MacArthur: If you are thinking of buying a few games off Steam or Origin, then by any means, do it, buy some and see what it is all about by yourself. Those platforms are client based, so that means that you have to use the client and see how it goes for you and your computer to decide if it's good enough for you or not.

For instance, I am a migrating kind of guy, I like to go deep in the country and cut all ties with internet in particular (sometimes because I want, sometimes because there just isn't internet...) for little period of time and those clients are a royal pain in the butt for me. I particularly dislike how Steam is horribly slow and globally unreliable just to launch when you are using it only a few times by week or by month. And I am using it for two games only... Ten minutes and ten tries for a f***ing update isn't funny at all.

But if you are thinking of creating a big collection of games on those, then think about it twice. Because big Gabe isn't gonna give you anything back in a few years if you change your mind... You can always count on the internet hivemind to keep alive all the drm-free games coming from GOG if they go under... I doubt that there will be anything left off the steamers if the Steam box fail as hard as it's predictable...

ChesHatter: If I buy Skyrim on disc
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one day Steam deletes my account or goes away somehow... do I still have a game to play? Can I only play it in "offline mode" or something, or is it rendered unplayable and gone forever without Steam?

ChesHatter: If I buy Skyrim on disc, it makes me download Steam, etc, etc... one day Steam deletes my account or goes away somehow... do I still have a game to play? Can I only play it in "offline mode" or something, or is it rendered unplayable and gone forever without Steam?

F4LL0UT: Unless GOG shuts down and you lose all your backups. It could happen. :P

monkeydelarge: Yeah but if they are locked up in a safe somewhere disguised to look like something else deep in a dungeon similar to Durlag's Tower then you probably don't have anything to worry about.

F4LL0UT: I think it would be safer to just burn them to discs and put them into a "Complete Twilight DVD Collection" box. Nobody's ever going to look there.

rtcvb32: A few other places... Might include Dennis the Menace, Master of Disguise, 1930's cartoon collections, Windows 95 OS install box (if you still have the whole box).

F4LL0UT: Personally I would add all Spielberg and Tarantino films but usually a lynch mob appears when I speak ill of them. Oh crap, I just did.

rtcvb32: A few other places... [...] 1930's cartoon collections [...]

F4LL0UT: I think it would be safer to just burn them to discs and put them into a "Complete Twilight DVD Collection" box. Nobody's ever going to look there.

F4LL0UT: Personally I would add all Spielberg and Tarantino films but usually a lynch mob appears when I speak ill of them. Oh crap, I just did.

amok: I... have several shelf's full of those.... and 20's and earlier....

ChesHatter: Get in the car, sir. Mr. Spielberg would like to have a word with you.

monkeydelarge: If you really want to be safe, put your GOG collection into a safe disguised as a bookshelf filled with Christian literature(unless you live in certain parts of the USA, of course).