GOG Galaxy vs Steam

I have spoken about Valve’s monopoly in PC gaming, and have praised Epic Games Store for supplying some small amounts of competition. However, Steam supporters always say thing like “but Epic Games pays for exclusives, so they are evil” well if that’s the way you want to play, then I will compare Steam against another store that does not pay for exclusives, and that is GOG Galaxy. Let’s go…

First of all, GOG Galaxy does not pay for exclusives, so that classic argument against Epic Games Store instantly fades away.

Next up, GOG Galaxy has pro-consumer practises such as having no DRM on their games. This is because they don’t view the gaming community as a bunch of thieving criminals. Compare this to Valve who employ anti-consumer DRM in their games.

GOG Galaxy runs very smooth, has a clean interface and rarely crashes. Compared to Steam which crashes every time I try to sync my cloud saves for games like Titan Quest. I had to uninstall Titan Quest from Steam and re-purchase it (this time from GOG Galaxy), never had a crash again.

GOG Galaxy allows people to connect other PC gaming stores to it, and even launch games from them. My GOG Galaxy client has Steam, EGS, Battle.Net and Xbox app all connected to it. I can play all of my games from the GOG Galaxy client, even if the games are from those other clients. This is an important argument to make because a lot of Steam users say “but I don’t want to navigate multiple launchers, so I stick to Steam.” With GOG Galaxy, you don’t need to directly touch the other launchers. Plus GOG Galaxy can shut down the other launchers as soon as you close down the games that require it, making it take less background resources.

Your thoughts? Can anybody tell me why pro-DRM Steam is a better client that anti-DRM GOG Galaxy?

At the end of the day, consumers tend to stick to what they are most comfortable with, anti consumer or not.

@Pedro: Exactly, I believe Steam is dominant because it’s been around for a long time (launched in September 2003) so it had more time to grow a massive loyal fanbase around it. If Epic Games Store was launched in 2003 then I bet they would be just as dominant as Steam is today. Same goes for any launcher for that matter. As the old saying goes “the early bird gets the worm”.

I actually like GoG cos their games don't have DRM. But at the same time, they don't get the latest releases either cos they sell games without DRM. It's a double-edged sword for them. If CDPR games get released, I always get the GoG versions.

I like that GoG hotfixes old(er) games. Steam doesn't give a shit.

@pclover1980: Most publishers prefer to have DRM, so they dislike releasing games on that GOG Galaxy for that reason. If more people bought from GOG Galaxy, publishers would say “okay, maybe DRM isn’t as important as we thought it was, perhaps we can release on GOG Galaxy without worrying about piracy”.

Your Steam application is crashing your PC? Sounds like there is something up with your Windows or some other application is causing it to crash. I've been using Steam Since 2004, and I think I'm now on my 4th PC since that time. I've never had my Steam crash on me. The app is stable, although I've never played Titan quest, so it could be just that game?

I've a big fan of GoG galaxy app, all my games from one place, great stuff. I'll also buy a game first on GoG rather than Steam if it's there. I prefer its DRM free games.

Truth is just use to Steam and therefor prefer it.

Very much a creature of habit, as evident by hanging around here.

Who says they don't like GOG? Did you just dream it? I hope Epic is paying you for all the misinformation and shilling because otherwise it's just sad. I would always use GOG when I have a choice. The problem with GOG is not the consumer support but mostly with publishers don't want to have a DRM free game. You know the same publishers that happily take Epic's money and screw over consumers.

By the way, if you're so pro competition and in favor of GOG. Why are you not against Epic actively trying to keep games away from GOG by paying publishers?

It common for me that Steam won't open it's window, I need to go into Task Manager and close Steam (32 bit) after that Steam will open again.

Everyone here knows I favor PC gaming to the core, and now as for both GoG & Steam, this is what I'll say here. Steam & GoG are considered the top dog clients, I tend to go GoG first if they have the game I want and if not, Steam it is. GoG may be DRM-free but they don't often get the latest new games, Steam does and Steam does have lots of important features that GoG doesn't have. GoG, however, has a slightly better refund system than Steam but in my case, any good refund is always good so really can't go wrong with either client.

One thing I want to point out is Steam does have more going for than GoG and that Steam's community is more fluid and has better support features as most game developers/secretaries do engage with their gamers on the forums for much better support but GoG forums are shit and not as fluid as Steam is. GoG is owned by CDPR and they don't like DRM, and just because GoG is DRM-free doesn't make it a better client if you don't have the good features I mentioned above. So of course PC gamers would prefer Steam over GoG but in my case, just go with whatever floats your boat and whatever has the best prices/sales.

What about EGS? Well from my experience, I don't have any problems with that client as I bought a few games with my money but it's still missing important features and that's going to be a long time until it catches up with Steam. I only use the client when necessary being if they have the game I want to play day one and it's not coming to Steam like over a year, sure I'll gladly buy it on EGS...just as long as it's still coming to PC overall, I'm fine with that.

"I have spoken about Valve’s monopoly in PC gaming"

Valve doesn't have a monopoly.

The only thing I think about between the two of them is this:

GoG for old games.

Steam for new.

That's it.

And they never did.

Valve just happens to update new features over the years making it a better client while others like Ubisoft, EA, and Bethesda to name a few tried to follow Valve and failed due to not putting enough effort into making their own clients with good features that Steam already has. There's a reason why EA & Ubisoft came back to Valve's Steam.

See, what monopoly are we talking about?

• Steam is the most widely used video game distribution platform in the world, with around 75% of the global market. It attracts approximately 20 million gamers every day.

Monopoly power entails both greater and more durable power over price than mere market power and serves as an important screen for section 2 cases. As a practical matter, a market share of greater than fifty percent has been necessary for courts to find the existence of monopoly power. If a firm has maintained a market share in excess of two-thirds for a significant period and the firm's market share is unlikely to be eroded in the near future, the Department believes that such facts ordinarily should establish a rebuttable presumption that the firm possesses monopoly power. The Department is not likely to forgo defining the relevant market or calculating market shares in section 2 monopolization and attempt cases, but will use direct evidence of anticompetitive effects when warranted and will not rely exclusively on market shares in concluding that a firm possesses monopoly power.

monopoly on an open platform

Windows is an open platform.

@davillain said:

@fedor said:

"I have spoken about Valve’s monopoly in PC gaming"

Valve doesn't have a monopoly.

And they never did.

Valve just happens to update new features over the years making it a better client while others like Ubisoft, EA, and Bethesda to name a few tried to follow Valve and failed due to not putting enough effort into making their own clients with good features that Steam already has. There's a reason why EA & Ubisoft came back to Valve's Steam.

See, what monopoly are we talking about?

People don't understand antitrust laws.

I always choose Steam first for a couple reasons:

Got like 90% of my PC games there. Try to keep my games at the same place as best I can.
It's been around the longest and has the best interface with the most functions.
Has copious amounts of games available.
Got all my friends there.
Easier to find good deals.
Regarding DRM, I don't notice it. I'd prefer it to not exist, but whatever.

Would a storefront become better than Steam with the things I care about, I'd change. Don't see that happening anytime soon though.

GOG is ok at best, but the company who owns it are assholes. I'd rather not give them any form of support.

Lol, monopoly.

Gtfo.

They're all garbage.

I like GOG because of DRM free titles, I love Steam because of it's community freatures and it has everything all in one, I tolerate EGS because they give me free games.

The best part is I can choose which I pick from. PC is freedom to choose everything about your experience. That's what makes it so great.

Not exactly. There are many games that are only available on Steam (mostly triple A games), which is a choice constraint.

@Pedro: It's all available on my PC platform is what I'm saying. I have all options available to me from multiple marketplaces rather than just one.

@davillain: I agree that Steam is a great service, but I don’t see it as justification for them to have too much market share. Everybody knows that Toyota makes awesome reliable cars, but we wouldn’t feel too comfortable with them having like 90% market share over the whole automobile industry lol. Everybody would be demanding Toyota to be split into two seperate companies, regardless of whether or not Toyota abuse their market share or not.

I use both but mostly Steam. GOG is great for older games and the no DRM is pretty sweet.

Epic has more than 90% of the consoles/PC game engine market and they are actively buying out other competitors/services/tools etc to further consolidate their position and then are actively trying to leverage that to enter other segments. When are you going to cry about it? Not just that they were recently fined 250M for abusing children rights and tricking them into garbage payments. Funny how you want the same company to have the monopoly in game store market.

Where are your sources on such a bizarre claim? I have not seen anything indicating Unreal is remotely close to 90% of the market.

@Pedro: I could be talking out of my ass here. I assume PC_Rocks is referring to UE5 as it's drawing more key developers using that engine over their own engine for their next upcoming games. Fortnite is using UE5 and that game makes Epic way more money as of now.

GOG is great. It's roots are a great idea and it's great to see it expand. I probably should use it more.

I'm just exceptionally lazy and, as I'm on Linux, there are a couple of barriers to using GOG. They do have some support for Linux games wise but there is no GOG galaxy client for Linux.

I probably should be less lazy.

However just because a store exists on the PC doesn't mean it's entitled to succeed. Just like on the high street, Online retailers have to attract customers. Customers are not duty bound to spend in a particular store.

Which other third party engine is even a competition? Unity? That's more mobile. Cryengine? Source? Id Tech?

GOG is by far the best most consumer friendly online store for games, i really wish it would get the attention it deserves.

There is no monopoly. There is a lot of competition. Or rather, a lot of would-be competitors.

The issue is that the competition is just not good enough. And that is not Valve's fault.

With that said, I do enjoy GoG a lot and it's my second most-used app for games.

Also let's not ignore the fact that Steam is, on the whole, the best option still.

Other apps might do certain things better--GoG being DRM free, for example--but none of them are the whole package like Steam is.

I'm no corporate bootlicker with unconditional loyalty, but I'm not a contrarian either that's going to cut my nose off to spite my face. If something works for me where other things do not, I'm using it more than the others.

Sounds like @lavamelon has a very personal vendetta against Valve/Steam and is trying to enlist others, but no one is really having it because their argument has little to no merit.

CD Projekt owns it, and they're a multi-billion dollar, publicly-traded company. They're doing just fine, let's not go worrying about them too much now.

And let's not forget about the whole Cyberpunk fiasco. Valve never did me wrong like CDPR did with that game.

That is irrelevant. Show me your source that validates your claim that Unreal makes up 90% of games on PC and consoles. You are always free to say that you were severely mistaken.

Exactly my point. You can't even name a competitor, as for the sources Epic themselves touted how dominant their engine is in the space here with how many games are powered by UE in summer gaming events. Many of these entire events featured less games than Epic touted and going through those lists all are powered by UE with a few negligible ones using in house engines.

@pc_rocks: So, you are unable to provide evidence to your claim. This makes it baseless. Until you can validate, stop using silly anecdotal as fallback.

I use all 3 Steam, EGS, GoG.

Doesn't really matter to me which client if it's a SP game. MP games I tend to get on steam out of convienance of already having my friends list there.

There is nothing that great about steam, it's just been around the longest, I don't get why so many PC gamers get so defensive over steam. I don't even like Gaben, fat **** who killed off Valve to become a full time storefront instead. I get.. money.. but **** em

First to market is a massive advantage for any new endeavor.... It's an advantage in ideas, user experience, branding, loyalty, and building a market. Can't blame valve for providing a new thing that everyone loves.

If this is anecdotal then so is Steam having a...what did the TC said 75% share? Funny you didn't ask for sources then. Unlike that my source is much more reliable as it counted for all the relevant console/PC games revealed for the year.

As of now my GoG seems to be a bit broken. I can add my steam library, but next time I reboot it's either lost the library or I can't launch any of the games. Just get a grey 'Play' Button.

It's not really necessary to launch a game though a launcher anyway. Just type the name of the game into the Windows Search box. But I'd still like to get it working again.

You have no evidence to back your 90% market share claim. It is even more amazing that you are trying to argue something that is ridiculous even at face value. Whataboutism is not going to save your from backing your claim.

Feel free to provide the source of Steam's 75% market share. Oh wait, it was you who claimed it and not the TC as I originally thought. And I did provide the sources. You not liking it doesn't change that. It's not whataboutism, it's about the hypocrisy of using different criterias.

Seems like you made a bad bet there buddy, I think you should recheck my comment before you post that I did not provide a source to my claim. All of this because you cannot and have not provided evidence indicating that unreal occupies 90% of the market share. I look forward to your deflection to the lack of evidence.

And yes, I checked the comment there was no source about the claim unless you consider TrustMeBro as a valid source. Feel free to quote the source again. I did provide the source and the source is much more reliable then what you provided.

@pc_rocks: The comment is literally linked.😐Still struggling to find your sources on Unreal being more than 90% if the market.

I know you linked an article but I'm asking for a source - something tangible, not just TrustMeBro.

@pc_rocks: I only quoted the article and linked. No claims were made in my initial comment. You on the other hand made a claim that unreal occupies more that 90% of the game engine market and have yet to provide any evidence of such a claim. Instead you have been deflecting. So, where is the source?🙃