I usually use steam but for ED I went direct as that way Frontier got all of my monies. As I bought a boxed copy, that was £55, but no regrets here, 
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Jenner
I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Steam has lots of problems, but the convenience and price make it compelling.
The days of buying games on the PC and keeping phsical media around are long gone. If not Steam there'd be another storefront with largely the same pros/cons. GOG, Epic, Origin.... they're all pretty much the same value proposition give or take.
The days of buying games on the PC and keeping phsical media around are long gone. If not Steam there'd be another storefront with largely the same pros/cons. GOG, Epic, Origin.... they're all pretty much the same value proposition give or take.
Regarding problems, anything come to mind not already mentioned in this thread? I want to make sure I go into this decision with all the facts if possible.
Anything that makes things convenient is o.k. by me.
There is a slight problem if you have multiple PCs. If you are playing a Steam game on one and want to lanuch another on the other PC, it won't let you. I'm pretty sure there's very few users that share that problem.
Jenner
I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
A few off the top of my head:
-Bloated marketplace full of shovelware, asset flips, and pseudo-pornography due to Vavle's lack of curation interest.
-Lack of physical media for the consumer. You have to be comfortable with Valve holding the keys to your purchases in perpetuity.
-"Fluff" like trading cards, Steam badges and achievements, forums, etc. Waste of resources at best.
I have lots of physical discs of old games that don't work anymore, either because they want REAL Windows XP (not faked by Win 10) or the authentication servers and / or online game servers have long gone silent. These discs are now destined for India where they will be burned and pollute our atmosphere, so I'm okay forgoing physical media.
Jenner
I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Aye, but two things I'd point out: 1) If Valve disappears tomorrow so do all your games and 2)There is something to be said for physical items. I still have some old game boxes and manuals for classic stuff. One of them is even signed by the creator. It's fun to have that kind of collectable, tangible item.
FWIW, I still rely on physical disc for larger games like RDR2 because I don't have the bandwidth to download such monsters. As for Steam disappeared, I'm more worried about Frontier pulling the plug on ED's servers, LOL.
For all of Epic's determination, it's not the most likely outcome. I see it at least outlasting the epic store, if not the others.
A big potential con, in my eyes, of any distribution service that doesn't offer wholly independent standalone installers is the availability of one's software library, should something happen to said service. Being long lived, or having huge market share, is not a guarantee of future performance...plenty of market leaders have had rapid changes of fortune and plenty of successor entities drop support for the previous incarnation's products.
Valve has stated that if something happens they will push out emergency patches to make sure games on their platform still function, but I am highly skeptical of the willingness of former employees, who are no longer being paid to put in the effort, to do this, or even their ability to do so, should the underlying infrastructure of the company collapse or be taken over on short notice. There almost certainly won't be anyone paying to maintain the servers and cover bandwidth costs for titles that haven't already been backed up.
If GoG vanished without a trace tomorrow, every single one of the 200-odd games I've purchased from them would still be usable by me because I already have their offline installers archived locally. If I had a Steam library and something happened to Steam, most of that library, even were already downloaded and installed locally, would eventually not be usable, or would be very difficult to transfer to another system, because of Steam's DRM. Even if I didn't have my GoG installers, the fact they are standalone and DRM free would mean they'd be easy to obtain (and sourcing something you own a legitimate license to use from another party is not illegal in most jurisdictions, for those who care), while Steam titles, while hardly difficult to obtain without Steam, require significant work to crack and this tends to only happen to higher profile games.
DRM that relies on outside validation/activation of a license worries me greatly and it's why I categorically refuse to pay for software that requires it (I get licenses for things like Windows for free through academic channels, and would have abandoned the OS after my experiences with Windows XP's activation otherwise), excepting those cases where it's a necessity, and thus a non-issue, as it is with most online-only games.
I do realise my stance on issues like this make me appear as something of a Neo-luddite, but long ago I came to the realization that I could do without crappy video games and annoying consumer electronics spyware far more easily than I could compromise my particular set of principles.
Of course, I also feel that people should be able to patronize whatever entities they see fit; if you personally think the benefits outweight the potential downsides, that's your perogative. Just don't be surprised if your Steam library ceases to exist in five, ten, or thirty years.
Valve has stated that if something happens they will push out emergency patches to make sure games on their platform still function, but I am highly skeptical of the willingness of former employees, who are no longer being paid to put in the effort, to do this, or even their ability to do so, should the underlying infrastructure of the company collapse or be taken over on short notice. There almost certainly won't be anyone paying to maintain the servers and cover bandwidth costs for titles that haven't already been backed up.
If GoG vanished without a trace tomorrow, every single one of the 200-odd games I've purchased from them would still be usable by me because I already have their offline installers archived locally. If I had a Steam library and something happened to Steam, most of that library, even were already downloaded and installed locally, would eventually not be usable, or would be very difficult to transfer to another system, because of Steam's DRM. Even if I didn't have my GoG installers, the fact they are standalone and DRM free would mean they'd be easy to obtain (and sourcing something you own a legitimate license to use from another party is not illegal in most jurisdictions, for those who care), while Steam titles, while hardly difficult to obtain without Steam, require significant work to crack and this tends to only happen to higher profile games.
DRM that relies on outside validation/activation of a license worries me greatly and it's why I categorically refuse to pay for software that requires it (I get licenses for things like Windows for free through academic channels, and would have abandoned the OS after my experiences with Windows XP's activation otherwise), excepting those cases where it's a necessity, and thus a non-issue, as it is with most online-only games.
I do realise my stance on issues like this make me appear as something of a Neo-luddite, but long ago I came to the realization that I could do without crappy video games and annoying consumer electronics spyware far more easily than I could compromise my particular set of principles.
Of course, I also feel that people should be able to patronize whatever entities they see fit; if you personally think the benefits outweight the potential downsides, that's your perogative. Just don't be surprised if your Steam library ceases to exist in five, ten, or thirty years.
Con that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread - potentially forced updates. (I say 'potentially' because you used to be able to turn automatic updates off, and then you couldn't, I'm not sure what the situation is anymore...) ...But anyway, if a version update drops for a game you have installed, it gets applied whether you like it or not. If that game is dependent on a couple of dozen mods that don't like the new version or aren't maintained anymore, say goodbye to any saved progress. Or indeed if the update itself was save-breaking. I actually bought KSP again direct from the developers because the Steam version was so destructive (and I felt they deserved more money, but partly because of the update thing). Rimworld and Empyrion are also rather prone to this.
Pro, sort of... You can use a Raspberry Pi as a thin streaming client. I have almost never used this, but it makes me happy.
Pro, sort of... You can use a Raspberry Pi as a thin streaming client. I have almost never used this, but it makes me happy.
Don't be surprised if _ I _ cease to exist in five, ten, or thirty years.
![[VR] optimal_909](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/109/109067.jpg?1553781733){kind=avatar}
I don't see any cons so far, I love how there is a single gateway to my gaming fix via Steam.
One major advantage of having elite in Steam, is when an update drops, Steam's servers are fast whereas Frontier's can't cope with the rush.
You can fully ignore these apart of the physical copies - those I don't miss, and by all means digital goods are the lowest hanging fruit to save precious resources on packaging, shipping and the useless brick and mortar stores.
One major advantage of having elite in Steam, is when an update drops, Steam's servers are fast whereas Frontier's can't cope with the rush.
You can fully ignore these apart of the physical copies - those I don't miss, and by all means digital goods are the lowest hanging fruit to save precious resources on packaging, shipping and the useless brick and mortar stores.
There are also things like the Goldberg Steam Emulator, developed explicitly for a usage scenario when a developer no longer wants to / can rely on Steam, and would like to drop in a replacement without having to rewrite the game.
Of course, having to download cracks for every single Steam game I own and want to play would be annoying. Meanwhile, none of the above would be any concern for GOG. That's why it's in my opinion the best.
Are you sure? If a title doesn't use Denuvo, or something else, but only Steam's own copy protection, then as far as I know, that can be circumvented in a matter of minutes. It has been a couple of years since I last checked that though. (Denuvo itself is a different cookie, but looking at it now, only a bit over a dozen titles haven't been cracked there.) So I don't know how they do it these days, but I recall a video tutorial for doing it being five or six minutes long.
Of course, having to download cracks for every single Steam game I own and want to play would be annoying. Meanwhile, none of the above would be any concern for GOG. That's why it's in my opinion the best.
Many Steam games can be setup run offline without having to connect to the internet, even if moved from PC to PC, but for those that have any of the more robust DRM implementatons (not just Denuvo), I'm not aware of any universal crack...it's game specific and well beyond the abilities of most to attempt themselves.
GOG started mostly selling older titles, but has a fair number of new releases now, but not any online-only titles, most of which would include DRM perforce.
Anyway, not really much reason not to buy Elite: Dangerous directly from Frontier.
Con that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread - potentially forced updates. (I say 'potentially' because you used to be able to turn automatic updates off, and then you couldn't, I'm not sure what the situation is anymore...) ...But anyway, if a version update drops for a game you have installed, it gets applied whether you like it or not. If that game is dependent on a couple of dozen mods that don't like the new version or aren't maintained anymore, say goodbye to any saved progress. Or indeed if the update itself was save-breaking. I actually bought KSP again direct from the developers because the Steam version was so destructive (and I felt they deserved more money, but partly because of the update thing). Rimworld and Empyrion are also rather prone to this.
Pro, sort of... You can use a Raspberry Pi as a thin streaming client. I have almost never used this, but it makes me happy.
Edit: deleted