You are absolutely right. I would go even further and say that it was half-a-success on GOG's part because, as I remember it, the "one launcher to launch them all" caused quite a stir in gaming media when it went live and for some time before that, undoubtedly bringing some folks to GOG. Unfortunately, as you said, it turned out majority of gamers didn't need it after all and it put GOG in a weird position between their old ideals and new reality where they realized they can't compete with Steam after all.

Epic? Well, Tim Sweeney did call all PC gamers pirates before launching his PC games store in a hypocritical attempt to "save PC gaming from Steam". If only gamers didn't have such short memories as they do, Epic would've been long dead. That, or maybe they simply don't care enough to not use it and just choose to enjoy their freebies.

Back on topic aka Steam, plenty of folks using exclusively Steam still consider it, or more precisely Gabe Newell himself, the actual "saviour of PC gaming". Whether that's true, I don't know, I was still a kid without money or internet access when Steam went live.

Not saying Sweeney and others were right in their mid-2000s rants about piracy killing the PC, but Steam did make a lot of pirates into legitimate buyers by adding features that made the legit version better than the pirated one. Whether we like or care about those features doesn't matter, they obviously appeal to a huge number of people. Whether that "saved" PC gaming I don't know, but I would say it probably made it more important to the industry.

GOG probably faces that problem as well. For a lot of people if you're just offering an offline installer they can already get that for free on a torrent site. What they're paying for on Steam is having a Steam copy, if that makes sense.

Definitely. Simply ask any Steam user why they keep on using Steam and they will most likely say it's because of the playtime and achievements, maybe cloud storage I mentioned in previous post too, both of which are features of a client that's a piece of DRM in and of itself. And aside from the ability to auto-update games being the one practical feature of it, the client is there for the publishers' good, not the players' after all.

Personally I do think that Steam at least had it's hand in "saving" PC, simply because it made people like Sweeney realize that there is still money in PC gaming to be made, pirates aside.

I also think that Steam client is an ingenious piece of social engineering. They somehow managed to convince majority of gaming population that it's better to pay for their, ultimately more limited, copy than those available on sites like GOG or even for free on pirate sites, ethics aside. No wonder GOG is trying to follow the same road.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I see that GOG really is in a weird place right now: a bit like Steam, a bit like old Good Old Games but not really either of those. Again, there's probably money in that approach otherwise they wouldn't go that way, I guess.

TLDR:

Steam did kind of save PC gaming in my opinion, it isn't going anywhere and GOG will most likely still try to follow it's footsteps, albeit more cautiously since they made a few too many promises in the past they'd have to break if they were to go client-only tomorrow.

Well, last time CDP reported on it GOG was losing money. Nothing about the site since then makes me thing anything is different today. As much as people worry about Steam DRM for game preservation reasons I personally am a lot more concerned about GOG 404ing someday than I am losing my Steam games. In theory of course we're all backing up our offline installers, but... yeah, I think we know the reality there.

Really? They are losing money? Huh. Maybe if they didn't put their games in every store imaginable and instead limited their sales to their own storefront things would turn around for them. As it stands, they are going to lease Unreal Engine 5 for their Witcher remake so yay! more entwinement with Epic.

One thing is for sure, Steam isn't going anywhere. GOG? The more research I do on the matter the less confidence I have in it as a reliable storefront.

I mean to be clear I think them vanishing is highly unlikely, especially since their name recognition and market share (as small as it is compared to Steam) would attract buyers. I'm just saying as a comparison I'd be more worried about a crazy end to GOG than I would be Steam DRM taking my games away.

When I talked about losing confidence in GOG I thought more in terms of general buginess, problems like the current problem with their CDN or intertwining with stores I don't like, like Epic, but I get what you're saying.

Well, I wish them well of course but I won't be dropping Steam to move completely to GOG any time soon after our talk.

Personally i use both Steam and GOG, the main reason i use GOG is because (as the name suggests) it has old games that you often don't find anywhere else (officially at least) so i find both to be quite useful.

Oh, so that explains it. Thank you for the info!

I just wish they could bring more classics... But agreed.

My two cents: I grew up playing at home. Meaning, you boot up a cartridge and nothing gets sent over the Web. So the thought of playing with total strangers kind of turns me off.

I bought an Xbox, which I mostly use for single-player games. Ones my PC just isn't strong enough for. So I hate having to sign into a social network just to play by myself.

Which brings us to GOG.

I'm grateful for the offline installers, and the chance to find gems like Aer and Stardew Valley. I just want to boot up a game, have fun, forget the outside world; that's what I call immersion.

Also. Not all torrents are illegal. When I bought SOMA from Humble Bundle, it came with a torrent file. Very nice, to think I can help other buyers get the game that bit sooner.

Personally I also think that Steam, Epic, nor GOG will vanish, as they're still big on their sells, albeit with current world economic and geopolitical situation, nothing is risk-free.
Like I said before, It seems a more mature and prudent way of dealing with this e-store competition is to never drop one in favor of the other, but to search for the best deals based on your own morals, ethics and principles.

What Im trying to say is: If Steam has a game that is proven to be DRM-Free, with a better price than GOG, I might buy it there in favor of waiting it to possibly be released here, which is unlikely.
If GOG has a game that I want, while also on Steam, I'd of course favor a GOG buy instead, depending on how the devs treat their game here: if it is updated, specially.

You see, Im thinking about this right now with Grim Dawn, but it still way too pricey for me right now.
But researching their differences of Steam version vs GOG version, its devs are still updating the game until today, with both GOG and Steam versions being updated last month, which is nice.

Same here.
The classic of feeling of just booting up your game offline and being able to play without any interventions (launchers, forced updates, in game online propaganda and so on...) is just priceless.
You're completely right.

.Keys, I believe we shall be friends.

Well you are quite correct, I think we'd have bigger problems than our video game libraries if those stores were ever to begin to disappear.

There are exceptions, but 99 times out of 100 the games that are treated badly here by the devs... missing patches, etc... are games that sell extremely badly here. Usually games in very "not PC" genres, or games that probably sold poorly everywhere but GOG has 10% market share (if that) so the sale numbers look especially anemic on GOG for that title.

I wouldn't worry about buying Baldur's Gate 3 here for example, because it's in a genre that sells well on GOG and is a big enough game it will probably sell tons of copies here, even if it's dwarfed by Steam's numbers.

Some random platformer game from a small studio though? Ehhhh... there's always a risk.

Haven’t bought a game on steam in a long time. Does Steam provide offline installers for their DRM free games? If not, I see no point in buying even a DRM free game over there.