While I prefer DRM-free, I don't shy away from something like Steam... otherwise I wouldn't have been able to play great games such as Alien Isolation, Wolfenstein: The New Order, LA Noire, Valkyria Chronicles, Pinball Arcade, etc. Granted, I typically wait until they go for a reasonable price - half off or less - before I even consider paying for them. I tend to forego that policy here on GOG if it's something I really want.

Sure, I look at client-mandatory games as long-term rentals, but since I rarely play over 95% of any game more than once I don't particularly care about the aforementioned necessity. Indie games with mandatory DRM are a big no-no for me though; that's definitely an exception there.

Very simple. I don't need any specific game. I just need any good game to play and there are plenty of these around and DRM-free so why should I bother? Seriously, I never have an urge "oh I absolutely must play this game!" I'm aware I miss a lot of great games but I care not - there are still a lot of other great games I can play so I'm happy :)

Maybe, but some things are more important than always playing the latest shiny game.

Forced online connectivity to play a single player game or single player content in a game. How is that not immediately offensive and objectionable to everyone? To me the concept is simply immoral. No, Steam's offline mode does not function as needed, it still requires significant internet connectivity to make use of. You can't switch data locations, reinstall, rollback, switch PCs or do anything without signing in and verifying the game. Users are always forced back online at some point, including by the offline mode itself periodically failing. This is to say nothing about the many times where the implemented DRM has actually hindered the legitimate user far more than a pirated copy would.

Someone may bring up "but you have to sign into GOG and download the game files" as a rebuttal, but that completely ignores the part where once I have the files, they are mine and I can use them as I see fit. No one can force changes to my games except me and nothing short of a total system failure can take them away.

I am against games dying, I am against companies taking control out of users hands, I want to ensure that games played today can be played by anyone in the future and DRM is trying it's damnedest to prevent that. Many of the big companies want gaming to be disposable, they want to keep pushing everyone onto the next big shiny thing with no love or respect for what came before. DRM is no longer about piracy, that's a smokescreen. The real aim is to prevent the user from having any semblance of control, ostensibly reducing every purchase to a rental in the process.

Unlike so many, who let steam take over in the first place, when I actually believe in something strongly, I stand by it, I don't compromise just because it might inconvenience me in some way. Yes, I might miss out on playing some games while they are fresh, but I'd sooner honor my principles.

That, is why I despise Steam and refuse to support it.

Back long long ago before you were born... in the 1990s
People would buy games at places called Electronic stores.

When people like your daddy bought these games they would pay up to 50$ a single game.
They would than play this game for years and years. They would attempt to master this game
and become the best pacman player ever known.

Fast forward today.
Kids buy what ever random game some nobody 20 something kid is playing on stream to get couple
bucks off advertisment. These teeny bopers than rush to steam begging mommy to buy them the new game
play it a day or two than look for the next "cool" game.

Some of us actually play the games we own.
I technically could never buy another game off GOG and it would take me YEARS UPON YEARS to play..

Only time the people who have to many games buy new games is when there is a deal to good to pass.
I do not watch 20 year old kids playing video games..

I am to busy with life and playing my own games.

(ps: and taking some racy photos of eram)

I used to only get games that had no drm, or when I didnt know that it had drm (pre internet internet days).
But, I have wanted to play so many games on steam, I gave in.
Then, I gave in to Uplay.
Then, I gave in to Origin.
Now, its getting to be a bit too much.
There are too many 'Launchers' (steam, uplay, origin, gog, glyph, etc etc etc) out there, and its getting kind of rediculous really.
But, if I want to play a certain game, and I know gog wont have it, then I will relent and get the game on one of the other platforms.
But, I would rather have the games on gog instead (gog just needs to speed up the process of when/how fast they get games, and get more triple a titles also, to become competitive.

?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
"GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games)"

Not robbing myself of anything. I am however, saving myself the temptation to buy anything on Steam, Origin, Uplay by not using them, and saving myself money in turn.

Thanks to GOG's 'boutique' and 'careful' approach to releasing games; they don't release everything that gets offered to them, even if it's a game I like. That approach in turn, saves me more money.

Despite this, I have a huge backlog here, and they are all games with very high replay value (that's my niche if you want to call it that). I've just started playing games again I haven't played in over a year, and have yet to touch some I bought recently. So in being a smart person, I have deemed it unnecessary to expand my purchasing options to every available game... I don't need it, and never will.

Formerly known as.

GOG does not officially have an acronym attached to it, it's merely a title. Good Old Games is a misnomer and no longer valid now that they support modern games and indies.

It's also why GOG needs to come up with a new acronym to legitimize the new name and to bury the old.

I have been doing it very well. Most of my eggs are in this basket. When I spend my money on a game, I want to buy it for myself, not a virtual platform that controls my purchase. This is just my opinion about what I do with my money.

But yeah, many games aren't on GoG. For the ones that interest me that aren't here, I don't mind waiting; I have a backlog to keep me busy (been playing Alpha Centauri), and for the ones that will never come here, well, depending on the game, I might buy it on Steam. I have a Steam account, just no Steam games, except for one crummy MMO.

You literally wrote "stands for", when it is "used to stand for". Therefore you were 100% wrong, and my comment was completely factually accurate.

Ok, sorry, USED to stand for. The rest of the point of my comment still stands, however.

I only use steam when I get a game for free there (or there is a game that is client free on steam and that game is not on gog)... I just don't buy any games on steam that is client dependant.
Also since I can get a bonus itunes card with opline sometimes I buy some games with that bonus.
That said, there are so many games here on GOG that I still need to play a lots of them.

I have 91 games here on gog, I completed only 28 games here on gog + 5 games on steam + 1 game from humblebundle + 1 game from uplay + 4 games from mac app store + 4 games from iOS app store + some (I think 10+ games) from retail or emulator (I don't have any games in my backlog that is from outside gog).

I still want to play 20-25 games from my gog library... and while I play that list I'm sure many games will join my library (I already want to buy Necropolis).

I started with pc gaming here on Gog on 2013 (before that there are only 3 retail games on pc)... That's why I really don't care about my steam account... there are really few games on steam there that I care about (Pillars of Eternity, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Broken Age, Dark Souls 1, Bioshock Infinite).... I got those games for free with promotions or gift from my brother... and I know at least 2 of 5 are here on gog.

Sure there are some games that I really would like to play but since I still need to play 20-25 games + all the new games that I will buy + some of the new games that I will get for free + sometimes I like to replay some of my best games.... I'm sure as soon as I finish all of that I will be able to play any games drm-free.... and if there is no way to get a game that I really want right now, I will just buy it (only if it don't use denuvo... in that case I will not buy it even if it's 1€).

Gog will get many of those games one day.... Morrowind, Deus ex, hitman etc.... those are all series that one day will get a gog release (oblivion/skyrim, deus ex hr/md, Hitman 4/absolution/2016 etc)...
there is only one question that you need to ask to yourself:
Can I wait for a gog release?
if yes:
- wait and play others games while you are waiting
if no:
- buy it with drm

for me the answer is usually yes if I need to pay. if it is free I don't care about drm.
Also in 2016 there are many great indie that are better than most triple A (if you don't care about graphic)....
Also most gog games does not require an expensive computer.

if you want to play RPG there is Pillars of Eternity, Shadowrun
if you want a stealth there is Shadwen
if you want a dark souls-like there will be Necropolis
if you want platform there is Trine
if you want adventure there is Broken Age, Deponia, the book of unwritten tales
etc...

Not sure for this statement.

More and more new games are released on GoG (Darkest Dungeon, Enter the Gungeon, Grim Dawn, The Banner Saga 2, Blood and Wines, ...).
This tendency seems to be increasing and this encourages to wait for release on GoG.

I'm not in a hurry to play new games, I prefer to wait some time between release of a game and the time I start playing it. This has some advantages:
- Old games are cheaper,
- Old games are complete: most of games are enhanced by DLC and extensions, to wait enables to have a complete version with all DLC and extensions,
- Most of games have bugs when they are released, to wait enables to have a stable version,
- Most of new games requires to have a powerful PC, to wait enables to play games which do not require a last generation GC,
- When blocking on a non-new game, it is always possible to find a solution on the net, with new games you have to wait that somebody posts a solution.

And I'm confinent that most of good games will finally come one day on GoG.

I bought a used copy of Half-life 2 from a friend about 6-8 months after it came out. I installed it and found out that it required you to install Steam on your computer and I wasn't too thrilled about that nor really realize what Steam was at the time. But I wanted to play HL2 so I installed it, then found out it wanted a username and password which I wasn't thrilled about. Then I found out it wanted my buddy's username and password or I couldn't play the game. I was more ticked off at my buddy than Valve though, because he sold me the game for $20 and didn't give me the password so I couldn't actually play it. When I called him and told him that I needed the password he was reluctant because he was using it to play online multiplayer. He was under the impression that he could sell me the game DVD and keep playing it online and both of us would have a functional game, but that was not the case. So I told him that I was unable to play the game without the account+password and that was fine either way, that it was up to him whether he decided to give me the account and password or to give me my $20 back and come and pick up his DVD.

He gave me the account name and password. I was able to log in, play the game, and change the password and all was well. Except now he couldn't play it and he thought that both of us could share the account. He was pissed at me over this when it was his own doing, but never told me - rather I heard it through the grapevine. Called him up politely and told him I was willing to give him back the game and account for getting my $20 back but he didn't want to do that - so I ended up keeping it. I played HL2 for a month or so and then had computer problems and was unable to play games for a year or so due to that and $job and $life. I had no way or reason to log into Steam again for quite some time. 9 years in fact.

I bought and played games on CD and DVD after that still up until 2007, and none of the games used Steam or any other online service, just good old fashioned standalone disk based games. Then I stopped buying games entirely until late 2012 when I discovered GOG.com and decided to be a part of the family here. I knew that Steam existed during that time, but I had no idea what it was all about or what the current offerings there were, and I didn't really concern myself with it. You could say I was neutral but not a big fan of the idea of digitally downloading games. GOG.com got me to change my mind for several reasons that I now find quite advantageous.

Months after buying games here and participating in the forums though, time and time again you see lots of talk about Steam, lots of Steam game giveaways, the gaming deals thread introduces you to Humble Bundle, Bundlestars, Indie Gala and numerous others, and eventually you find a game or game bundle or collection that you see the price of and think "wow, that's super cheap! I want that!" What did it for me though, was Metro Last Light was nearing completion and slated to be released in a few months and the developer did a free giveaway of Metro 2033 for Steam. It looked more amazing than any game I'd seen before as I was out of gaming for a while and had a 2004 era computer at the time. So of course I wanted it, got a free copy, and created a new Steam account as I forgot the credentials for my old account (since recovered mind you).

There are many things that I dislike about Steam, but the primary one is actually not Steam itself but rather what is common to many individual games on Steam, and that is various forms of DRM. I'm not fond of DRM but I will put up with certain types of DRM to a degree, and so I will acquire games for Steam as long as it is DRM-free or I can live with the minimal DRM it has which is DRM that is non-intrusive basically. There are many awesome AAA games out there that just do not exist on GOG and may not for a long time if ever, but if they have minimal non-intrusive DRM then I may potentially buy them if the price is right, and certainly freebie promos, gifts and giveaways! So I've bought several hundred Steam games over the last 4 years mostly via Bundlestars, Humble and Indie Gala, as well as GMG, Gamersgate, Amazon (authorized resellers only), and a tonne of won giveaways and gifts, and a handful direct from Steam.

Technically I could live without Steam, but my gaming experience is enhanced by the games that are available there and not here, so long as the price is right and any inconveniences are minimal to me which they usually are. The Steam client itself I personally find to be a very nice program overall with a lot of gamer friendly useful features. I don't personally use or care about all of the features, but the ones I do use I like, generally nice convenience features. Things that are not strictly necessary but can be quite useful to have.

So personally while GOG is my favourite distribution platform, and my second favourite and third as well, Steam is my 4th favourite and I wouldn't want to do without either of them as a gamer. I've got 500 games on GOG ATM, and around 350-400 on Steam. So I personally enjoy my experience on Steam overall even though I do not agree 100% various publishers and their DRM, policies and anti-consumer behaviours, but IMHO Valve is one of the better companies on that front themselves.

So that's how I came to use Steam and why it is valuable to me as a PC gamer in a nutshell, but at the same time I can completely understand why some gamers do not want to ever use Steam whether it is purely ideological reasons, or perhaps they've had really bad experiences with Steam in the past, or with Steam games in the past from other publishers. I've had a few bad experiences myself, but nothing that was Valve's fault. Mainly 3rd party DRM I didn't research before spending money from non-Valve games (Rockstar for example).

There are casual gamers and gamers that play a lot but limit themselves to a very few number of games, and certain other niche types of gamers that can easily get their gaming needs filled without Steam either here on GOG, or even with free games on the web etc. I think that's fairly normal and reasonable as everyone has different tastes, different likes and dislikes and different ideologies and needs. Steam may not fit an individuals needs or ideology, and so such people will opt to avoid it like the plague perhaps. Much like I have chosen with complete and total irrevocable conviction that I will absolutely never install or use Microsoft Windows 10. Many people will think I'm crazy for that and that's ok. They wont understand it, and that's ok too. I'll find solutions to my computing and gaming problems that do not require Windows 10 and do meet all of my own needs, or as many as possible, even if it means I have to give up some software or games. I've got my ideologies too, and so I can relate to people who outright refuse to ever use Steam in that regard.