GOG shames Steam

In Jim (I'll probably be dead before i'm 40) Sterling's newest piece, he highlights how Valve have soiled early development forever by opening the flood gates and letting an army scammers release broken, low quality asset flip crap, while GOG has attempted to redeem it by putting quality first.

https://youtu.be/11irrs2MnOA

Overall, Valve come across as right bastards.

GOG.com and CD Projekt Red are the true saviors of PC gaming! Down with Valve and their tyranny!

Gaben will eat gog.... and jim.

Steam is just a platform to distributing content.

Valve are in a situation where if you overly moderate what can and can't be sold they would be accused of damaging developers or promoting your own content over others, if they choose to allow anything they are accused of facilitating scammers.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't situation there.

Jim is a scammer. He takes your time and gives you nothing in return. He's one of those types you feel significantly dumber after having listened to him, and you can't help but feel sorry for everyone who hasn't figured it out.

@ten_pints: Valve (specifically Gabe Newell) have consistanly perpetuated the narrative of consumer first, as Mr Stirling rightfully points out, the bad overwhelmingly outweighs the good.

Early Access is now synonymous with low quality/scams directly as a result of Valve's have-a-go mentality.

Jim Sterling is more righteous and less entertaining.

Whenever I watched a video of his I felt like I was getting lectured by a parent.

**** that guy....but hope he doesn't die before he's 40.

I can't digital distribution seriously until they price it accordingly.

GOG is pretty overrated. They just announced an Early Access program. I have no issues with Early Access, but I find it hilarious how GOG users--who are usually critical of EA because of Steam--are trying to spin it like their system is a positive.

GoG, quality. Yet there's a whole forum dedicated to GOG users begging for PC games to appear on GOG. Content is king and GOG's library and content is lackluster. It's a store that doesnt have Rocket League, Ori, Undertale or Cities Skylines just to name a few from last year. Or recently The Witness, That Dragon, Cancer, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak or XCOM2. The saviours PC Gaming that doesnt sell recently released well recieved PC games on their store.

It's a platform where games are often more expensive than Steam and definitely more expensive than GMG or other grey outlets..
It's a platform where it still has a shoddy update system of delivering old builds, having updates come late or not at all.
It's a platform where some GOG versions of games are incompatible with mods.
It's a platform that censors games from being viewed (I cant access the Hotline Miami 2 page, but can on other storefronts).

I'd rather vouch for the Humble Store. On the basis that you have an option get a Steam key or a DRM-Free version; the freedom of choice and it has a selective range on top if that's what you're after. Also because buying a game through the Humble Widget is a straight up 95%-5% royalty split to the developer; compared to Steam/GoG's 70-30 split, which I think is a more valuable consumer principle something as petty as DRM-Free.

Pro tip, don't buy unfinished games, problem solved and if they are unfinished they should be distributed freely in a closed/open alpha or beta to get feedback as has always been done with PC games.

There doesn't need to be a better "Early Access" system, there doesn't need to be a "Games in Development" system, the concept needs to go away entirely, the only people to blame are the idiots who contribute to the problem by continuing to purchase them, not the people who introduced the feature..

You're directing your blame at the wrong party, it's the community itself that is to blame for this actually taking off, no one else.

Jim sure likes his gogs, and his pogs

I dont mind gog, but I will never use it simply because I have been using steam for years and it has been working fine for me so far and steam has also improved a lot over the time like they have giving us the option to refund games, they have done quite a lot of mistakes over time, but nothing that really worries me.

I like GOG, but they've been slipping off the wagon a lot in the last year or two. They are getting closer and closer to being another Steam-like service.

General policies aside, GOG is not offering a good enough service as of now to warrant my business.

It tends to have slower updates than Steam when it comes to recent releases. This is especially the case for indie titles, since there is often a delay for when the dev gets the new patch to GOG, and another delay for when GOG makes that new patch available. Until GOG can catch up to Steam in terms of timely update, this reason by itself is enough to drive me several miles away from ever buying from GOG again.

Steam further has a more consumer-friendly refund system than GOG. GOG only allows refund for technical issues (30 days, and you have to work with them to try resolve the issues) or if you didn't download the game (14 days). It's simply not good enough compared to Steam, which allows refund as long as the playtime is under 2 hours (14 days). I realise that GOG's policy is the way it is due to the DRM-free nature of its game, but this turns out to be one of the rare instances where DRM-free actually backfires.

Finally, Steam is ultimately the more established platform. All my RL & gaming friends are on Steam, and so for what it's worth I care a lot more about achievements in Steam games than in GOG games. Until GOG as a platform becomes as or more established than Steam, people tend to stay where their pals stick to. The proper term for this effect is the "network effect", and WoW is highly familiar with it.

I thought the whole idea of buying DRM-free games is to not have to deal with any client. If a GoG game needs updates or patches, you go to that game's web site and download the patch yourself.

Yup,,, your fav devs at CD Projekt are awesome.

Not really that petty. There's something inherently nice about just starting the game and shutting it down without a client initiating first or having to check the tray to make sure the client also shut down.

One issue I have with having a client on is it can complicate troubleshooting when a game doesn't run up to specs. A good example is the Origin version of Mass Effect 1. After an Origin update, The normally locked at 60 fps Mass Effect 1 started having framerate drops into the very laggy teens. I eventually traced the culprit to the client's Origin in Game. Once it was unchecked, Mass Effect 1 went back to its smooth 60 fps goodness. Granted, it doesn't happen in every game. But, the potential is there and not just for Origin.

Having a client active is an exercise in toleration, at least to me. I tolerate it. But, I feel it's much better not to have any. I also don't have to worry about the clients doing a periodic check. When the family and I went on a month-long road trip last year, all the clients were set to Offline mode before we set off. After about five days, both Origin and Steam refused to start their games until an Internet check was made. Uplay, of all things, was the only client that remained offline throughout the trip.

After the above experience, I've turned more and more to GoG first for my games before Steam/Uplay/Origin.

This. There's a few games I'll play early access and a few that i'll roll the dice on if they are cheap, but don't complain too hard if you get stuck with a turkey.

With Darkest Dungeon I got over 70 hrs out of the early access on a build I thought that was better than the final product. Consider me a very happy consumer.

It's funny that people that never buy early access or broken indie games are the loudest about them lol I bet that you have never bought either of those, cup, so stop your hypocritical rants about Steam quality control.

@jhonMalcovich: That's not how hypocritical works silly sausage.

As someone who has inherant empathy towards fellow beings, exploitation of the young and ignorant is deplorable.

GOG care.

I couldn't careless. All my games are on Steam. I know which games to avoid and the whole drm thing is meaningless to me. Not to mention gog's lack of high quality releases.

@uninspiredcup: all those broken games are boght by less than 1% of total steam population, but you always try to make it look as if it's of biblical proportions. And you have never been affected by any of this.

So stop your stupid rants. I have never felt affiliated to Steam, as I have no problem in managing multiple game download platforms such gog, origin, uplay etc. But I can't stand unfair righteous judgements when I see it. You want to bring this stupid and obvious disclaimers about how to use your judgement to Steam, because you purposely acting thick - like for example "Oh i didnt know i cant dry a cat in a microwave oven. That's all microwave manfacturer fault for not letting me know duh".

You want to bring Murica's stupidity-proof disclaimers about not buying unfinished games for people who refuse to think by themselves.

hahahahahahaha

Caveat Emptor.

You can always find videos, user reviews, or even twitch streams of almost any game these days. Checking something out before you buy is pretty damn easy. There is no one to blame but yourself if you buy some shovel-ware.

I've found this to be true as well. In my case we were without internet for a day and you'd be surprised at the number of games you can't run in offline mode. Especially EA games. It would be a bigger deal for me if it weren't for having 4g lte and free hotspot feature on my phone.

Yea I mean, if the community is going to fund a project before its complete, well, buyer beware. There have been so many stories out there too now of devs going awol on projects before completion. I would never fund 'Early Access' as really, there are so many finished games on steam and elsewhere that the game can wait until it gets a full release and has some reviews I can check.

Always been a fan of Steam and this won't change that.

Steam is better in about every way imaginable.

GOG is my favorite digital service by far. I still use steam a lot, though. Partly because I have to, but mostly because it's also a great service.

You are entirely incorrect, regretfully. If you have purchased from GOG before, you'd know that to update GOG games, you have to use GOG patches. Although GOG games are DRM-free, they run on a special GOG version that's incompatible with any other form of patches. Besides, websites nowadays do not post patches on their sites. It's generally automated via Steam.

GOG patches generally come out slower than Steam's auto-updates, and it has frustrated a lot of people playing GOG versions of super fresh indie releases that pretty much release a hotfix every two days during the launch period.

Yet, GOG gives you an option to either update your games or keep it in certain patches as long as they're playable! Valve forces you to automatically update! Oh I forgot you are the one that is in love with Denuvo and all DRM!

Are we back to this thing about protecting people from their own stupidity? Nah... **** them... they're the same ones that ruined videogames by buying day one DLC and season passes and making excuses for broken games on release.

Let them burn while they play their early access alphas (**** me how thick are these assholes) it really isn't our problem.

Gabe is a fatass greedy bastard but he wouldn't get away with this shit if people weren't so damn stupid.

GOG is great n all but their library is still limited. What's funny here is how Valve was once seen as the hero underdog and now they are the greedy/shady conglomerate. Reminds me of that Walmart episode on Southpark. Now just wait a few years and this topic will be about GOG.

You can opt to not download updates. Although I have never had a new update make any of my games worse.

Valve hasn't been doing what's good for anyone except Valve for a really long time. They've been coasting on goodwill and gradually becoming more and more evil.

Remember, this is the company that wants to sell you mods.

I don't get the problem with Steam. They are a store with a good refund policy, a tremendous selection, great discounts, and lots of free tools to help make an educated purchase. I just don't get why people on the internet have to complain about everything.

You must be new here.

I don't have that many GoG games yet. I do have X3 Terran Conflict and X3 Albion Prelude. Patching both games seem to be via the built-in updater which takes the player to the game's web site. Browsing the available patches show them to be specifically incompatible with the Steam version. But, nothing for GoG. It would make sense that these patches apply to the GoG version because the games run without any client whatsoever. The only link anywhere is to the Egosoft web site.

I'll be buying SOMA soon. That game came out last year. So, it's newer and may require patching later on. I'll then see whether it really is tied to GoG or not.

Every developer is scrambling to get their game on Steam.

Not every developer is scrambling to get their game on GOG.

@jun_aka_pekto: It's the case for ALL new games. Since GOG started selling new games, I kinda forgot that they started off selling super old games. The GOG version of games also use an entirely different set of version numbers from Steam versions. E.g. a 1.01 patch on Steam may be a 2.0.1.0 patch on GOG. It can get pretty confusing all in all.

It's pretty safe buying established games on GOG with all their patches already released. However, personally I would avoid GOG like a plague when it comes to new releases. The exception being "first party" games like Witcher 3, which shares the same parent company with GOG.

And some developers will NEVER get their game on GOG.

Releasing games on GOG also has the side effect of "cracking" your game. While in practice this does not matter much, it still makes things easier for pirates, who can now use a safe and reliable gog installer/patches instead of some dodgy scene installer/updates. Obviously, games EA/SquareEnix/Warners Bro running Denuvo will never ever release on GOG.

@uninspiredcup: I love GOG. Steam has made a little improvement by offering a refund system as well. Not as good as GOG mind you, but still it was start. If GOG Galaxy can get better then Steam one day might have a little competition.

I just finished downloading SOMA from GoG. It looks like there is a 1.10 patch available for download. I emphasize download because that means I can install the patch in my leisure and not have say, Steam, do it automatically.

I don't want to repeat what happened in the early days of Far Cry 3. The game was working perfectly fine. Then all of a sudden, it would crash for no apparent reason. Turned out, Ubisoft was pushing out a patch. Everytime Ubisoft updated Uplay or pushed out a patch for the first two weeks, Far Cry 3 would crash. I had to wait until the update initiated. Then, Far Cry 3 was cool again until the next update.

All new games going to GoG isn't going to happen. That means I have to tolerate clients. I think the different clients have settled down. I have no current problems with them. Still, my first choice for a game would be to check GoG first then go to the other clients.

I dont know. I just stay away from early access anything and my steam experience is fine. Most of the older games on GoG are not that appealing to me, and the newer games are all cheaper on Steam (by-and-large).

I also prefer the steam platform. GoG serves its purpose, and gives me the oldies like my Wing Commanders and Another World.... but will never be my 1st option.

So, because you're too stupid to differentiate quality from crap, Its Valve's fault as a delivery platform? You're a pretty dim bulb.

The only solution is to shut down early access and ban all developers from releasing beta content, so the likes of Space Engineers and others will be kicked out from ever being a reality.

Seems like a good solution.

Or do you expect Valve to front up the costs of all the failures by themselves like they are a charity?