If those torrents contain the extras it could actually be useful since I think GOG is actually removing extras like soundtracks these days.
But otherwise, boo pirates boooo.

In fairness, this is far easier when you have a library/customer base that is a fraction of the size of Steam's. Not that Valve CS is perfect, far from it, but they also have a huge number of accounts/games.

I do see a decent number of comments about that on Reddit, and people seem excited for Galaxy, "a Steam-like client minus the DRM".

Of course with GOG getting into newer games and Steam accepting whatever, including plenty of older games, you can't avoid the fact that competition is happening. People just have to make choices about what they want to support, and sometimes that includes sacrifices.

No, HoMaM 4 was excellent, just... Different.

Nobody praises me for repeatedly admitting this around the boards :'(

Nah, that's not going to happen. DRM-free remains pretty much the only marketing trick GOG has up their sleeeve to keep their customer base, that would be a terrible idea.

Thanks for this that reminds me,something I need to do...

+1 for OP's suggestion.

Getting them on here this way would be great and raising awareness is better than threats.

Abandonware sites support GoG, why shouldn't the pirate platforms? Disregarding those few nutjobs who think making art is easy, not time consuming and the results should be free so that the artist can die in a dumpster.

I always find it strange when piracy is seen as only bad for sales. Sure, there's probably people who like a game and opt to obtain it by piracy without buying it, but the opposite is also true: for me, piracy has often been a stepping stone to buying games. Especially games that cost me €19,- or more instead of bargain bin prices, I wouldn't have bought if the pirated version hadn't made me discover I liked the game. Fallout 3 and Battlefield 2 come to mind as (for my wallet) expansive games I wouldn't have bought if I'd never downloaded the pirated version.

Plus piracy made me discover the joy of circumventing DRM and was a definitive stepping stone to discovering the joy of DRM-free on GOG, the last being joy enough, to stop me from pirating altogether. Selling DRM-free is (in my experience) the best way to defeat pirates. It stopped me (coupled with the dropped sale prices) from downloading pirated games.

As for Steam, I got a Steam account as well, it was kind of forced upon me when my brother gave me Lord of the Rings: War in the North and my brother-in-law gave me Skyrim, both of which turned out to be not complete games, just a DVD with a Steam key accompanying it. So I made an account and have used it to buy more games when I wanted them but they're not available on GOG, but any time a game I bought in a discount on Steam appeared in a GOG sale I gog-gified them (even if the GOG price is higher than the Steam price).


Summary:

So no, GOG isn't complementary to Steam, it's the other way around. And piracy isn't an enemy of GOG, as it's a stepping stone to the enjoyment of buying games DRM-free.

GOG beats piracy beats Steam. That is, piracy would beat Steam for freeing yourself from DRM-free, if piracy wouldn't burden you with the guilt of not supporting the developers of games.

I don't like steam, but I have steam. I use it for as little as possible, but I got it by default because, like so many others, I bought a game and had to get steam to actually get the game - it was the only way to have them, which is true for all but ONE game I own on steam, or at least it was true at the time that I purchased it (Deus Ex I bought on there before it was on GOG and I didn't know enough about GOG to know it was one I could have waited for.) Once I had it I also discovered It was also the only way to "own" working copies of Commander Keen and it was part of an id package that was super super super cheap cheap cheap and so I got all their great FPSs of the 90s and all of the Commander Keens and it was a STEAL and still is, even though it was from steam. Duke Forever (which is hella fun!) and Fallout: NV were must-plays for me. AND, I initially had a downloaded copy of Portal that someone had given to me, I loved it, bought (pre-ordered) Portal 2 (which was cheaper when it came out than what I paid for it, I believe, or was it more expensive? I don't remember!), and then bought Portal 1 FOR THE HONOR (and patches/updates/to get illegal thing off of my computer.) Then I discovered Dishonored.

Yepyep, steam is complimentary for me, now. Think of it like buying gas, insurance, electricity, internet in general, sometimes you just give the "bad guys" money, as long as you do it knowingly.

I'm a GoG and Steam user, but to me it is the opposite as what you suggest: I am a Steam user for those games that are not available on GoG, not the other way around.

As monkeydelarge said, if GoG games had DRM like Steam does, there'd be very little reason for me to buy from GoG instead of Steam. Steam has old games too (also many not available on GoG) nowadays so that's not a big reason to stay on GoG either.

So yeah, the main reason for me to prefer GoG.com is DRM-free games.

AAA games, -75% under a year ??
Skyrim was discounted -30% after 6 months, -50% after one year, -66% after 18 months, -75% after 2 years and its DLCs don't go under -50% even after... nearly 30 month ? (btw, the legendary edition should be discounted -75% around june this year)
And most of the other games follow the same pattern of discounting (as well as the DLCs of older games)

Depends on the uploader. The Witcher 2 had a day 1 scene release from the retail version (not Steam version, nor GOG version), but GOG's TW2 was also uploaded on Demonoid within a week of release.
Game Dev Tycoon (you know, the game that the pirated version would create piracy problem for the games you released) was also available within a week of it's release, even though it was DRM free.

Do not confuse the scene groups with casual uploaders. Scene does have some rules they usually respect, but not everryone does.

Depends on the game. Some (like Skyrim) retain their price better, while some others (Spec Ops: The Line) plummeted quite fast. It didn't seem to take long when you could buy the latter for around $5 or so, IIRC.

Minecraft is an indie game, and it seems to have retained its price quite well. :) (still 20 euros, just checked it; I don't recall if that was the same price when I bought two copies of it a long time ago)

The internet is a fun legal loophole, isn't it?

I must admit though, it's tempting to get the removed games from them.. like Re-Volt, ObsCure, the whole Nordic catalog etc.

The strange thing is, that some of the removed games are not available even there (at least not the GoG versions), so maybe GoG-packages on torrent sites are not such a problem at all or has it become more regular in the last time? I usually don't check those, just did once the last time when the topic was active here.