When I buy on GOG, I know I'm getting a game DRM-free. They muddied that a tad with how they handle online multiplayer, but for the most part, I get more value from their store for that. It's a huge reason why I'd choose their store, because they're solving a problem for me that Steam does not.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

While I normally check both locations and buy from GOG if it's available there, you would be surprised how many Steam titles are completely DRM free.

I needed some DRM free games for the classroom last year and was pleasantly surprised that a lot of the smaller, indie games I own Steam, the ones I was most interested in bringing into the classroom to begin with, run perfectly well on a machine without Steam even installed just by copying the folder to a flash drive. Some required deleting a Steam.dll or adding a text document that states the SteamID of the game, but most of the games I wanted I was able to run from a flash drive, DRM free, no Internet, Steam or game install required.

Steam offers DRM to devs that want it, but it is not a DRM platform in of itself.

[–] ampersandrew 9 points 3 months ago

I'm aware, but when GOG takes the ambiguity out of it, I don't have to do tons of extra research to know that they have an extra feature that's important to me. I'd really appreciate if some store took the ambiguity out of it when it comes to multiplayer games being playable offline. It's something that Steam should easily tell you in theory, but there are tons of games that have LAN and such without bothering to report it. Some say they require an online connection and actually don't. These are problems worth solving for me, a particular kind of consumer.

[–] EveningNewbs 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If only they supported Linux. Proton support out of the box is the biggest selling point for me.

[–] ampersandrew 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm with you, but they've got a very generous 30 day refund policy, no matter how many hours played, if it doesn't work. So far, I've only had to use it once, on Phantom Fury, which is Verified on Steam but had issues in the tutorial through GOG; some day I'll pick up the Steam version and see if it does any better. I also buy my GOG games through Heroic launcher, which has a referral link so that some of the revenue of my sale goes toward the development of Heroic. That way GOG knows that if they want all of the revenue from my sale, it's clear what they have to do to earn it.

And as a reminder, there are Linux native games on GOG. I just played Duck Detective: The Secret Salami on the native Linux version from GOG.