, I rather go to some smaller shop, with more limited inventory, where I know, that I can find what I want in 5 minutes...

[SonicMage117]

Either way, just because you and other people don't care about things like achievements, trading cards, vr pressing, etc - doesn't mean that those features aren't major pluses for Steam. And my point being is that if GoG ever got them, users would say "Well we have trading cards now and achievements" instead of bashing them. I mean, if you're a GoG loyalist like a few people on this forum are, you're not going to bash GoG for following suit with Steam. I'm being a realist here.

 

It has nothing to do with Steam having ore or making more money, it's just a direct comparison of features. Steam always had the clear advantage over GoG, Origin and uPlay when it comes to a social gaming experience and to the vast majority of gamers, it is important and does matter... which is probably why PS4, XB1 and Switch are so into the social experience as well.

 

Other than that, I think we all know that GoG, Epic Launcher and Origin will never handle MP gaming as well as Steam and Battlenet. Maybe uPlay might come close.

[Mamoulian War]

I do not care about achievements in a pile of trash. I care about achievements in a place, where people care about the image of the place, and don’t throw garbage in my face.

 

Just check my signature...

Edited November 17, 2017 by Mamoulian War

[SonicMage117]

Uhhh that's fine. Doesn't render what I said as untrue though.

[SonicMage117]

I do not care for them much either to be honest but I don't look at them with paranoia or as if they were some nuisance, that to me is weird. No offense to anyone. I just don't see how progress markers hunder the experience, it's not like I am forced to look at it.

[Mamoulian War]

It has a lot to do with how much money one makes... If you are superrich but to greedy, to spend few nickles on proper customer support, you do not deserve my money. Every single digital marketplace except Valve and uPlay, know, that good customer support is a base for satisfied customer. Valve just abuses their dominant position on marketplace, and no number of trading cards can make up for one of the most terrible customer supports and the number of shovelware you have to root through to find what you want.

[213374U]

Either way, just because you and other people don't care about things like achievements, trading cards, vr pressing, etc - doesn't mean that those features aren't major pluses for Steam.

 

It means exactly that, to people uninterested in them. For someone constantly dismissing anything resembling objective arguments with regards to quality, it's funny how adamantly you defend a bunch of fluff as constituting "major advantages". Almost as funny as your systematic tilting at the "GOG loyalist" windmills.

 

Steam is popular because of the same reason Windows is.

Edited November 17, 2017 by 213374U

[SonicMage117]

GoG has a couple good advantages over Steam, as I've said numerous times on other threads... the non-DRM and old games which can't be found elsewhere. As far as customer support, to be honest I never had to use either so I don't really know personally.

 

We can mock Steam's catalogue all day and pretend that all of the games are some kind of horrible catagory as a whole. That's okay with me. I think its like 80% of gamea on GoG are on Steam already, some with more support or usually get patches quicker. Not all of the other games are as bad as people here make them out to be and we know this because GoG exclusivists are usually on the Steam forums begging devs to bring their games to GoG, so some are bad but most aren't. Some are great games that will never be played or given a chance and just drift off to the cosmos.

 

If I were to list the advantages that Steam has over GoG, more people would probably be a very long list. I know that one of the problems of Steam, PSN and XBL is the number of scammers but to be fair, Steam does give a good wall to users for peotecting their accounts. They just ignore the steps most of the time which results in unnecessary bans or compromised accounts. I think that is the biggest omplaint I've heard. Scammers and unjust bans whether it be from power-hungry mods, server admins or what have you.

[SonicMage117]

A few people on this forum do not represent gaming as a whole, nor do they speak for quality of a format if they are so inclined and openly biased. I'm trying to approach this from a unbiased mindset. To say that Steam didn't have major advantages which helps it remain on top would be dishonest. I have nothing against GoG users, however, I'm pretty sure it's silly when GoG users hate Steam for things GoG Galaxy tried to do. That to me, is the funny thing, because suddenly then it was "exciting" aand positive.

 

That said, GoG is pretty amazing at what it does. I do wish that more games that were on Steam were on GoG because then I would use GoG more. It's a bittersweet moment because in my eyes they are both equally as good, they are just opposites of each other. My dream would be for Valve to buy GoG one day so that both could live a harmonious life-cycle and all users could live as one sonic society in equality and holy unification. It may sound crazy but then we would have the best of both worlds. Imagine that, tainting GoG with Steam's market stregth and server deduction wouldn't be such a bad thing while adopting GoG's anti-DRM policies. It would give more seasonal occurance and strength to each side of users I believe.

 

Anyways, goodnight guys. I'm falling asleep

Edited November 17, 2017 by SonicMage117

[Tigranes]

I don't think most people feel so strongly about either platform to deliberately smear them or whatever, that seems like a fundamental waste of time to me. People have their personal opinions and it's usually a good idea not to get too invested in one platform or all the perceived ways in which people with different opinions must be deluded. 

 

Sadly, re. achievements, Steam cards and other stupid and insulting tricks by which platforms just want you to become dopamine monkeys pointlessly wasting money and time living like gold farming bots even when you're not playing games, well, it's just an industry trend now (and trend outside this industry) and we'll see it with any and every platform that crops up for a while.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Tigranes

[SonicMage117]

I'm not sure how achievements and trading cards are insulting to a customer base of the players who actually care about them but okay whatever lol It's almost as if you are saying that users who prefer a format which offers those things are less intelligent for liking them. That doesn't make any sense to me.

[PathofStars]

I prefer Steam, because in Poland (my country) began to sell in our currency, so prices fell. GoG is starting to fight prices

[Gizmo]

GOG does not run a nanny-app that holds sway over whether one is allowed to play or not. Many times when I was forced to use Steam, I would launch the game, but the Steam app (which ALWAYS launches instead) would launch and demand logins, demand updates, sometimes refuse service, and at least once it would not even let me install the game—off of the DVD.  Not to mention needing to reinstall Steam whenever it self-corrupts.

 

GOG provides an uncrippled installer sans the DRM infection; and with no demands for Internet connection or phone-home login nonsense.

As for customer support, I can attest that GOG has so far been superb. I've had prompt response times, and they provided advice that actually helped, or solved outright. Once, I was even sent a custom build of the Witcher 2 (with .Net stripped out), to see if it solved my issues; which it did.

Steam...  It took two weeks to respond, and the advice I got (for Vampire:Bloodlines, in this case) was to configure my Windows boot options to have it ignore HALF of my installed RAM if I wish to play; this for a game that I later found out plays just fine with a fan patch off a mod site.  GOG now sells Bloodlines, and —like Steam, it installs without a hitch; but unlike Steam*, it actually runs when you launch it. 

 

*This is unconscionable of Valve, for unlike GOG, Valve runs dedicated client software; linked to one's account... With that they could trivially ascertain general platform suitability—and not install without a hitch, for software that they already know does not support the platform; as they did with Bloodlines. In cases where one is buying a product, they could (if they chose to) warn the customer that their current system may (or WILL NOT) support the product; (perhaps suggesting that they install the purchase on a different system, but at least give warning of known issues); instead they take your money and you're on your own.

 

** I got stung by GOG this way once, with a game that was 32bit-only... but their business model doesn't allow them to inspect your machines.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Gizmo

[Hawke64]

I use both, but the library is larger on Steam for the obvious reason that it has more products available. Also Origin, which was a fine DRM/platform until two years ago it started to force online mode and set language restrictions for games based on the region of purchase (because piracy, of course), and Uplay, which I use as little as possible (language restrictions appeared around the same time as on Origin).

In general, I'd prefer GoG.

[Labadal]

[Orogun01]

I kinda fell out of love with GOG because of their return policy.

[Gizmo]

I kinda fell out of love with GOG because of their return policy.

Why exactly?

 

*Myself, I don't like return policies that seem exploitable to facilitate an easy out from buyer's-remorse; and in a way that hurts developers. It would seem to mean that a studio could have a fantastic few weeks of initial sales (and be saved!)—only to find out later that the sales were revoked—(and have to close shop).

Edited November 28, 2017 by Gizmo

[Orogun01]

 

I kinda fell out of love with GOG because of their return policy.

Why exactly?

 

*Myself, I don't like return policies that seem exploitable to facilitate an easy out from buyer's-remorse; and in a way that hurts developers. It would seem to mean that a studio could have a fantastic few weeks of initial sales (and be saved!)—only to find out later that the sales were revoked—(and have to close shop).

 

Space Aliens Colonial Marines, everyone that bought it should damn well be free to return that POS.

[Mamoulian War]

But Alien: Colonial Marines was Steam only release by Gearbox. How does it connects to GOG refund policy?

Edited November 28, 2017 by Mamoulian War

[Malcador]

As for customer support, I can attest that GOG has so far been superb. I've had prompt response times, and they provided advice that actually helped, or solved outright. Once, I was even sent a custom build of the Witcher 2 (with .Net stripped out), to see if it solved my issues; which it did.

That is quite impressive that they did that, to be honest.

[Belle Sorciere]

SteamDirect is making me hate Steam more.

 

There's too much literal trash to really be able to find any of the good stuff that isn't triple A or promoted elsewhere. Also, indie developers are saying this too and going to Switch and Xbox instead.

 

I have issues with GOG as well, but none of those issues are with their curation or client.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Belle Sorciere

[Fiach]

I use both. I never used Galaxy, I see alot of people bitching about it on the forum though.

 

GOG updates games regularly which is great and the DRM free aspect is great.

 

Steam gets games first and gog gets sloppy seconds alot of the time. Steam gets patches first. GOG patches iirc have weird names that are different from the steam patch names.

 

GOG forums are toxic at times.

 

I have more games on Steam, most of my gog library is made up of digital versions of discs that I already have.

[Orogun01]

But Alien: Colonial Marines was Steam only release by Gearbox. How does it connects to GOG refund policy?

It just an example of a game so bad that it can't be played. Plus, the whole notion of "supporting" developers is nonsense, unless the game is being published by the developer. The publisher will be the one to get the revenue not the devs. This argument is more ridiculous when you're supporting policies that hurt the consumer, I should be allowed to have buyer's remorse and not "support" devs that did a poor job.