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SirPrimalform: To take that to an extreme, that means that if in the future King Gaben decrees that to play Half Life 3 you have to cut your legs off then you're not a true video game lover if you don't do it.
DO NOT GIVE HIM IDEAS!
Last time I used Steam was... wait... around December 2010?
I am not stuck into very oldies, even though I don't necessarily play actual games: sometimes oldies, sometimes games released few years ago. Yes I don't play games right next to their releases: no bad surprises (even though I may buy "Day One" for few games, to support developers or to have nice limited physical releases) but I don't feel the need to change the way I play games. So I don't actually feel the need to play Steam-required games.

Since i have a games backlog (not necessarily here, but they are DRM-free too, including physical releases) growing much faster than I would like (even though I am pleased to see that there are plenty interesting games and I am pleased too to see there are more and more of them), it is all about choice and time.
I am planning to play the whole backlog in the next few years (and I am optimistic ^^), and I know that for many of them, I will play many times (especially strategy/tactics and RPG), so I want to be sure that buying now will not a waste of money because I couldn't be able to play them. Since it's not a matter of trust any firm but a matter of freedom and personal choices, I chose to keep my games in HDD or DVD and to keep in mind that future hardware and software couldn't make my games working.
GOG, for instance, supports many actual systems to make old games working; some other opensource/free software too; both for many cases, and it's great!

But concerning Steam, I do not trust them to make actual games bought now working in the future. And I do not accept cloud gaming/streaming as "true gaming". I may be a bit extreme, but for me, it's just like watching TV. No matter how many choices and consequences those games may have. And I obviously wonder how those games would work in the long term future...

I do not trust companies forcing DRM to hope that they would necessarily remove them or make the games I buy working in the future if it couldn't be possible now. I won't beg them to, even. Those games, I skip them. The digital world is big enough to have some equivalent games DRM'd and DRM-free. When DRM'd games become DRM-free, it's a great thing, and I may give a try. But there are only surprises because I am not really waiting now for these ones (I hope that it will be more of them, though).
Because I am already waiting for three things:
- finishing games already bought
- having the money and the time to regulate enough my backlog to buy and play interesting DRM-free games already released
- games not yet released anywhere

That's why I don't regret from skipping every Steam release.
The whole thing is patience.
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TDP: If you respect your customers, you won't treat them like a criminal that has to prove themselves and ask for permission to play what they paid for, and you won't try to spy on and datamine your customers. CD Projekt/GOG, with their DRM-free policies, proves that they treat the customer with trust and respect.
Might want to reconsider putting CD Projekt in that statement (not really my argument, but got reminded of a certain floating skull that used to float that around here reminding everybody).
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cannard: What's especially interesting to me are the games taken off of Steam but still or perhaps later included on GOG. In most cases a game would be taken off of both services (as the case with Cryostasis and Second Sight), or on the rare occasion will be taken off GOG and kept on Steam (the Space Ranger games, or at least the newly updated one, and possibly, but hopefully not the first three Fallout games). The flipside includes Neverwinter Nights 2, as you mentioned, which used to be on Steam but was removed quite a while back, and a couple others I know are The Chronicles of Riddick and Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (those two are especially bizarre to me; would Steam not allow the uncut/AO-rated edition of Fahrenheit on their store? And how has The Chronicles of Riddick managed to get on here yet be removed from Steam? I'm hardly complaining, but rather curious, you'd think a Steam-friendly major company like Ubisoft with one of their larger-budget titles like that would keep it on Steam for the better sales and not keep it an exclusive to a comparatively "niche" site like this).
I have no idea what the reasons for removal of games might be. Perhaps the contract between Steam and the rightholder expired, or some of the changes of Steam EULA were deemed unacceptable. Not so long ago a whole bunch of games were removed by Activision (Deadpool being one of them) with no public explanation of the reasons.
As for "how the games removed from Steam ended up being on GOG", well, if publishers want to continue making profits, they have to sell their games somewhere. Digital distribution is cheaper than the physical one, and if you for some reason had disagreements with Valve, who's your next largest seller operating worldwide? No, I didn't mean Amazon. OK, I don't know, maybe they just came to their senses or something.

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BlueMooner: For some reason the title made me think of Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
For some reason my initial reaction was a bit different. And boy. was I right...
Btw: Is it just me, or is Steam slightly focusing on indiegames lately? Probably just a lack of AAA releases but during the last winter sale I had the feeling they promoted more indie titles than before and the same applies to the daily deals and spotlights.
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golea: Btw: Is it just me, or is Steam slightly focusing on indiegames lately? Probably just a lack of AAA releases but during the last winter sale I had the feeling they promoted more indie titles than before and the same applies to the daily deals and spotlights.
I personally felt there was a severe lack of AAA releases. November is usually a massive month, and though there was a crapton of releases, there have been very few great games (PC in general). Focus was mostly on Xbox One and PS4.
Post edited January 12, 2014 by Pheace
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golea: Btw: Is it just me, or is Steam slightly focusing on indiegames lately? Probably just a lack of AAA releases but during the last winter sale I had the feeling they promoted more indie titles than before and the same applies to the daily deals and spotlights.
Well, they do have Steam Greenlight, so naturally more indies are appearing on the catalog. I had the impression that indie titles were mostly on vote for Community choice deals and in flash deals, not in dailies. Then again, I may be wrong.

Off-topic: (extract from Steam store)
Wasteland 2 early access
Genre: Adventure, Early Access, Indie, RPG, Strategy
Release Date: 13 Dec 2013

So-o-o-o, is GOG going to have another indie release soon? :-D
Post edited January 12, 2014 by wrathsinger
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wrathsinger: I have no idea what the reasons for removal of games might be. Perhaps the contract between Steam and the rightholder expired, or some of the changes of Steam EULA were deemed unacceptable. Not so long ago a whole bunch of games were removed by Activision (Deadpool being one of them) with no public explanation of the reasons.
As for "how the games removed from Steam ended up being on GOG", well, if publishers want to continue making profits, they have to sell their games somewhere. Digital distribution is cheaper than the physical one, and if you for some reason had disagreements with Valve, who's your next largest seller operating worldwide? No, I didn't mean Amazon. OK, I don't know, maybe they just came to their senses or something.
All kinds of reasons. Valve removed Dragon Age 2 because the way they sold the first expansion was a violation of steams terms and conditions. They initially removed WarZ due to some "creative interpretation of the truth" on the part of the developers...

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golea: Btw: Is it just me, or is Steam slightly focusing on indiegames lately? Probably just a lack of AAA releases but during the last winter sale I had the feeling they promoted more indie titles than before and the same applies to the daily deals and spotlights.
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Pheace: I personally felt there was a severe lack of AAA releases. November is usually a massive month, and though there was a crapton of releases, there have been very few great games (PC in general). Focus was mostly on Xbox One and PS4.
Oh, I completely forgot about the new consoles :) That is a plausible explanation for the lack of PC games. The newest one i own is BS Infinite and I bought in November for €7.
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golea: Btw: Is it just me, or is Steam slightly focusing on indiegames lately? Probably just a lack of AAA releases but during the last winter sale I had the feeling they promoted more indie titles than before and the same applies to the daily deals and spotlights.
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wrathsinger: Well, they do have Steam Greenlight, so naturally more indies are appearing on the catalog. I had the impression that indie titles were mostly on vote for Community choice deals and in flash deals, not in dailies. Then again, I may be wrong.

Off-topic: (extract from Steam store)
Wasteland 2 early access
Genre: Adventure, Early Access, Indie, RPG, Strategy
Release Date: 13 Dec 2013

So-o-o-o, is GOG going to have another indie release soon? :-D
I don't know either, it was just a feeling. However it may be, since indie titles tend to be released on multiple platforms, I tend to chose he ones that offer me the least resticted access to the games I bought.
Post edited January 12, 2014 by golea
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iippo: That is what games should be about right? Enjoyable way to spend time.
For some people collecting also matters, sometimes more than the playing. For others being "a true videogame lover" means staying loyal to a small subset of games, playing them again and again and playing user generated content.

If you're the kind to finish a game and move to the next, then not owning the game doesn't matter much. You would probably sell the games if you could, but since they're cheap enough it doesn't really matter.

If on the other hand you buy more games than you play (a common problem) or replaying them often, then you care about owning them for years, and then the fear that you're going to lose them makes it hard to stomach DRM.
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ET3D: For some people collecting also matters, sometimes more than the playing. For others being "a true videogame lover" means staying loyal to a small subset of games, playing them again and again and playing user generated content.

If you're the kind to finish a game and move to the next, then not owning the game doesn't matter much. You would probably sell the games if you could, but since they're cheap enough it doesn't really matter.

If on the other hand you buy more games than you play (a common problem) or replaying them often, then you care about owning them for years, and then the fear that you're going to lose them makes it hard to stomach DRM.
I think that sums it up pretty well.
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golea: However it may be, since indie titles tend to be released on multiple platforms, I tend to chose he ones that offer me the least resticted access to the games I bought.
And that would typically be bundles. GOG restricts platforms (no Linux) and usually includes fewer extras than you can get elsewhere (such as soundtracks, which are common on Humble and Groupees).
Eh, I'd say gog gives more extras than anyone.
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pimpmonkey2382: Eh, I'd say gog gives more extras than anyone.
Yeah i think most the games on my shelf have things like soundtracks, artwork, manuals, wallpapers ,etc.

Apples and oranges. They both have pros, cons, and legions of fanboys.
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RayRay13000: Going off topic: where did you get your icon, AlfaLykos? I saw Tiy have one similar to that, and I'm want to know where you got it.
Sorry I was gone most of today so I couldn't answer to all of these. I got the picture from a guy named Lobo on the Starbound forums.
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golea: However it may be, since indie titles tend to be released on multiple platforms, I tend to chose he ones that offer me the least resticted access to the games I bought.
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ET3D: And that would typically be bundles. GOG restricts platforms (no Linux) and usually includes fewer extras than you can get elsewhere (such as soundtracks, which are common on Humble and Groupees).
Fewer extras? No one gives out extras but GOG.