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I want to buy a whole bunch of PC games.

I've already got Steam set up for a few games I've bought in the past, but as someone who plays more on consoles and likes discs for media in general because I think it gives me a bit more freedom and control, I'm not entirely sold on clients like Steam and Origin. I prefer it when the middle man gets the hell out of the way when the exchange in made, so to speak.

Is Steam worth it? Does it get in the way and restrict what you can do with your games? Can I take my PC on a plane and still access my whole library? What are the perks? Versus, for example, Good Old Games, what are the advantages?

Cheers.

well you don't lose anything by going the steam direction so...

All EA games require you to use origin anyway, all Microsoft games require you to use games for windows live (or they used to), ubisoft games require Uplay, blizzard games require battle net, and the rest require steam.

Steam does offer sales every now and then with significant savings.

Steam does have an offline mode, so you should be able to play your games without an internet connection.

I would still avoid Steam if at all possible. There are only two reasons to use it: you're buying a game on sale for really cheap; or there's a game you really want but simply can't get any other way.

And if something requires Origin or Uplay, I'd say you're better off without it.

I use Steam becuase it is convenient (my games are in one place and autoupdated) and they have excellent sales twice a year. On the other hand Steam's customer service is horrible (no refunds, ever) and its offline mode is broken/buggy so there is no guiarantee that you will be able to access your games without an internet connection. On the other hand the other publisher controlled digital marketplaces are worse, at least Steam functions which is more than can be said for Uplay.

If you are looking for older games then by far the best place to go is GOG.com as it is 100% DRM free and they have a good selection of classic (and not so classic) games.

Is Steam worth it?

Yes. Ignore the haters.

Does it get in the way and restrict what you can do with your games?

No.

Can I take my PC on a plane and still access my whole library?

Anything that is installed and doesn't require a connection for some other reason will be playable.

What are the perks?

Regular sales. No losing your game disk. Okay customer support. Workshop integration.

Versus, for example, Good Old Games, what are the advantages?

Honestly, get both. Specifically GoG is about older games that might not be available elsewhere. Like Steam they often have good sales.

 LordofHats wrote:

Anything that is installed and doesn't require a connection for some other reason will be playable.

This isn't guaranteed, Steam's offline mode has a habit of breaking. I had an extended period without (easy) internet access last year and offline mode tended to stop working every 2 weeks or so.

Thanks everyone.

 LordofHats wrote:

Honestly, get both. Specifically GoG is about older games that might not be available elsewhere. Like Steam they often have good sales.

If a game were on both for the same price, what would you choose and why?

 iproxtaco wrote:

If a game were on both for the same price, what would you choose and why?

GOG as it is completely DRM free.

 Palindrome wrote:


If you are looking for older games then by far the best place to go is GOG.com as it is 100% DRM free and they have a good selection of classic (and not so classic) games.

I don't want to use Origin or Uplay, though that's more because I have a general dislike for publishers. I've not heard many good things about any of them anyway, so I'm not bothered.

My original question was going to be whether I should use GOG or Steam, but I realize that GOG isn't the only store out there and certainly isn't the largest.

Valve is a publisher...

I buy (nearly) all of my games digitally these days and probably 75% of them are from Steam. This is not becuase I especially like the platform but because its easy, often fairly cheap, but mostly because it was the first digital distribution platfrom that I used (even though it was terrible when it was firsted released, it took me nearly a week to get HL2 working for example) and I can't be bothered with multiple programmes all doing the same thing. I have a couple of Uplay games (a couple more that have been cracked so they don't use Uplay), none at all from Origin and aa handful from other sites like Greenman gaming or Impulse.

Something that you really should have a look at though is The Humble Bundle. This is a great place to buy really cheap indy games, sometimes they have mainstream games as well (They are havign a Sid Meier sale on just now) and they come with a Steam key.

 iproxtaco wrote:


If a game were on both for the same price, what would you choose and why?

Steam but mostly just cause I like Steam more than GoG for simple fact of personal bias. Like Palindrome said, GoG doesn't have a check like Steam does and if you wanted say, Baldur's Gate, GoG is probably objectively better place to pick it up.

GoG is easier to surf for sale items I feel too. With Steam their search system is a bit awkward, where as GoG just has a conventional big list of items.

But as said, Steam's a fair "middle man". You shouldn't be paranoid about it putting the thumb down on you or whatever, its just a straight game service. Sure, unlike GoG, you need to have a version of it running to actually play your games, but that shouldn't be a performance problem unless your system's complete gak. I try to avoid Origin and Uplay as I feel that they do force themselves on users by making them necessary to play games by those publishers (Window's Live isn't/was never required to play Microsoft games), but beyond personal objections over those company's practices, their valid sites (well from my limited use of them).

Steam's what you want to use for playing your modern games if you don't want to spend the same (or more) on physical copies. GoG's for your older games and in cases indie titles. For the sales at least I'm using both, the function of having hundreds of games available to play from my accounts on either site (...some of the sales are ridiculous) is just added convenience.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
(Window's Live isn't/was never required to play Microsoft games)

*cough*Bullgak*cough*

Steam's only downside is the chance to lose your account to hackers. Not likely, and with little impact if you catch it in time.

Upsides are:
Games listed in 1 place,
Auto-updates when patches are released,
Chat and friends lists when playing, to find games with people you know,
Easy of purchase (which can be a bad thing),

You can play Steam games offline, and usually don't have to run them through Steam at all if you know where the files are saved to.

 Melissia wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:
(Window's Live isn't/was never required to play Microsoft games)

*cough*Bullgak*cough*

In my experience.... Evidently I've either played games that don't use it, or inadvertently somehow played them without using it.

Steam is fine. It's so much better than Origin, Windows Live etc it doesn't even compare.

 Wyrmalla wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:
(Window's Live isn't/was never required to play Microsoft games)

*cough*Bullgak*cough*

In my experience.... Evidently I've either played games that don't use it, or inadvertently somehow played them without using it.

At one time both Dawn of war 2 and the expansion chaos rising required you to be logged into both steam and windows live in order to play them, even the campaign.

However now you can play the campaign with a "guest" account.

 Skinnereal wrote:

You can play Steam games offline, and usually don't have to run them through Steam at all if you know where the files are saved to.

The former is dubious and the latter is definately not true. When my allegedly offline steam refused to work I tried running individual .exes and out of the 50 or so games that I have installed none of them worked, they all tried to launch via Steam.

Its possible that offline mode has been fixed but given that it has been broken for years and it was definately broken in October last year I don't have much hope.

This is 2014 - I would say that, by now, services like Steam and/or Origin have become too important and useful to just pass them up. Not even just because it replaces the need for physical discs, but also because these platforms regularly run sales where you can get a game for cheap. They're also a great way to just browse and discover stuff, though Steam arguably takes first place here as Origin only distributes for a single publisher, even though it is one of the largest. The built-in messenger also makes it easy to keep in contact with gaming buddies you wouldn't want to add to more private means of contact.

GoG.com is another area entirely, but one I'd "keep in touch with" for access to brilliant games that just aren't (legally) available elsewhere. Especially since the GoG-team does a good job at tweaking them for use with a modern OS.

So, what I'm personally doing is keeping Steam active on autostart, but only use Origin when I want to buy or play a game of its (limited) selection - no reason to run both platforms simultaneously. GoG is something I visit when I spot interesting offers in their newsletters.

Wyrmalla wrote:You shouldn't be paranoid about it putting the thumb down on you or whatever, its just a straight game service. Sure, unlike GoG, you need to have a version of it running to actually play your games, but that shouldn't be a performance problem unless your system's complete gak.

I would recommend disabling automatic updates, though. Sometimes, Steam likes to mess around with your bandwidth, downloading some huge patch for a game you don't even want to play in the near future, when you'd rather do something else.
Doesn't happen often (I expect Steam to try and only launch these downloads when it thinks it'd be okay for you), but it happens (when it fails to accurately "read" your activity/intent). Unfortunately, the only way to notice that the client is downloading something (aside from actually opening it) is three tiny dots in the taskbar icon, so it's easy to not notice it, leaving you wondering where your speed went.

As for paranoia ... actually, there's an interesting discussion going on regarding Steam VAC possibly transmitting your internet activity. I suppose the coming days/weeks will bring clarity, but ... eh, this is the 21st century. True anonymity died together with net neutrality, so we shouldn't be too naive about the trails we leave anyways. "Nothing to see here, citizen"

 Melissia wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:
(Window's Live isn't/was never required to play Microsoft games)

*cough*Bullgak*cough*

Indeed.

 Wyrmalla wrote:


In my experience.... Evidently I've either played games that don't use it, or inadvertently somehow played them without using it.

They've changed the policy a number of times. When it first rolled out in 2007 with Halo 2 as its poster boy it was an attempt to turn PC gaming in XBox Live where you had to pay to play the game you just paid for (which was technically worse than XBL).

Naturally that plan didn't fly very far.

I use both GOG and Steam. They tend to have different selections of games its not really a pick between one or the other kind of thing.

If your steam offline mode isn't working just navigate to the steam folder and run the games directly from it.

 carlos13th wrote:

If your steam offline mode isn't working just navigate to the steam folder and run the games directly from it.

That didn't work for me.

Thats odd. Running the games exe's dont work?

 carlos13th wrote:
Thats odd. Running the games exe's dont work?

No, they try and open through Steam.

Some older games can be run without Steam, but that's not to common now. The last game I played from Steam that didn't need Steam was CoD4.

 Palindrome wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Thats odd. Running the games exe's dont work?

No, they try and open through Steam.

That'll depend which shortcut you run. I don't.
I run Eve-online from .Exes most of the time, as I leave Steam to download in the background, which it doesn't do if you're playing from the library.
It's the Launcher.exe, I think, not any shortcuts.
It's the same for most games, as generally it's the shortcuts that call Steam, not the .exes.

That doesn't mean it works for all games though, just the ones I have tried.

 Palindrome wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Thats odd. Running the games exe's dont work?

No, they try and open through Steam.

I had that issue; I found with offline mode; you have to go online on Steam, go through the menu and turn on offline mode manually. Kind of a pain if you're without internet suddenly; but if you know in advance you're going to be without it for a while it's only a few minutes to prep

Once it's in offline mode it'll then stay in offline mode and most of the games I tried worked (Half-life 2 didn't for some reason though)

Hope that helps dude.

Tibbsy wrote:

I had that issue; I found with offline mode; you have to go online on Steam, go through the menu and turn on offline mode manually.

That only works for a while, after about 2 weeks Steam forgets your log in data and refuses to work. I was attempting to run .exe files directly from the Steam apps folder, some games may well work that way but every game that I had installed failed to run.

 Palindrome wrote:

Tibbsy wrote:

I had that issue; I found with offline mode; you have to go online on Steam, go through the menu and turn on offline mode manually.

That only works for a while, after about 2 weeks Steam forgets your log in data and refuses to work.

Ah; I'd only ever used it for short periods of a week or so.