As I said, almost all of my Steam game budget is made up of money from Steam trading cards, which means that Steam is by far the best option for me, even when individual games are slightly cheaper elsewhere.

I buy games on GOG, almost EXCLUSIVELY. For me, DRM is a red line and the most important factor, out of them all.

I got a very small number of games at Steam, but only because they were exclusive to Steam and at the same time, not available at GOG. Needless to say, when most of those games ultimately came here, i threw my Steam account in the garbage once and for all.

And i got the C&C collection at Origin, which is a real shame that isn't here yet... Because it severely malfunctions on modern systems and GOG would have fixed/tweaked/compatible it, while EA threw it to collect dust in their store page, for a quick, effortless cashgrab, at the expense of fans.

Most of the games i own are, or had been, retail. I get them at GOG too, even if i own them already, because nothing beats DRM-FREE. As well as GOG's work on them to function properly in modern systems.

Lately, though, i started having certain philosophical interventions to my pattern and schemes. Bad elements disturb my karma and i start getting negative thoughts, again... I am against distinctions so i am severely troubled. Also, since troublemakers who threaten through lots of clone accounts get their way, while decent folks who are dedicated fans get shafted, then why not take some OF THEIR ideas and utilize them for MY profit, since THEIR threats are both ignored and rewarded at the same time...? Exactly, somebody would be a fool not too; besides, the priorities of any enterpreneur are to be respected, as well as their targeted audience and the latter's special accessibility needs.

To the best of my recollection, all but 2 game purchases since 2006 or so have come from gOg. Those two were SPAZ (digital from Amazon) and Mount & Blade: Warband (boxed copy from Half Price Books) maybe 4 years back. Possibly Space Rangers since there was an edition that fixed a graphic bug many of us were having, and then gOg acquired that version - can't remember if I bought it, or simply saw it at HPB but didn't buy it.

Except for a few small freeware games all digital content has been purchased on gOg, including the above-mentioned titles which were purchased again here when gOg got them.

Agreed, though it's not on steam and is an origin exclusive, fuck denuvo as I found out after the fact that it infects EA games so yeah, I really don't blame you...Hell, my backlog is so massive that I can open up my very own digital distribution service! xD

I'm curious. I get quite a few trading cards from PWYW bundle games - usually worth around €0.05 or €0.06 at most, but nowhere near enough to cover the cost of buying games. On the odd occasion I get to sell a rarer card for €0.50 or so, and unbundled games (i.e. games that you have to actually pay something noteworthy for) tend to have cards that are worth somewhat more, but few people are gullible enough to pay more than a euro for a virtual trading card. In my experience, you usually have to collect the cards of around 25 games before you can scratch together €5. How do you get enough money together like this? Or, when you say, "Steam game budget", do you only mean games that you buy directly from Steam (as opposed to Steam keys from GMG/Humble etc.)?

I get what you mean on the whole, as it was card sales that financed my last binge on dirt cheap games (one €2 and three €1 games to be exact), but it's rare that I can get games that I actually "want" through trading card sales.

rofl :)

Mainly: GOG + PlayStationStore (PSN)

Sometimes: Steam/CDKeys/Humble + directly from the developers (if possible) + FireFlower

I'm not sure of the exact figures, but I'd say I get a minimum of around £5 every 3 months from selling cards (I have nearly 1400 games and Steam level 23) and occasionally logging into TF2 (which I've never actually played :P) if there's a freebie there. If I only buy at 75% off and I add a couple of pounds to the card money I can buy a £20+ game at every major Steam sale, at the very least. As you've noticed, actually selling them is a pain in the ass, but I just have one huge selling session when the sale is on (prices are at their highest when there's a badge to be gained from the major sales ;-)). You should see how my email inbox fills up with all those receipt emails!

Add to that a game or two every week from Group Buys for somewhere between a few pennies and a pound or sometimes two (I actually bought Of Orcs and Men from GB for 13 cents as I'm typing this!)

Add to that 2 or 3 games a month from Tremorgames (I bought Samorost 3 from there this morning for 600 points - in real world terms that's around 67 videos I clicked on over a period of around 4 days)

All in all I guess I spend less than £5 a month on PC games and get around 6 - 10 new games per month. I hasten to add that I'm not one of those people that collects any old shit to get a +1 to my Steam account - I only buy games that I think will be good or very good and that I want to play. In fact, I've deleted nearly 200 games from my account that were junk that I got for free, or unwanted stuff that came with a bundle, etc.

I admit it's not a glamorous way to buy games, but due to circumstances it's all I can do at the moment and tbh it's working out quite well for me :)

At GOG.com. What's the point in renting games anywhere else ;-P

PC: Mostly GOG and Steam. There's a bundle or two here or there on occasion (assuming it's something I'm genuinely interested in), but that's about it.

Console/Handhelds: Retail and PSN/eShop.

Ugh, makes it even worse. I don't like Steam, but at least it's the best of the bunch, with the biggest game selection. I really don't need Origin or any other additional client. Before long every damn publisher will come up with their own client software and online store. Seriously, how much of that junk do we need on our computers...

Well, primarily GOG, sometimes Humble Bundle, at this point very rarely directly on Steam. Once in a while I also use a Polish website called Keye.pl. I've bought a number of Blizzard and Uplay games there.

Since I'm also a console gamer I of course use the PSN store a lot. Whenever I have trouble paying there directly (usually the case when I'm overseas) I also use the aforementioned Keye.pl to charge up my PSN account.

For physical copies, my preferred option in case of console games, I usually use Allegro.pl, which is something between eBay and Amazon.

Yeah, gog at least has an option to use Galaxy or not, and you can store the game files for off-line installation! I would wager that AAA will fuck up the industry to the point of another crash/reset much like what happened in the 80s, then maybe we can get back to buying our games without the bullshit...A man can dream though!

GOG sort of leaves you an option. For now. :<

As for the rest of the industry, no idea where it's heading, but most of the developments don't look good. I still have some hope for Indie games. Seems as soon as Indie Devs are successful they tend to use the same business tactics as the big AAA companies, but at least there are always new games and Dev teams worth supporting. In example, Darkwood was apparently made by three guys ( and a dog ), and it's a really good and unique game.
In Humble's case it may be worth it, as they offer many DRM-free games not available on GOG, and they don't require you to install some extra client software like most other distributors.