GOG shows that's a false choice.

Games existed before Valve Steam existed, and the companies made money. Sure some tried to protect with heinous schemes, which ended up rejected. We went docile as users, but there appears, by those posting to this thread, by indie developers who will choose their own paths, and a world wide tech knowledge that didn't exist in the 1990s, a resurgence of customer based marketing, design, and success, largely due to competition, and often by people in countries that in 1980 had no idea what it meant to develop something of their own and sell it on a world market, and, who are very happy to be able to do that. So the choices are broadening, not narrowing, and yes it upsets the "blue blood royal developers" that their consumer subjects have genuine choices. You may believe you framed accurately but I say there's way too many people with coding knowledge, business experience, and whose ambition is very genuine to have these be our only choices, and this is just the beginning.

And you give these companies a justification for spending on DRM.

I was a cracker back when companies had no site licenses, and they didn't give "educational discounts." Here we were with companies that wanted people who know how to use Microsoft Word, Visicalc, Supercalc, thought processors, project management software, accounting programs, and the junior colleges and colleges couldn't afford to buy every student a copy, and then have a student having the original disc, all for one or 2 semesters of a class. So they went to the "Computer Science" department and said, "you have anyone that can crack these? We can pool money from budgets to buy a copy but we need to be able to give every student a working disc."

Luckily Microsoft was into this, in fact piracy was their marketing program (got that directly from a Microsoft rep when I was selling software back in retail software store days), it was answer to my question why every package had the same serial number: "Microsoft knows 1 out of 10 copies of their software is pirated. These serial numbers make sure people can pirate the programs so that they can become dependent on them. When we reach enough saturation we'll implement a copy protection scheme that people will have to buy in future updates of our products." It was like she was channeling Nostradamus on Microsoft wasn't it?

But some companies, weren't marketing their products using piracy, we had to figure out ways around a variety of schemes, which, once done, many educator faculty and those running the schools showed the software companies what we did to be able to teach classes on their programs (which increased their program sales due to companies having employees that knew how to use them) and the software companies then worked out site licenses. Was about the time the first networking and server codes for microcomputers were showing up, but the name escapes me right now.

In any event, you can also see that DRM is an exploitation of dependency, that this was its purpose more than protecting their product. But like any "dealer" they had to make sure we were addicted first. Not to say I am against them making money etc., but exploiting customers will always come back to bite you in the hindquarters as a business, and is a very fast way to "fall from grace" so to speak.


NOTE: I was reading through posts going back, and had hoped someone else would post in the time of these 3 posts, so apologies and won't make any more as I didn't intend to make 3 in a row like this.

As long as a game has DRM, regardless of distributor, it is a no sale for me. No exceptions.

Boycott is a STRONG word, like some people in this thread mentioned earlier. I still consume their products, but only because I dont have another choice!

Lately,my opinion about Steam as a platform has been getting lower and lower. Steam is a few steps away of becoming a monopoly, basically (just think about it, how many different platforms/options are you offered when you buy a game digitally? That's right). Not only that, but in the last years, users have not done anything but worshiping and glorifying every little decision they make. There is no sense of judgement, and if you dont agree, you are quickly smitten by all the public opinion.

Remember paid mods? Well, that was just a matter of time. Valve has a lot of power in their hands, and now they are starting to look for profit in the most obnoxious ways. Only people could stop that travesty, but I feel they will quickly forget about this, and move on.
As I mentioned, when I buy in a place that is NOT gog, I dont have any kind of say in the matter. Its just Steam, Steam, Steam. Do people feel this is right? I dont think so.

I haven't bought any thing from Valve/Steam for probably 1-2 years and i'm never going to, so i consider myself boycotting them. Mostly it's over the DRM and client requirement, but i'm getting a much uglier image of what they are as time goes on...

It's very much alive here in Aussie land. Prices are nuts, however there are always sales in store.

@The title: The only reason Steam still presides on my computer is because I backed some games (Directly from their sites) and they supplied Steam keys along with DRM free upon release versions. I'll open Steam to see if there's an update, check out the notes then close and be on my way with something else. Once these few games hit release I won't need it any longer.

In any case, I don't remember the last time I bought a Steam exclusive title, and that doesn't bother me one bit.

I don't boycott Steam, but I also have little reason to shop there. And since discovering this place, even less reason. Granted, I did buy Civ 3 for a little over a dollar on Humble last month. But should Firaxis games come over here someday, buying the DRM-free version won't hurt. I'm just thankful I only have a handful of games on Steam (maybe 6 or 7).

It doesn't hurt that I have little interest in most AAA games. And the one that I might want in a blue moon, I will usually for the XBOX 360 since my computer probably couldn't handle the system requirements anyhow.

Other than the Humongous Complete steam key I recently used, I've tried to make it a principle to stop using Steam simply because of their large, "pseudo-monopoly" market share.

I don't know about "boycott", closer to "ignore".

I uninstalled Steam recently and now just use GOG. I don't really have a reason to use Steam anymore, got over a hundred games on here, so I'm set for many hours of gaming :)

Okay, I think what little use Steam used to get on my PC's has ended with the release of Galaxy, although not because of boycotting but because Steam is becoming something of an irrelevance to me. So yeah, cheers!

Like aol steam has never been on one of my PC's

I seriously thought of making the switch from Steam to GoG, but the server's just aren't there yet.

I'm onto my THIRD day downloading the Pre-load of The Witcher 3 and i'm still only at 9/26 GB. For me, this is unnaceptable. If the game wasn't free with my graphics card i would want a refund.

I hear a lot of people mentioning slow download. I've never had any speed problems with gog. ISPs throttle all kinds of traffic these days. They would have exceptions for traffic to and from Steam servers set. Maybe not for GOG. I'm not saying it isn't GOG's servers, but I haven't experience anything but top speeds from them if I download something.

I just tried downloading a single of the 4gb parts of TW3. Projected download time was a few minutes.

That seems to be an issue with Galaxy at the moment. Regular downloads through the browser or the GOG Downloader are generally pretty fast.

Thanks!