Quoting: pb

Quoting: drenAgain this is misleading. Once you download your game from GOG, you can completely remove them from the scenario of installation at all. You have the files, you can install it on as many computers as you want and you don't have to login to play the game. You absolutely cannot do that with Steam.

You absolutely can. There are lots of DRM-free games on steam and downloading the files is the only thing you need to do in order to run them. Obviously you can't do that with games relying on Steam DRM (at least not without using workarounds), but that's something the developer put in there, and not valve. Valve does not require any kind of DRM for games sold on Steam.

@Caldathras is absolutely correct. GOG provides standalone executable installers, steam has no such feature. Games being DRM-free on steam isn't normal. Devs can and sometimes do add Steamworks DRM after initial releases, etc. The permanence of the Steam install being DRM-free isn't there. Also the Steam installation doesn't include other necessary dependencies, such as DirectX or C++ redistributables, that are included as part of an actual installer. Steam also doesn't advertise or tell you which games are DRM-free. On GOG EVERY game is DRM-free with all dependencies included as part of the installer (both Windows and Linux). In a lot of cases, these DRM-free directories still need the Steam client to act as a wrapper or handle activation. With GOG, you don't even need to use Galaxy, you can just download the installer from the website and install it where you want. This is why Heroic is able to provide direct access to your GOG library and is able to install everything you need for a game. It just feels like you are trying to make an equivalency argument that isn't actually equivalent.

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Quoting: pb

Quoting: CaldathrasThe "you can back up your Steam games after they're installed" argument is spurious at best. It overlooks the fact that the game still requires the Steam client to install those games in first place.

It doesn't, you can download the game with steamcmd. It only requires a steam account, just like it requires a gog account to download the game.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD#Downloading_an_App [External Link]

Again this is misleading. Once you download your game from GOG, you can completely remove them from the scenario of installation at all. You have the files, you can install it on as many computers as you want and you don't have to login to play the game. You absolutely cannot do that with Steam. You're really reaching at straws to defend Valve as a company and that makes no sense. Just like I think GoG makes bad decisions like the AI slop artwork they're using for game sales, you need to be able to say the same thing about Valve. You have some misguided notion that they're looking out for you instead of their bottom line.

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Quoting: Frawo

Quoting: drenI love GOG because I can actually buy and own games, but they are still a corporation and corporate track records are pretty shitty these days.

You don't ever own games, neither on GOG, Steam, Epic or physical disk. You only buy the licence to use them. GOGs offline installers might give you the illusion of ownership, but you can more or less achieve the same thing by backing up your Steam common folder.

These are in no way remotely equivalent. GOG provides DRM free portable, self-contained installation packages designed to be backed up and installation can be configured. Steam backups are essentially snapshots of an already-installed, DRM-locked game directory. You don't have the freedom to install it where you want. Games used to be completey DRM free on installation media. Companies tried adding DRM to physical media but that met with issues for the end user. Steam made it easier for devs to lock down our software. GoG is the antithesis of Steam when it comes to ownership and user rights.

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I definitely used GOG Galaxy when I was using Windows, but at this point Heroic does everything Galaxy did but better on Linux, especially with the compatability tools. I almost feel like it would be more productive if they chose to contribute to Heroic instead. Maybe they could create a fork of Heroic specifically tied to GOG and would contribute back to Heroic.

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The amount of corporate bootlicking happening here is crazy. We are talking about a company that effectively has a monopoly on game sales, that promotes a skin gambling ecosystem that is available to minors ("loot boxes"), that for years resisted giving refunds, whos subscriber agreement attempts to prevent class action lawsuits, and who tried to monetize community made mods. Let's also not forget how shitty it was to force users onto a game, CS2, and mothball the better version, CSGO, who can't count to three (ignoring rumors), etc. As a linux gamer, I appreciate that they have made gaming on linux better, but lets not pretend that they aren't interested in getting people onto their own OS, SteamOS, so they can again increase their own margins via hardware and licensing. I think it is best to keep these corporations at an arms length at best. I love GOG because I can actually buy and own games, but they are still a corporation and corporate track records are pretty shitty these days.

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