Free GOG.com Copies of Some Steam Games

DPI said:
Can't connect to Internet is irrelevant since Offline launching has been a Steam feature for eons. Steam account hacked, okay, valid even if extreme/fringe scenario.

Just playing devil's advocate here because it seems there really is only a psychological difference that anyone can seem to offer - I fail to see any meaningful day to day benefit of running a game launcher-free versus through Steam. In both cases the game launches whether you're online or offline, game runs the same either way.
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Offline launching with Steam has always been hit or miss. There's been a common bug with Steam (don't know if it's ever been fixed), that if your forcibly close Steam before logging out because it was glitching or whatever, you can't run it again unless you reconnect. I can say from experience there have been times when I was in offline mode and for reasons unknown to me, Steam suddenly decided it needed to connect online and bam, I couldn't access any of my games.

Or hey, say you have a game where an update breaks things? (This has happened A LOT with the Source SDK). If you have a DRM-free copy, you can download it, back it up, if things ever change in the future, you're still covered.

Also if you want a more probable scenario than a Steam account being hacked, the 2 step authentication has screwed me on more than one occasion. I've had times where my IP or hardware has changed, and it's asked me to post a code it's sent to my email address... except I never got the email. Not in spam, nothing. I request again, nothing. It eventually resolved itself a couple days later, but during that time, I couldn't play any of my Steam games.

I think some people have to have been burned to truly appreciate what a big deal DRM can be. Steam handles it better than most, but it still has shortcomings. The game industry as a whole does not give a DAMN about you being able to play your game. There are so many games now that require company servers in order to play, then they shut down said server after a few years, and you can never play your game again. With this happening more and more, it's nice to be able to have the game files, you know they'll run, and some company server and authentication (which may or may not be up) doesn't stand in the way between you playing your game or not.
 
bman212121 said:
It takes this many posts for someone to understand some of the pitfalls of using Steam? I can think of a few right off the bat that would have been a game changer. Imagine if Minecraft had been on Steam when it came out. It probably would have crumbled in a hurry. The reason? Dedicated servers. It was already a big mess because every time the game creators patched the game, it would end up breaking more things than fixing them. People would have to constantly update their mods and it might take a week or so before everything was working well again. If you had that game on steam, you would be forced to patch it every time you wanted to play the game, which would have destroyed the modding community. I'm playing another game on steam right now that I do wish I had a DRM free copy of so if / when something does break, I don't have to break my server to conform to the patches. Thankfully my stuff still worked the last time the game auto patched and I couldn't connect to my server. I was able to update the server without breaking the mods on it. Next time I might not be so lucky.

The other big thing comes in the form of who can play it. I own a copy of Sims 3, I bought it under my account. If my SO wants to play it, they can use family sharing, but only if I'm not playing another game. If I had a GOG copy of that game, it wouldn't matter. They could play something I purchased while I played another game that I purchased.
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Sounds a lot like the Dayz mod of Arma 'cept no dedicated servers. Patch would be pushed thru Steam. Some servers would update, others would eventually over the peroid of days... or not. I think you ticked a box to turn it off. Problem solved.
 
otherweeb said:
Sounds a lot like the Dayz mod of Arma 'cept no dedicated servers. Patch would be pushed thru Steam. Some servers would update, others would eventually over the peroid of days... or not. I think you ticked a box to turn it off. Problem solved.
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Maybe they were able to get steam to put in a special option for them? All I see under automatic updates is "always keep up to date", "only update when game is launched" and "high priority update". Nothing about delaying updates of any kind. I checked around 10 games and they all say the same thing.

I'm genuinely curious because there is another game that I like to still play called Company of Heroes. I'm so glad I have an actual disc for it because I'm not sure how that would work for anyone trying to play it through steam. The game originally released without the need to login to their servers before you could play. They produced a bunch of patches and at some point you got that version patched in forcing you to use their login system. That's not what I bought and really didn't care for that, but beyond that they also introduced "balancing" changed to the game which nerfed some of the units I liked. I'm not sure how you'd go about reinstalling the game if you removed it and tried to get it back to a specific patch level. No issues for my disc copy, and we can easily have a LAN or I can play a skirmish how I liked it before they messed the game up. With steam it's going to be more like an MMO, deal with the changes or stop playing.
 
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The people trying to answer my and DPIs questions don't seem to have a very clear idea of what is being offered by GOG or how to use Steam.

The *only* games being offered by GOG through this connect feature are DRM-less. They do not have DRM and they do not require Steam to play.
I'm sure everyone here has used Humble Bundle. Some games you can download directly without using Steam. But you can also use Steam as a downloader. You can also take that game folder and place it elsewhere (or leave it in the Steam folder) and launch it without Steam.

You can use Steam to update the game, but you can also just not update it and play it outside of Steam.

Company of Heroes is not being offered through GOGConnect. It has DRM from the publisher. It won't ever be DRM-free until Relic (or whoever now owns those assets) decides to make it DRM-free, and when they do it will *also* be DRM-free on Steam. You can currently launch it outside of Steam.

These other games some people are referring to don't need Steam in offline mode to play, because they can be launched independent of the launcher.

Some of you seem to think this will give you access to all the games from Steam and removing DRM from games on Steam that have DRM (or you misunderstand Steam and think all games downloaded via Steam have DRM)--it won't. In fact, it's even more bizarre when you realize that you'll have to log in every week and "claim" your games.
 
It's a cool thing to do--some people use GOG as well as Steam for their games. This gives us some of those games in our GOG library as well as our Steam library because we've purchased the game once anyway. GOG often includes cool extras like wallpapers and soundtracks, so we might get a few of those, but even if not, it's pretty sweet that they see what we've bought and say "you have it here as well."

Of course it's not every game. Of course it's not a world-shattering change. But it's a nice gesture that gets them goodwill from people who might currently use both services--a little bit of "hey, if I own the game on both, I might use the one from GOG instead of the one from Steam."
 
tetris42 said:
Can't connect to the internet? Steam account hacked? Something else about Steam interfering? The GOG copy is yours to keep independent of all that crap.
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Steam has an offline mode. If your account gets hacked, that's not the fault of Steam. Use strong, non-recycled passwords. Also... two factor. Use Steam Guard auth. What exactly has Steam 'interfered' with when it comes to playing games?

Purely psychological, if not psychosomatic.
 
mope54 said:
Company of Heroes is not being offered through GOGConnect. It has DRM from the publisher. It won't ever be DRM-free until Relic (or whoever now owns those assets) decides to make it DRM-free, and when they do it will *also* be DRM-free on Steam. You can currently launch it outside of Steam.
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I can't speak for Company of Heroes, but that is absolutely not the case of every game. There are many games that are DRM free on GOG, but are not elsewhere, like on Steam. Hell, half the time, it's not even the developer / publisher making it DRM-free, it's GOG themselves after getting permission from the rights holders. Even on this list, Two Worlds II is on it. That game had DRM out the ass on launch. I notice it's NOT on the DRM-free list on Steam that was linked earlier.. What you may not realize is GOG's very existence might be the reason some of these games become DRM-free in the first place.

rat said:
Steam has an offline mode. If your account gets hacked, that's not the fault of Steam. Use strong, non-recycled passwords. Also... two factor. Use Steam Guard auth. What exactly has Steam 'interfered' with when it comes to playing games?

Purely psychological, if not psychosomatic.
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How about reading the post I made after that (top of this page).
 
bman212121 said:
It takes this many posts for someone to understand some of the pitfalls of using Steam? I can think of a few right off the bat that would have been a game changer. Imagine if Minecraft had been on Steam when it came out. It probably would have crumbled in a hurry. The reason? Dedicated servers. It was already a big mess because every time the game creators patched the game, it would end up breaking more things than fixing them. People would have to constantly update their mods and it might take a week or so before everything was working well again. If you had that game on steam, you would be forced to patch it every time you wanted to play the game, which would have destroyed the modding community. I'm playing another game on steam right now that I do wish I had a DRM free copy of so if / when something does break, I don't have to break my server to conform to the patches. Thankfully my stuff still worked the last time the game auto patched and I couldn't connect to my server. I was able to update the server without breaking the mods on it. Next time I might not be so lucky.

The other big thing comes in the form of who can play it. I own a copy of Sims 3, I bought it under my account. If my SO wants to play it, they can use family sharing, but only if I'm not playing another game. If I had a GOG copy of that game, it wouldn't matter. They could play something I purchased while I played another game that I purchased.
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So many what-ifs, no actual citations and examples whatsoever. Just because something is on Steam doesn't mean a dedicated server is required, so I don't even remotely understand how Minecraft is a valid example in this case. Everything you mentioned after... is currently an issue with the game, so nothing really would have changed by having it on steam.

Oh, and Minecraft has profiles for version numbers... so, again, if it was on Steam, it wouldn't have been the issue your hypothetical posits.

Lots and lots of whimpering, sniveling and crying about things that haven't actually happened.

Face it, you wankers have been crying that the sky is falling when it comes to steam for WELL OVER A DECADE. I'm *STILL* waiting for examples of how Steam is so horrible that aren't hypothetical situations that have never happened.
 
rat said:
Face it, you wankers have been crying that the sky is falling when it comes to steam for WELL OVER A DECADE. I'm *STILL* waiting for examples of how Steam is so horrible that aren't hypothetical situations that have never happened.
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Again, I gave you some examples up top. I have had situations in the past where I didn't have internet for a couple weeks, offline mode decided one day to stop working, the end, was locked out of my games until I could connect again. I've also been locked out of logging in when authentication emails simply never sent. Like I said earlier, you talk like someone who has never been burned by DRM. You mostly can't prove how bad it is until it shuts down. I take it you were a fan of Games For Windows Live also?
 
tetris42 said:
Again, I gave you some examples up top. I have had situations in the past where I didn't have internet for a couple weeks, offline mode decided one day to stop working, the end, was locked out of my games until I could connect again. Like I said earlier, you talk like someone who has never been burned by DRM. You mostly can't prove how bad it is until it shuts down. I take it you were a fan of Games For Windows Live also?
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You talk like Steam fucked your sister and raped your father. Comparing it to Games for Windows Live is far worse than that.

I avoid DRM like the plague. Been burned many times. What I haven't been burned by, however, is how Steam does things.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I had no internet connection for more than 3 days. Even when cable was down I still had cell tethering or public Wifi nearby to fall back on. The majority of my games in Steam are multiplayer, too... so if I can't play because I haven't been online for auth, I couldn't play them anyway because I'm not online to join servers for deathmatch. Is this where I'm supposed to scream about how Steam is the devil and bring up twenty other examples of what ifs that aren't actually valid?
 
rat said:
You talk like Steam fucked your sister and raped your father. Comparing it to Games for Windows Live is far worse than that.

I avoid DRM like the plague. Been burned many times. What I haven't been burned by, however, is how Steam does things.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I had no internet connection for more than 3 days. Even when cable was down I still had cell tethering or public Wifi nearby to fall back on. The majority of my games in Steam are multiplayer, too... so if I can't play because I haven't been online for auth, I couldn't play them anyway because I'm not online to join servers for deathmatch. Is this where I'm supposed to scream about how Steam is the devil and bring up twenty other examples of what ifs that aren't actually valid?
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Again, if you look at what I said, I said Steam does it better than most. I'm not saying it's the devil, I'm saying it does have potential pitfalls, multiple ones I've experienced, and DRM is always something to be wary of. You were saying it's all psychological, my point is there are some quantitative reasons just having an installer that you can back up and run anytime you want is a good thing.
 
All linked up. If this helps competition, so be it. I still think of Steam and GoG as my top two gaming distributors, followed way in the distance by Origin, then, from the other size of the globe, UPlay. Blizzard isn't even in the consideration as they only distribute their own games.
 
I personally have never managed to get Steam offline mode to work at all, either steam refuses to boot up, and when it does, the games I wanted to play doesn't work.

Granted, the last time I tried was many years ago, but I haven't really bothered with it.

The one I did always like about the Installers from GoG was that they are entirely standalone, IE not requiring any other files beyond just the file itself. I currently have an external harddrive with a copy of every game I have on my GoG library that I take with me whenever I go on an extended trip.
 
mope54 said:
The people trying to answer my and DPIs questions don't seem to have a very clear idea of what is being offered by GOG or how to use Steam.

The *only* games being offered by GOG through this connect feature are DRM-less. They do not have DRM and they do not require Steam to play.
I'm sure everyone here has used Humble Bundle. Some games you can download directly without using Steam. But you can also use Steam as a downloader. You can also take that game folder and place it elsewhere (or leave it in the Steam folder) and launch it without Steam.

You can use Steam to update the game, but you can also just not update it and play it outside of Steam.

Company of Heroes is not being offered through GOGConnect. It has DRM from the publisher. It won't ever be DRM-free until Relic (or whoever now owns those assets) decides to make it DRM-free, and when they do it will *also* be DRM-free on Steam. You can currently launch it outside of Steam.

These other games some people are referring to don't need Steam in offline mode to play, because they can be launched independent of the launcher.

Some of you seem to think this will give you access to all the games from Steam and removing DRM from games on Steam that have DRM (or you misunderstand Steam and think all games downloaded via Steam have DRM)--it won't. In fact, it's even more bizarre when you realize that you'll have to log in every week and "claim" your games.
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List of DRM-free games
I didn't realize any steam games were like that. Good catch. According to the wiki there are a bunch of games like this, so in this particular case there doesn't appear to be any real benefit. However, if it were offering drm-free versions of games which weren't already drm-free, as most comments here have assumed, I think it would be worthwhile. Just because we love Steam today doesn't guarantee they'll always love us back. I've had zero problems with them ever, but things change. And most of the criticisms of the Steam platform here being dismissed seem almost identical to the hate aimed at Windows 10.
 
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The problem I have with GOG connect is that for some reason it is always using the cpu even when you are not doing anything. There have been times that I have seen up to 20 percent usage and I am not even playing any of my games in GOG. I do like that GOG has older games that no one else has, that I use to have on cd till they were scratched up too much.
 
ooohh GfWL.. I still get shivers when I see that name. Glad you can use a dll bypass for it on Bulletstorm. No more logging in.
 
STrAYeR said:
ooohh GfWL.. I still get shivers when I see that name. Glad you can use a dll bypass for it on Bulletstorm. No more logging in.
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Ditto, I spent more time on that thing than I almost did actually playing FO3.

I have no idea how Microsoft made such a monumental fail
 
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