The DRM-free thing isn't that big of a selling point, many people don't care at all or don't get worried enough about getting DRM in what they're paying for.

Just make sure you back up your games; that's the point of GOG anyway.

Amen!

I agree with this. Exclusives are a bad business practice imo. They may have made sense way back when consoles were really different from each other and from a PC, but now that ports are so easy, I'd rather have every game available on every gaming platform, and the choice of which to use being left to the customer.
It'd probably make for much healthier competition...

And GOG has plenty of other arguments than exclusives to convince people to give them a try, there's no reason to be concerned about their survival, although obviously they'll never get as big as Steam.

Yep. You can have a restaurant which will serve nice, healthy meals, along with a decent wine or a good beer - all for 7,5$.
In the end, most people will flock to the tasty trash served in McDonalds for 5$ :(

Oh. Maybe it's just me who doesn't really see it like that anymore. I figured the old games were just a neat part of it.
Isn't it a big selling point for a majority of GOG's userbase, though? I honestly can't see why many people would come here as opposed to Steam if they're perfectly fine with DRM. Unless there really are some couple hundred games keeping them in business or something.

I agree. Sometimes we tend to look at the opinions of people who post on this forum and see them as a major reflection of GOG's customers. While we forget that the vast "silent majority" of GOG's user base probably has different reasons to shopping here.
Judging by what I usually read, it seems that most people who post are "retro fans". As for me, while I love good games (old or new) I'm here because I don't want to be forced to be online or install another piece of software just to play game X or game Y.

Thing is, imo there is plenty to love about Steam, and many people appreciate its convenience.

Aside from being a store where you can get EVERY game there is, what's to like about it? I'm not being ironic, I'm just really curious.

Obviously, I don't use Steam because of the mandatory client, and the fact that I have to be online to play most games (I don't know if the always-online thing still applies; maybe they've changed it).
In all honesty, if Steam provided downloadable install files like GOG I wouldn't have any problem in being another one of Valve's happy customer. As the DRM goes - alas - I can't be one.

And I'm shocked at the tremendous quantity of trash that Steam accepts as "games". Yes, trash. Some "pseudo-game/Unity assets" stuff they sell there are unacceptable. Even if they were sold for 5 cents. That's why I see Steam as a sort of trash pile. No quality control, no criteria. Anything goes. And they sell hundreds (thousands?) of such "games".

I accept the fact, though: Steam was a pioneer. And that store helped to bring more customers to the PC market. Without Steam we probably wouldn never have a site like GOG.

But, returning to my previous question, aside from being an online store where everything is sold, I don't see what other advantage it can have.

Not sure where you got this idea but pretty sure it has never been the case that you needed to be online to play most games. Definitely not 'always online'.

As for reasons people like Steam, apart from the social implementations like built in overlay, chat, friendslist etc. There's the low hassle workshop for certain games and there's things like trading cards giving you some extra pocket money now and then, but even before that more so it just simply used to be very convenient.

That's hard to explain to someone who abhors the idea of a client but for me the client is a non-issue as it loads with my system on startup anyway and is always on. For that you used to get a good easy list to keep track of and easy install/uninstall your games (just click the game, install, done. And on uninstall the game is still right there so you don't lose track of it). For people like me who don't have to worry about internet it's very convenient that my games just auto-update themselves in the background and have usually already long been updated before I even get around to playing them. Basically it made the whole process of keeping a games library very hassle-free, which is exactly what I want out of a digital gameslibrary.

GOG's catching up on that now with Galaxy though the last time I tried it I was a few hours in before I even realized it hadn't installed one of the DLC's that came with the game so for me it wasn't ready yet, but they're getting there.

The biggest difference and the one that's going to remain as the big divider will as has already been mentioned be the DRM-Free option on GOG. That's enough to attract people I think.

Pretty much that it's the biggest with the most choice. They've got the market practically cornered.
AAAHHHHH!!! HE SAID IT! BURRRN THE HERETIIIIIIC!!!!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsUvnvzWAAA8kLe.jpg

The good working client that works on multiple OS - DRM (the same applies for Galaxy)

the easy to use website that allows publishers to do a lot of things themselves - Yes. I think you're right. That can indeed be a good thing.

ginormous userbase - ?

They have an enormous userbase, because Steam is required to play any latest PC game from Activision, Square-Enix, Bethesda, 2K, Sega, Konami, Capcom, Tecmo-Koei, Namco Bandai, ad nauseam. It's not because they let anything on their store, if that were the case, itch.io would be king.

After you mentioned it, I went and searched what itch.io was.
Damn... that site managed to scare me 8(

No wonder people say that Steam is a great site, then. I won't even try and check other online stores.