Steam Deck

"Having to deal with pre-shader work" that you mentioned is a good thing. Without it, games will stutter more. And you always have the option to skip it or disable it entirely.

But otherwise, it's a classic delimma:

Steam personally, I respect GOG offering DRM-free games, but steam does so much good for the Linux community that they've earned my loyalty.

Also Steam lets developers offer their games DRM free, most developers just want DRM if it's an option. Here's a list of DRM free games on Steam.

Is game on Steam? Steam.

Is game not on Steam? Game does not exist.

Life is easy.

I own most of my games on GOG these days. I still lease my games on Steam on occasion, because I do love the ecosystem and that my spouse can play my games easily.

But now I’m thinking of the end game. One day after Gabe steps away from Valve and appoints his replacement, that replacement will also need to step away. Eventually, Steam will go public, and their vision will change.

For now though I’m not too worried about Steam, but it does make me reconsider where I buy my games from. Ever since Ubisoft had that server shutdown notice a few years ago that would have rendered some of my digital DLC for my physical disc of Splinter Cell Blacklist on Wii U unplayable, I’m now very cautious about ownership of all my media.

Gog doesn't force gog galaxy on games that don't need it and offers standalone installers.

GOG

Just the hability to have my entire collection in a backup disk I can keep in my drawer, to install and play with no need for an internet connection makes all the difference.

Bonus: no DRM

for convenience 90% Steam. But, some gog games works OOTB with Heroic

Lutris because it handles both and more.

steam for new games gog for my old favourites

How do you get gog games to work? Is it all set up or do you need to do something like look for Linux games or set as non steam game or etc?

I switched to GOG for a while when the shovelware on Steam became way too prevalent. I preferred GOG's more curated storefront and migrated most of my library over whenever there was a sale. But now the situation has flipped. Steam has gotten pretty good at burying the shovelware while GOG's front page is often filled with anime porn games.

So rather than set up Heroic I just pick up any games I'm missing from Steam on the cheap when I can. It's a shame because I used to really like GOG Galaxy.

I've chosen Steam because I already had most games there before knowing about gog.

However I feel like I'll end up regretting that decision one day 😨

Tough one. I care a lot about game preservation, so I naturally tend to gravitate towards GOG, however I've had trouble getting a few too many games running, while the Steam versions "just work" (with the same version of Proton, etc).
I really tend to make sure that I'm not going to have any issues with the GOG version before buying it nowadays, otherwise I'll get the Steam version.

Are there any good tools for incorporating third party games into Steam, like what Steam ROM Manager does for emulators?

Pre-Shaders are the real Deal thats why i bought Cyberpunk twice.

It ran but stutters were hurting the Performance to much.

For many Games its no problem.

I choose gog

I prefer Steam. It has an official Linux client. I use Steam Remote Play quite often, either to play remotely myself, or have someone join my local co-op game.

Valve also pays for Linux devs to help make Linux gaming better:

Griffais says the company is also directly paying more than 100 open-source developers to work on the Proton compatibility layer, the Mesa graphics driver, and Vulkan, among other tasks like Steam for Linux and Chromebooks.

On PC (Linux). I prioritise Steam.

But if the game is much cheaper in other launchers that can be used with Lutris. Like Epic. That doesn't stop me from getting it there instead.