it more of a case that many indies do not make their own music, but license others to make it for them. Therefore they are not allowed to give them away, but you can buy the soundtracks which gives the revenue to the people who own it.

Macs make the sun shine, the grass grow and everything beautiful. Everyone should have one!

I have around 30 games. I was talking mainly about indie games, since GOG doesn't have that much competition when it comes to old games. Not completely, but it has a significant edge there.

Oh okay, that is understandable, but with old classics which is what gog.com markets to, there's no one better.

I think that most indies do own the music. It's work for hire, not a license. (But I have no proof of that. I'll have to dig some more to prove it, and I don't feel like bothering.) In any case, both Humble Bundle and Groupees give soundtracks regularly.

I asked my favourite developer, Ross Tunney, what was the case in his experience, and here's his response:

"It tends to vary from person to person, and you can negotiate whatever you want with each individual freelancer. In my experience, generally you retain ALL rights to a game asset once payment is made, to the point where the artist will have to ask YOUR permission to display it on their portfolio, for example.

Sometimes freelancers will create an asset and charge you less if you allow them an open license to continue distributing it, too.

My original deal with my composer was a single one-off payment, plus small royalties from game sales and higher royalties from the soundtrack sales, but since sales were really poor, I offered to re-negotiate (I'm too nice...)."

Some 120 posts into the thread so I'm fairly certain all this has been mentioned prior to my own ramblings...

First of all, do what you like. If you like Steam over gOg, that's great. If you like certain aspects of both, also great.

Myself? I freely admit to being polarized, and this position was strengthened after my refusal to acquiesce to a change in Steam's EULA meant that I was locked out of a game that was purchased at a brick-and-mortar retail establishment and not from Steam; the game came with Steam integration as a requirement for installation and use, and the change in EULA came after I had been enjoying the game for months. After they pulled that stunt I finally got the title working outside of Steam, thanks to info provided by the developer and users on its forum. This incident with one title was enough to wave a giant warning flag in my direction: continue to agree to whatever future requirements we impose, or kiss goodbye to all of your Steam-integrated titles.

Having spent well over $20,000 on this hobby over the past ~25 years between hardware and software, I think it's reasonable to expect that the devs / pubs show me a bit of trust when it comes to buying their titles. One service does this, and one service does not. I buy nearly exclusively from the one that does, and I buy NOTHING from the one that does not.

Do I miss out on a ton of games, especially new and former AAA titles? Sure. On the other hand, my giant backlog essentially makes this a non-issue: it'll be a long, long time before I run out of titles to play, even with my self-imposed purchase restrictions.

For me, it's as simple as that. I've sunk too much into your industry over the years for you to continually to treat me like a thief. That's piss-poor customer service and a lack of respect - "We don't trust you, but please continue to throw money at us!" - and I won't support that, especially since PC gaming is a completely optional pastime.

Steam is ok and I do have a few bargain games through them (plust of course the Half Life series) games that GOG most likely will never have the chance to offer however, to me it is also very restrictive.
A few years ago some games on Steam also contained a fully operational version of the original distributors DRM such as Securom I'm not sure if this is still the case.
The advantage with GOG is I have quite a lot of games, all the downloaded files are placed on a seperate a portable storage drive I don't like to go over 66% capacity on my hard drive so, all I have actually installed on my desktop at any time is about 30% of my GOG games (dependant on the space required) plus the essentials such as the manuals for them and all the others I own.
Unless the installer is updated I am able to install / uninstall without having to download again, I can add and remove games either on my desktop or laptop at will wherever I am without having to be on line and having to have a reliable high speed connection.
Also, the gimmics in Steam such as achievements do not interest me maybe this is more for younger gamers but, I feel the achievements concept is sometimes intended to add something attractive to a just ok game to make it seem a better and a more desirable purchase than it truly is.
If a game gets screwed up on Steam and validating the files doesn't work it has to be uninstalled and redownloaded this is time consuming and inconvenient.
Auto updates are useful however, there is no option to update when you want so, if they break your saves unless you know the situation in advance you are stuffed, at least with GOG you have the choice if and when to update or, you can download the updated version as well and have the ability to play both such as in the Witcher 2, I have the original and the enhanced games saved.
Last and most importantly to me is the feeling with GOG that I own the game rather than just rent it, I can place it on a disk or memory stick and physically hold it in my hand like in the old days when I first started gaming except we never had dvd's or memory sticks then, few of us even had CD drives..
I have never been tempted to take advantage of GOG's no DRM policy and I feel that most people will not cheat someone that is being fair and honest with them.

this so much
+1 to you

The biggest irony about Steam - apart from a fanbase that is somehow completely convinced that Valve are the benevolent rulers of PC gaming, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (your EULA experience being just one example) - is that it basically turns software piracy on its head: Instead of having people "steal" games they probably can't afford, a company with a total equity of 2,5 billion dollars has its customers buy games which are then owned not by the player who paid for them but by the company that sells them, which in turn "graciously" determines when, where, if and how their customers get to play the games they spent money on. Turns out, Valve are the biggest pirates of all.

A few things that hasn't be said yet (or I did overlook it)

- Linux games on Steam will run out of the box

- GOG-games are 25% cheaper if you are living in Europe. (GOG charges you in USD, while Steam will use the same amount in Euro)

- Although most of the games will run and update themself quite well, you are very lost when they are not working. (I have 1% of Steam games that simply wont run, while the same game from GOG works without any problems)

- Humble Bundle and others will use only Steam, but not GOG

And another thing: regional censorship.

For example, try to install an uncensored version of "Modern Warfare 2" from Germany and Steam will deny you access. Bear in mind that MW2 isn't even banned in Germany, but there is a censored version which was created specifically for the German market and that is the only version you'll be able to install.

That is truly pathetic. Jesus Gabe, get your head outta your fat ass and fix this. CDPR jumps through hoops to avoid censorship.

And yet even they still have to deal with it (see Witcher 2). These things aren't as easy to deal with as you may think.