Hey, so for some time now i had this problem… I have been buying games from both gog and steam… No drm option is good on gog but there are some festures missing from what steam has, for example being able to buy games from trading cards… What should i do? Focuse on buying games from gog and if there isnt a game then buy it on steam? Or maybe just buy games on steam?
Steam can turn on a dime and we have seen what they can be like suspending the accounts of dead older brothers and letting developers abuse their customers. GOG is fundamentally free.
I try to go GOG first, so I can keep the installation kits offline. There are however a lot of good indies on Steam, and few of these ever get ported from there. Steam workshop is also fantastic and doesn’t really have a match on other platforms, and unlike GOG they provide good linux support. Also worth noting that some of the old games on GOG are inferior to their steam counterparts ( see Commander Keen for example ). So yes, I’d say both are good, but maybe prioritise GOG first.
Check both, if the game is available on both, then I will get it on Gog.
If not, Steam it is!
I have a few games I enjoy so much that I have bought them several times, including on both Steam and Gog.
An example, back in 2004/2005 I bought Unreal Tournament 2004 on CDs, then when I found it on Steam a few years later, I bought it there as well as I wanted a modern installer, finally I found it on Gog without DRM yet another few years later and bought it there as well.
I love that game and wanted the best installer for it, especially without DRM.
Fun fact, Unreal Tournament 2004 has a native Linux version on the retail disks, you will find a bash install script in the root on one of the CDs
I feel you do this quite nicely. Personally I think if I had bought such an old game already on physical media decades ago, I’d just pirate it now. I can see the argument though that GOG (or Steam for that matter) delivers tweaks that make old games work on new hardware though, so that is worth paying for. Guess it all comes down to pricing, I wouldn’t be willing to pay full price for just a patch that makes it work on current systems.
I have never really pirated games myself, I was always far too worried about malware to do it.
Though, when dad was traveling in Asia back in the early 2000s he used to come back home with a shitload of games/software which most had a folder called crack in the root of the CD…
I buy most co-op (“always online” like Darktide or Helldivers 2) games on Steam (, …) since they’re often not available on GOG
For single-player, I prefer to wait for it to be on GOG. Sometimes it’s on release, other times it takes a few months (Expedition 33) or years, but I have plenty enough backlog
Every gimmicky feature on steam is fluff to lock you into an ecosystem. Buying steam games for achievements for example is really silly.
Truth is if you care about a sustainable games industry, then drm free and maximising developer cut is the right choice.
Choose the option that gives the developer the biggest cut, like itch or directly, and just use a launcher aggregator to manage it from one place like heroic launcher or playnite. I personally use gog for most but will use an alternative if it supports the dev better.
I don’t consider Steam Input to be a gimmick. I use it to turn my Steam Controller (2015) into a mouse/keyboard like experience on a controller. Setting things up like touch activate gyro with mouse bound to the touchpads and gyro. And then using a combination of modeshifts and chords to shift the touchpads into a set of 5 inputs on edge/center tap and then an additional 5 when holding down the left grip. This lets me keep my thumbs on movement and camera controls throughout the game, and have to rely less on weapon wheels. An example is where I left click on my right to reload, center click to melee, up click to switch to gadget 1, and right click to switch to gadget 2, down click to switch to gadget 3. I also use Steam Input to set a sprint on the outer edge, so I can sprint when I want to instead of having to rely on things like toggle sprint or auto sprint.
And when I use regular dual joystick controllers like the 8bitdo Ultimate 2 Wireless I’ll set the extra bumper button to act as a modeshift to turn the joystick or facebuttons into a dpad as an example, so I don’t have to move my left thumb off the joystick to the dpad and temporarily lose my ability to move. This made Nier Replicant a fun experience for me setting up the dpad to switch between the 3 different weapons during combat while being able to continue to move around. Steam Input also lets me set up mouse input on the gyro while retaining analog triggers without having to bother with the much less feature rich 8bitdo controller app. People have used Steam Input to set up touch activated gyro on the dualsense and used conductive tape to set up touch activated gyro like on the Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Controller (2026).
Steam Input also has things like touch menus and radial menus, so it can really change the gameplay experience due to being able to set up configs for game actions devs didn’t set it up to do. Like an example is Doom Eternal where people kept asking to be able to bind specific weapons to the facebuttons or dpad so people could quick switch like keyboard users instead of the weapon wheel to bypass reload animation and shoot faster. Devs finally provided that option much much later, but Steam Input users were able to do things like set up a modeshift so holding down the right bumper would shift the facebuttons into something like keyboard keys 1,2,4,4 and behave as regular XYAB when the right bumper isn’t held down without need for devs to change the game.
Steam Input changed the controller experience to one where I don’t use aim assist on controllers, so when most people default to aim assist in games that just goes to show how valuable Steam Input has been for controller users who utilize it and want more from the controller experience beyond default Xbox controller setup. I would enjoy games less if Steam Input went away because of how feature rich it is compared to other controller remappers out there. Gotten to a point where even if I play non Steam games I’m trying to get Steam Input working with it, so I can customize my controller experience.
I use steam input but still purchase games from gog. Just add the game as a non steam game. Heroic and lutris even do it for you.
I just mean that buying games from steam for the gimmicks, like achievements, trading cards, and forums gives you less control over the product your purchasing.
Fixating only on features you don’t care about to argue your point while omitting the features of Steam you find useful due to it not strengthening your position is rather misleading. Steam workshop is another I forgot I have found useful for mods for certain games.
GOG strengths like DRM free and install files are good enough to stand on its own without trying to make it as though Steam’s feature only have things you see as worthless.
For linux support steam is king. Getting gog games working is a bit of an obstacle. Gog really needs to get a linux native client to remove the barrier of entry.
Probably less convenient than through steam, but just installing heroic launcher or bottles or lutris or the likes makes that really easy. Most of the games installed on my steam deck are through heroic, same with on my desktop pc. In fact heroic launcher was a significantly better experience for me compared to gog galaxy when I was on Windows.
I agree that GOG should put out a Linux client to make things easier, but with Heroic as an alternative, getting the games working is pretty painless. The only thing that sucks there is that Heroic doesn’t update its Proton versions on its own.
I’ve been a Steam only buyer for a long time. There are so many cool features and extra stuff, most games work out of the box, and they’ve been putting in a lot of effort on the linux scene with proton and the deck. But even despite all that, I’m starting to move to GOG. The sad truth is that you don’t own any of your games on Steam. I’ve been having more and more games be removed from my library, and games that either just don’t work or are “updated” into something worse. Not Steam’s fault really, but GOG is much more consumer friendly and I actually get files I can use and keep forever, no required updates or DRM. I really like Steam, and am having a hard time leaving it, but GOG is just the better choice from a long term and consumer ethics perspective.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say I primarily buy from Steam. A lot of indie games don’t require Steam to run to play them and for the games that do, it’s not hard to bypass. I just like having everything in one spot where I can redownload to other devices when needed, and I can have cloud saves for bouncing between my PC and Steam Deck. Also, if I nuke my OS for a 3rd time this month (changing distros), I won’t have to start over on the games I’m playing.
Heroic Games Launcher works on Steam Deck, and syncs your achievements and cloud saves to GoG. The biggest downside to GoG is it requires you to use the Windows/Proton versions of your games for cloud sync to work.
I don’t buy AAA games, so YMMV, but I buy my games almost exclusively from GOG and Itch these days. I have loads of games on Steam, but now the DRM-free aspect is most important to me. If something is only on Steam, I may still buy it if I can confirm that it’s “DRM-free” (e.g. bypassable Steam check) there, or if it’s so cheap that I won’t mind losing it. As honest as GabeN and the Steam team seem to be, I’ve been shafted enough times already.
The one drawback I see for buying on GOG vs buying on Steam (which can also be kind of an advantage depending on your perspective) is updates. Steam seems to let publishers push updates out whenever they want. While a few publishers do actually seem to forget about GOG, I have read comments from a few different developers (in response to complaints from customers) that they had sent their updates to GOG but were stuck in an approval process. It appears that the GOG team manually tests every update before putting it up for customers, and there’s a large backlog for a small team, so it can be several months before a patch gets through.
In my experience this is the biggest knock against it, and it can be fatal for multiplayer games. I had to wait several days for a patch to get pushed to continue my Baldur’s Gate 3 campaign with a friend because she’d picked it up on Steam. We eventually had her keep Steam offline.
Considering the condition games can be released in lately, it can really suck to wait in general, too.
I’m grateful for GoG’s manual testing process. But the forums often full of users blaming GoG for treating them as second class citizens for always late at push out updates, without seeing their efforts. Sometimes it’s indeed several months later than Steam, like Manor Lords. Sometimes developers do seems to abandon their GoG version altogether, like Hellish Quart. It sometimes feels like a vicious cycle to push users away.
The only black-and-white rule is: if you’re buying an older game you should always buy it on GOG. No exceptions. There’s too many retro games on Steam that won’t even launch on modern machines, and beyond that GOG is typically very good at including fan made patches and fixes into their versions of old games, ensuring older games actually work and are just plug-and-play.
Not always true unfortunately. iirc saints row 2 was capped at 30fps on gog but not steam, and FEAR still installed the DRM software but was just patched to not use it. Don’t know of any other cases like those tho
F.E.A.R. was eventually fixed. I’m pretty sure only the multiplayer.exe. still has DRM. I played it recently including the expansion and it was just fine.
I love gog for being able to download and own the game. I have about 10x more games there than steam.
It’s a bit more hassle integrating them with the steam deck than steam is though.
I would prefer gog but with the steam deck, I find compatibility more reliable on Steam. Additionally, Steam workshop games are also really convenient.
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A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it’s price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don’t meet the system requirements, or just haven’t had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
I buy from Steam because of the excellent Linux support, and Steam input.
I buy from GOG because I like owning my games and I like preserving good old games.
Every time I buy a game I make a choice based on those criteria.
I don’t like owning games twice.
The choice isn’t always easy, but that’s OK.
Buy on gog if it’s there. Buy on steam otherwise. Keep a pirate copy handy either way.
If you own it on GoG you don’t need a pirate copy - just save the offline installer.
Steam can turn on a dime and we have seen what they can be like suspending the accounts of dead older brothers and letting developers abuse their customers. GOG is fundamentally free.
If it’s single player I go gog. If it’s multiplayer and there’s at least a 5% chance my friends will get it then I go with steam.
I try to go GOG first, so I can keep the installation kits offline. There are however a lot of good indies on Steam, and few of these ever get ported from there. Steam workshop is also fantastic and doesn’t really have a match on other platforms, and unlike GOG they provide good linux support. Also worth noting that some of the old games on GOG are inferior to their steam counterparts ( see Commander Keen for example ). So yes, I’d say both are good, but maybe prioritise GOG first.
Check both, if the game is available on both, then I will get it on Gog.
If not, Steam it is!
I have a few games I enjoy so much that I have bought them several times, including on both Steam and Gog.
An example, back in 2004/2005 I bought Unreal Tournament 2004 on CDs, then when I found it on Steam a few years later, I bought it there as well as I wanted a modern installer, finally I found it on Gog without DRM yet another few years later and bought it there as well.
I love that game and wanted the best installer for it, especially without DRM.
Fun fact, Unreal Tournament 2004 has a native Linux version on the retail disks, you will find a bash install script in the root on one of the CDs
I feel you do this quite nicely. Personally I think if I had bought such an old game already on physical media decades ago, I’d just pirate it now. I can see the argument though that GOG (or Steam for that matter) delivers tweaks that make old games work on new hardware though, so that is worth paying for. Guess it all comes down to pricing, I wouldn’t be willing to pay full price for just a patch that makes it work on current systems.
I have never really pirated games myself, I was always far too worried about malware to do it.
Though, when dad was traveling in Asia back in the early 2000s he used to come back home with a shitload of games/software which most had a folder called crack in the root of the CD…
This is the reasonable way.
Occasionally I will prefer Steam to take advantage of Steam matchmaking
I buy most co-op (“always online” like Darktide or Helldivers 2) games on Steam (, …) since they’re often not available on GOG
For single-player, I prefer to wait for it to be on GOG. Sometimes it’s on release, other times it takes a few months (Expedition 33) or years, but I have plenty enough backlog
Every gimmicky feature on steam is fluff to lock you into an ecosystem. Buying steam games for achievements for example is really silly.
Truth is if you care about a sustainable games industry, then drm free and maximising developer cut is the right choice.
Choose the option that gives the developer the biggest cut, like itch or directly, and just use a launcher aggregator to manage it from one place like heroic launcher or playnite. I personally use gog for most but will use an alternative if it supports the dev better.
I don’t consider Steam Input to be a gimmick. I use it to turn my Steam Controller (2015) into a mouse/keyboard like experience on a controller. Setting things up like touch activate gyro with mouse bound to the touchpads and gyro. And then using a combination of modeshifts and chords to shift the touchpads into a set of 5 inputs on edge/center tap and then an additional 5 when holding down the left grip. This lets me keep my thumbs on movement and camera controls throughout the game, and have to rely less on weapon wheels. An example is where I left click on my right to reload, center click to melee, up click to switch to gadget 1, and right click to switch to gadget 2, down click to switch to gadget 3. I also use Steam Input to set a sprint on the outer edge, so I can sprint when I want to instead of having to rely on things like toggle sprint or auto sprint.
And when I use regular dual joystick controllers like the 8bitdo Ultimate 2 Wireless I’ll set the extra bumper button to act as a modeshift to turn the joystick or facebuttons into a dpad as an example, so I don’t have to move my left thumb off the joystick to the dpad and temporarily lose my ability to move. This made Nier Replicant a fun experience for me setting up the dpad to switch between the 3 different weapons during combat while being able to continue to move around. Steam Input also lets me set up mouse input on the gyro while retaining analog triggers without having to bother with the much less feature rich 8bitdo controller app. People have used Steam Input to set up touch activated gyro on the dualsense and used conductive tape to set up touch activated gyro like on the Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Controller (2026).
Steam Input also has things like touch menus and radial menus, so it can really change the gameplay experience due to being able to set up configs for game actions devs didn’t set it up to do. Like an example is Doom Eternal where people kept asking to be able to bind specific weapons to the facebuttons or dpad so people could quick switch like keyboard users instead of the weapon wheel to bypass reload animation and shoot faster. Devs finally provided that option much much later, but Steam Input users were able to do things like set up a modeshift so holding down the right bumper would shift the facebuttons into something like keyboard keys 1,2,4,4 and behave as regular XYAB when the right bumper isn’t held down without need for devs to change the game.
Steam Input changed the controller experience to one where I don’t use aim assist on controllers, so when most people default to aim assist in games that just goes to show how valuable Steam Input has been for controller users who utilize it and want more from the controller experience beyond default Xbox controller setup. I would enjoy games less if Steam Input went away because of how feature rich it is compared to other controller remappers out there. Gotten to a point where even if I play non Steam games I’m trying to get Steam Input working with it, so I can customize my controller experience.
I use steam input but still purchase games from gog. Just add the game as a non steam game. Heroic and lutris even do it for you.
I just mean that buying games from steam for the gimmicks, like achievements, trading cards, and forums gives you less control over the product your purchasing.
Fixating only on features you don’t care about to argue your point while omitting the features of Steam you find useful due to it not strengthening your position is rather misleading. Steam workshop is another I forgot I have found useful for mods for certain games.
GOG strengths like DRM free and install files are good enough to stand on its own without trying to make it as though Steam’s feature only have things you see as worthless.
For linux support steam is king. Getting gog games working is a bit of an obstacle. Gog really needs to get a linux native client to remove the barrier of entry.
Probably less convenient than through steam, but just installing heroic launcher or bottles or lutris or the likes makes that really easy. Most of the games installed on my steam deck are through heroic, same with on my desktop pc. In fact heroic launcher was a significantly better experience for me compared to gog galaxy when I was on Windows.
I agree that GOG should put out a Linux client to make things easier, but with Heroic as an alternative, getting the games working is pretty painless. The only thing that sucks there is that Heroic doesn’t update its Proton versions on its own.
I’ve been a Steam only buyer for a long time. There are so many cool features and extra stuff, most games work out of the box, and they’ve been putting in a lot of effort on the linux scene with proton and the deck. But even despite all that, I’m starting to move to GOG. The sad truth is that you don’t own any of your games on Steam. I’ve been having more and more games be removed from my library, and games that either just don’t work or are “updated” into something worse. Not Steam’s fault really, but GOG is much more consumer friendly and I actually get files I can use and keep forever, no required updates or DRM. I really like Steam, and am having a hard time leaving it, but GOG is just the better choice from a long term and consumer ethics perspective.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say I primarily buy from Steam. A lot of indie games don’t require Steam to run to play them and for the games that do, it’s not hard to bypass. I just like having everything in one spot where I can redownload to other devices when needed, and I can have cloud saves for bouncing between my PC and Steam Deck. Also, if I nuke my OS for a 3rd time this month (changing distros), I won’t have to start over on the games I’m playing.
Heroic Games Launcher works on Steam Deck, and syncs your achievements and cloud saves to GoG. The biggest downside to GoG is it requires you to use the Windows/Proton versions of your games for cloud sync to work.
Just whatever’s easiest. If you really hate DRM they get it on gog, if you don’t mind it, get it on steam.
I don’t buy AAA games, so YMMV, but I buy my games almost exclusively from GOG and Itch these days. I have loads of games on Steam, but now the DRM-free aspect is most important to me. If something is only on Steam, I may still buy it if I can confirm that it’s “DRM-free” (e.g. bypassable Steam check) there, or if it’s so cheap that I won’t mind losing it. As honest as GabeN and the Steam team seem to be, I’ve been shafted enough times already.
The one drawback I see for buying on GOG vs buying on Steam (which can also be kind of an advantage depending on your perspective) is updates. Steam seems to let publishers push updates out whenever they want. While a few publishers do actually seem to forget about GOG, I have read comments from a few different developers (in response to complaints from customers) that they had sent their updates to GOG but were stuck in an approval process. It appears that the GOG team manually tests every update before putting it up for customers, and there’s a large backlog for a small team, so it can be several months before a patch gets through.
In my experience this is the biggest knock against it, and it can be fatal for multiplayer games. I had to wait several days for a patch to get pushed to continue my Baldur’s Gate 3 campaign with a friend because she’d picked it up on Steam. We eventually had her keep Steam offline.
Considering the condition games can be released in lately, it can really suck to wait in general, too.
I’m grateful for GoG’s manual testing process. But the forums often full of users blaming GoG for treating them as second class citizens for always late at push out updates, without seeing their efforts. Sometimes it’s indeed several months later than Steam, like Manor Lords. Sometimes developers do seems to abandon their GoG version altogether, like Hellish Quart. It sometimes feels like a vicious cycle to push users away.
The only black-and-white rule is: if you’re buying an older game you should always buy it on GOG. No exceptions. There’s too many retro games on Steam that won’t even launch on modern machines, and beyond that GOG is typically very good at including fan made patches and fixes into their versions of old games, ensuring older games actually work and are just plug-and-play.
Not always true unfortunately. iirc saints row 2 was capped at 30fps on gog but not steam, and FEAR still installed the DRM software but was just patched to not use it. Don’t know of any other cases like those tho
F.E.A.R. was eventually fixed. I’m pretty sure only the multiplayer.exe. still has DRM. I played it recently including the expansion and it was just fine.
I love gog for being able to download and own the game. I have about 10x more games there than steam. It’s a bit more hassle integrating them with the steam deck than steam is though.
I would prefer gog but with the steam deck, I find compatibility more reliable on Steam. Additionally, Steam workshop games are also really convenient.