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Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

If GOG are such a freedom heroes why do they rely on megacorp Windows OS? That's what I like about steam - it makes gaming on linux dumb easy. And not just on linux, their "package" is ridiculously good - mods, cummunity, reviews, friends, non stop sales, mobile app (although I hate they removed chat to standalone app), and much, much more.

I'm not shitting on GOG. I love those guys, they brought back so much memories with reviving long forgotten games, I have hundreds of purchases there. But... it just needs a lite more polish (pun intended).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'd take a guess that from their perspective, putting all that time + money into developing and supporting a Linux version isn't worth it when probably ~3% of the user base is using it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Yeah. I intentionally buy my games on Steam for ethical reasons because Valve contributes to a positive gaming ecosystem by making things run seamlessly on Linux.

GOG contributes to a negative gaming ecosystem by making Windows the "easy" option and not making use of Proton (or similar tech). Hopefully they fix that one day, but they don't seem to care.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They really should deliver on their promise of making a Linux client.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Not sire how it's now, but couple years ago that "new galaxy" thing felt like it was precisely crafted to NOT run on linux. I tried multiple ways to run it, but all of them were unstable, crashing and very laggy. The best one was through Bottles but still... Heroic came and was instantly way ahead.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

These articles are basically just advertising for GoG.
They have the same issues as steam does regarding only selling licenses, or not having inheritable or transferable accounts.

DRM free is great, but as a service they aren't fundamentally different from steam. They just like to market themselves like they are.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This has been posted a million times already, but I am still going to repeat it. Yes you are right, in their own legal docs they also only talk about licenses.

Difference for the consumer however is that you get the installation files which are supposed to work offline. Meaning if you take care to store that, it will not be gone ever, no matter if GOG goes down. With Steam this gets more complicated and may only work for some games.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I get that. DRM free is great and better. I just don't like the advertisement that casts it as "you own the game", or entire articles built around posts by their marketing department.
It feels very ambulance-chaser-y.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

I have every gog installer I’ve ever downloaded for this exact reason. You can’t rescind the bytes that are already on my drive.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Steam should have taken the opportunity to recommend a gamer to GOG, mentioning that it’s only a license unfortunately. Or offer installers that can’t be taken away.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just wish GOG had regional prices like Steam does.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah. And also choice not as wide as Steam exactly because of DRM free. Can't buy monhunt or any of Capcom's game on GOG. But if you want to play old game then GOG is the place to go, they make sure everything run.