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Comment on Do you prefer to buy games on Steam or GOG?

In almost all of those 25 cases the main single player game is available directly without the need to be online or have Galaxy and the “online” requirement is an incentive to register with them or use Galaxy - not nice and probably very frustrating for gamers with an Achiever or Completionist mindset, but those games will still work 2 decades from now when those servers are long gone, even if missing access to some cosmetic items.

Mind you, your point is well taken and that is worrisome.

It’s still nothing compared to Steam’s requirement of being online to at the very least install and first start of the game (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) 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.

The whole industry has been enshittifying and Steam has actually promoted that kind of shit amongst Indie game makers.

But yeah, GoG letting some of those through is not good and them actually having pushed for Galaxy-only content in some games is pretty bad.

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Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨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.

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- Aceticon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨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.
  
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  - Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨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.
    
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