Adventure Gamers - Forums

The DRM factor is a big one for many people, so that makes the choice easy for them. I personally use both at the moment. I have GOG Galaxy where I pretty much play all my adventure games, old and new, and I use Steam for some Bethesda-published games because, well… because they aren’t available anywhere else.

As for intuitiveness, I personally don’t see much of a difference. Both have easy downloading, installing, and auto-updating. Steam is obviously more feature-packed, but if all I want to do is hit a Play button, then it’s all the same to me.

EDIT: I just realized I haven’t even answered the question! Well, if I had to choose, I’d probably go with GOG because they’ve done so much to revive all these old games. Re-discovering them has been such a joy!

I have the same sentiment towards Steam. Unfortunately, Gog.com’s catalogue is slim compared to Steams so I am forced to buy some games off of Steam.

I just hope gog.com will dab more into visual novels.

To answer the question: Gog.com

I also prefer GOG. I don’t even have a steam account - partially to protect myself. I’ve got over 100 games still to play in my GOG-account. If I would also start buying games on Steam, there’s no chance I’d play even a fraction of what I own… Most adventure games I’m interested in, are on GOG, so no problem there.

GOG are a lot more curatorial about what goes into their store - I suspect it’s at least partly because the process of adding games to the GOG store is a lot less automated than Steam, so requires more work to be done manually. Given that GOG’s budget is much smaller in the first place, I can understand they’d be more hesitant to add new things.

I’m surprised at the comment about the Steam interface being less intuitive - I mostly find it more usable than GOG, which was clearly designed for a much smaller range and hasn’t scaled so well. I guess a few things aren’t as well implemented such as separate downloads of soundtracks etc.

I do appreciate the work GOG do on getting old games working and presenting them with the original manuals and so on, and it would still be where I’d choose to buy those - but they’ve slowed down a lot on the retro releases, so I don’t go there much these days. I’d mostly choose to buy games from Humble now - prices are comparable with Steam, a cut goes to charity, I get a Steam key for the game as well as a DRM-free version if it’s available, and have the added confidence of owning the game in more than one place.

Edited to add: My actual preference for anything indie would be to buy it direct from the developer, which often means a Humble key. Itch.io is popular with the cool kids, too - it’s a whole different ethos though, with individual storefronts like a kind of bandcamp for games rather than a competitor for Steam.

I actually wish GOG were more curatorial. They seem to be accepting not just games that are good and old but also games that are neither old nor good. I used to go there to the adventure section with confidence that anything I bought will be a classic, but not any more.

As for Demetrios - okay, it sucks for the developer but people will still find it. Not being on GOG has never stopped me from finding and buying a game I want. You mentioned Nelly Cootalot which was one of my top adventures this year, but I still don’t think it belongs on GOG.

Never used Steam and never will. I don’t accept the principle of DRM at all.

I might also mention that GOG has excellent customer service - personalized troubleshooting and no dispute refunds.

Oscar - 21 September 2016 04:50 AM

I actually wish GOG were more curatorial. They seem to be accepting not just games that are good and old but also games that are new and to be honest, don’t look all that good either. I used to go there to the adventure section with confidence that anything I bought will be a classic, but not any more.

That all changed when the name changed from Good Old Games to just GOG - they’re explicitly not just focussed on older games (and possibly also good ones, though that’s more subjective) since the rebranding in 2012.

Actually, I’m surprised Humble refused your game COWCAT. I thought they were quite liberal with letting games on their store..

I dislike DRMs so yes I prefer games on GOG, Humble or Itch.io (but after being burned by Desura I’m a bit skeptical about itch.io).

In term of curating, let’s say that I disagree with some of the choices made by GOG. For example, I don’t see why ASA wasn’t accepted or why AR-K or Nelly Cootalot weren’t accepted.

There’s a lot of worthwhile games that GOG will not accept… And from what I’ve read, the excuses given for refusing a game tend to be flimsy with them sometimes not even downloading the build.

Now, I don’t avoid Steam completely. So, since Steam has so much more choices and because of the bundles with Steam keys, I end up with a lot more games on Steam than on GOG.

COWCAT - 21 September 2016 11:00 AM

Less visibility on stores means less chance for people to know about a game.

I think that point can be argued. Personally, I never spend time browsing stores and use them only to buy and download games. I’d rather spend the little free time I have reading about games (and playing them!) on my favorite websites than on store pages. As a result, I can’t recall the last time I discovered and bought a game I knew nothing about on either Steam or GOG. But perhaps I’m in the minority.

Iznogood - 21 September 2016 11:10 AM

Oh, and for all those complaining about DRM on Steam: They also have plenty of DRM-free games, in fact most of the games that are sold on both GOG and Steam, are also DRM-free on Steam.

True, but I believe people still make a distinction between Steam and GOG because one is client-dependent and the other is not. Sure, now we have GOG Galaxy but in its current form, it’s more or less a client version of their website, and as long as they keep it optional, we can still download installers for each and every game. I never do that myself but I know this is important to many.

COWCAT - 21 September 2016 04:11 AM

My game has good reviews (72 metacritic, 92% positive Steam rating), much better than, say, ARMIKROG which is on GoG.

You are French alright.