It’s no secret that GOG.com often gets compared to Steam and it seems that a lot of people prefer Steam. Anther thing I’ve picked up on is that there seems to be some sort of taboo on criticizing Steam. Well there are few things I don’t like about Steam and I’m going to tell you what they are.


Dark Messiah
First, Dark Messiah. Dark Messiah was game I bought on Steam a good while ago and for some reason I couldn’t get it to work after a Steam update. Since then, I have upgraded and reformatted my PC a few times over and no matter what the game still doesn’t work. However, since I bought it legally I have no issues admitting that I also have a cracked copy and guess what, it works perfectly.

People have told me that I should contact the Steam admins, but 3 things. A I shouldn’t have to, B I have contacted the admins about problems similar to this and they usually just give me the run around, by saying things like “contact the publisher.” I’m not going to waist my time on people who don’t care about their customers.

The incident with Dark Messiah served only to remind me that I don’t own my games. Steam does and I can only play them when Steams feels like letting me play them.




However, with GOG.com I pointed out a problem with Painkillers Loading times compared to the Steam version and the admins made a patch.

Wow talk about actually caring about your customers, so that point goes to GOG.



Forums.
Steam Forums are utter crap. First and foremost if you read the TOS you’ll find that you can be banned from the forums for just about anything. I found out the hard way when I posted a comment about regional pricing (which I’ll get into later) and got banned as a result. So I wouldn’t be surprised if someone got into trouble for pointing out that Valve haven’t really been doing anything for the past 5 years or so.



The forum structure of Steam is convoluted mess and it’s hard to keep track of topics.
With the GOG forums, it is very easy to keep track of topics. Not only that if you have a problem with a game, finding the solution is very easy. In fact I was surprised just how easily I could find the solution to some complicated problems.

So GOG gets another point for that one.

Regional Pricing
Finally, regional pricing, if you live in the US this isn’t much of a problem for you. If you don’t however, you maybe paying a lot more for a game then its’ worth because of how much the publisher thinks you owe them. Fortunately you can find out for yourself how much you’re being ribbed off by going here http://www.steamprices.com/us
However, before that site was set up, I did a little pocking and after I found myself having to pay an extra $80 USD for a game for no reason other then my region, I decided to take a screen shot as proof https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80908969/Both%20in%20US%20prices.png

After seeing this unconscionable display of greed I decided I was done with Steam.

On a final note I am fully aware that Valve doesn't control how publishers conduct busyness. However, they own Steam which makes Steam their responsibility. They are responsible for the polices that Steam bestows on it's customer as well as those looking to sell their product on Steam.

As it is Steam just plain sucks.

I don't know where you got the impression bashing Steam was taboo, it's almost a hobby for people here.

As for Dark Messiah, it was a Steamworks game before the term was even invented, so I find it hard to believe Steam screwed it up. Stranger things have happened in the world of PC gaming though. For the record my Steam copy worked fine on Win7 last time I played it.

Dark Messiah is a rare beast in that while it is a Source Engine game, it is not exclusively a Steamworks game. The single-player mode of the retail version does not require Steam in any form or fashion, although the multiplayer (which is a waste of space anyway) does.

By the by, I think some patch broke Dark Messiah under Win7, because my retail version works fine but my Steam version doesn't. The OP's problem may be related to that.

I don't hate steam, but you can't say I was happy when I found out that my copy of Skyrim, that I bought in Russia, didn't work when I tried it in Denmark. And this is caused by their region pricing. If they didn't feel like selling the games at different prices in different regions, it wouldn't be necesary to control where they can be played.

Oh yes, it has been a long time since the last "i hate Steam" thread. It's about time someone made another one. Please come back next week and make another Steam bashing thread, will you? There has to be at least one Steam bashing thread each week.

That's true. GOG's support is much better than Steam. Nope. They don't ban people that easily. And no, definately they don't ban people for criticizing Steam in a civil manner. There are a lot of threads filled with complaints about Steam selling "broken games" and people don't get banned for that. Honestly i don't see any difference in that regard. Both forums are pretty similar in structure (featuring a general forum and a specific forum for each game). You clearly don't know how the market works. The fact that australians get fucked up prices is not Steam's fault. Do you know one of the reasons why publishers love Steam? Because Steam gives them the freedom to set the prices however they please. If they didn't offer such freedom, some publishers would not sell on it. This would be bad for Steam itself. And to be honest i would rather get a higher price than not having the option to buy the game at all.

GOG can't just pick a game up and set the same prices globally and say something like "fuck you publisher, i'll set the same price globally whether you like it or not". GOG has to come to an agreement with the right holders. And some publishers don't really like the idea of global prices.

Let's face it, GOG appeals to a niche market (DRM-free and old games), Steam is a behemont, they can't afford to make such policies at the risk of losing publisher's support.

By the way here in Brazil we get regional pricing on EA games from Steam. Again, i can't blame Steam or Valve. It was EA's choice. It would be dumb for me to blame Steam for that.

I'm currently playing DM of M&M on Steam. It works fine. Bought it a few weeks ago, installed it last week and currently playing it on Windows 7. That's very YMMV. GOGs support for interstate '76 isn't really "stellar". They are the best in the market with accounting problems, no doubt about that.

My personal experience with Steam support was excellent. I think they are better than many people think. And considering the tone some gamers use, I'm not surprised if they sometimes just don't wann go the extra mile that GOG usually goes.

I don't think you can blame Steam for regional pricing. Australia has it's own pricing, also if Valve didn't cater to that we won't see thousands of games on their catalogue.

Seriously if you guys are fed up with " I hate steam" threads why do you waste your time by reading them and replying to them?
I can understand replying to show that his points are invalid from your point of view but just replying to complain about the topic is pretty lame.

For me I enjoy reading rant threads whether hate steam, GFWL, GOG,... etc and if I find OP and replies are unreasonable, I just stop visiting that thread again (simple huh!).

All i'm saying is that one thread for the steam hate, would be alot better than seeing hundreds of them scattered around the forums.

Wait a minute, as far as I get it GOG games are sold for the same amount of money in Australia as anywhere else. If the same game is available cheaper from GOG than from Steam (despite them having the same price in USD) then who is to blame?

Odd. Possibly video driver related then, although downgrades haven't fixed the problem for me then. In Steam the intro video plays and then the game simply locks up with a black screen. I don't get this issue with the non-Steam version.

This wasn't always the case - I played it about a year and a half ago under Steam (with the same HD4890 card under WIn 7) and it worked fine.

Perhaps I've been too subtle with my deep and abiding hatred for all things Steam. I do my best damn it.

Of course it's Steam's fault.

GOG doesn't have regional pricing. Why? Because it's in the promise that they give to their customers. So, if a developer wants to sell here but insists on regional pricing, guess what? Sorry GOG doesn't want them.

Steam being the largest distributor on the internet has far more power than GOG does, and if they told developers it was one price for all or sell somewhere else, 90 percent of developers would go for it as they know Steam is the main source for their sales.

I just don't understand this fanboy fanaticism when it comes to Steam. They're nothing more than a mega corporation that's creaming as much money out of their customers as possible by allowing things like regional pricing (you don't think Steam benefits from the higher pricing? Of course they do), yet millions of fools not only support them but spend millions of dollars there.

It's the same thing with any mega corporation that is ripping off their customers yet idiots do the "rah rah (insert company name here) dance" because they think the company is acting in their best interests. The ONLY best interest Steam ever acts in is it's own. And you'd have to be a prize fool to think otherwise.