The comment JasonZ responds to in his post is also particularly telling: "Can't be bothered to argue anymore, especially as the anti-Steam crowd seem to do this on every Kickstarter page."

(Emphasis mine) Like I said, it's become quite fashionable for kickstarted devs to pull this kind of stunt.

Thanks gamefood. That's very nice. I'm actually not a big poster. I'm more of a sidelines unless I need to get evolved type of poster. I tend to use the messageboard to solve a game issue or mod a game. (And GOG has some of the best support here for that) I just happen to notice this post topic and wanted to share what I and a lot of DRM-free supporters are going through.

Thanks Martek for the clarification. I didn't catch that you were emphasizing "Kickstarts" I completely understand your feelings in waiting to see the delivered product from a Kickstarter campaign before you decide to spend your money. At the beginning of the Kickstarter project, it's all excitement and possibilities. And then the real work starts and the direction may change that can be positive or negative for you as a financial backer. But some are turning out real good like Wasteland 2. I really wanted a box copy of Wasteland 2 with manual. I still have my original Wasteland 1 for Commodore 64 that was just packed with goodies.

I know I will ask more direct questions when another Kickstarter project starts up again that I like to try to avoid the DRM-free vs Steam debates in the future. Sometimes I will reward developers whom I had good past experiences like the developer of Defenders's Quest. I prepurchased Defender's Quest 2 and they did it right. You want DRM-free or a STEAM key, you can have it. I'm perfectly okay with that. Everyone is happy.

It hard to say. That post by the develop was their way of saying they are working hard to get the beta uploaded in Steam and they are under a lot of pressure to do so so I don't want to hear backers complaining about DRM-free right now.

Too bad there are bunch of cheapasses in this world. If you ever buy any bundle, don't forget about that. You'll be (or already) self declared hypocrite.
While promoting GOG, you'd also need to make sure the target audiences can accept the fact that GOG is just a digital distribution platform. Nothing else. There's no community features integrated with 'GOG client', or trading. Sadly those two are most wanted in this digital world.

There are purist like most or many GOG members e.g this thread posters, but what can I say.... it's minority. There's a reason consoles also have community features embedded in it.

Honest question - how was Steam like GOG when it started out? Wasn't the client mandatory back then? I was under the impression that Valve set up the whole Steam model to tie Half-Life and gamers to it. I'm really interested in hearing how Steam changed from being like GOG at the beginning to how it is today.

lets hope GOG and steam dont have baby, it will be named GoSteam

That's the way I remembered it as well Steam starting off with Half Life. I remember just getting a new PC, think it was Christmas time and purchased Half Life to see how good it was. Went to install it and found out it needed activation. Nothing about that on the box so took it back to Harvey Norman. The interesting thing was there were about 6 people in front of me getting a refund as well. I remember their staff being instructed to tell people about the activation before they paid for the game, after that day.

Don't remember how long ago that was but I have never purchased another game needing Steam since.

Finally got to play a bit of Half Life when a friend's son gave me a standalone mod to play. Ended up not liking it at all.

Still each to their own.
Steam is probably OK if nothing goes wrong. I was on the School P&C committee and remember a few times parents warned others about steam when something went wrong with their child's steam account and they lost access to their games for some reason. Never knew the details but one of them never got their games back.
But that could happen to any online service. At least if it happened with GoG you would have access to previously downloaded games.

And games with limited installations, That's just plain dishonest. Especially when just changing a video card looses you one installation.

Still most people who use steam are happy with it, and I certainly have no problem with it, just don't use it. I will not give any company the rights to my PC that I would have to give Valve to use their service.

Anyway I just love a steam flame war brings out the best in us all.

Cheers

Thanks zeroxxx for the comments. I have run into people online who think the GOG client is a form of DRM. Some actually think GOG itself is DRM because they think it's another service like Steam.

Yeah, stuff GOG vs. Steam, I still want to see a tag team match of GOG and Steam Vs. MS and Sony - c'mon you PC-ees!

I always see it like GOG preserves PC gaming's past while Steam ensures it has a future, and if you think that the AAA publishers wouldn't have walked away from PC by now if the only choices were retail and DRM free DD you are dreaming!
We are SO lucky that Steam exists as well because they have become the de-facto standard, without them we'd just have Origin, U-Play, GFWL etc.
Big evil corps just can't DO DD this is why the prices on Origin are perma-high and why retail is still the usual source for XBox and PS

Also I wanted to start Jade Empire today and it occurred to me that if I had the Steam version I'd have to find 6Gb on my disk for my 6Gb game whereas with GOG I'm going to have to (briefly) find 12 - 6 for the installer and 6 to install TO!

On the other hand the Steam version of SiN is broken on modern systems, missing the expansion and is no longer on sale while it's here on the GOG storefront, working and including the expansion and other bonuses
So you pays a your money, you makes a your choice, I guess

Quite the contrary! I sincerely believe that if Steam had been a failure and died in its infancy, none of those Steam-wannabes (which is precisely what the other platforms you mentioned are) would have popped up.

Without some kind of DRM DD the AAAs would have pulled out of the PC market ages ago, the indie scene would be far smaller too!
Maybe 2nd tier publishers like 1C and Deep Silver would stick around but PC gaming would be looking distinctly peeky right now!

The problem I have with Steam are situations like now where I have a possibly hi-jacked account and it takes half a week to get through to Valve support and in the meantime their tech supports forums have permanently banned me.
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.
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With GOG I've never had to ask "Oh WTF is going on now?? And spend four hours of free gaming time chasing people around forums and running through Google searches.

I think that is a big issue. Don't know if you can phone for support if something goes wrong in america but in Australia it is just tuff luck. I would support steam if it had real customer support in each country or region. I still don't agree with the fact that because it's digital there is no real waranty or service help. If something goes wrong with steam "poof" goes all your games. I do not support companies that think that is OK.

The same would be for GoG but if you have your games downloaded at least you can use what you have if your account goes belly up, not so with steam.

Regards

i think you should research a bit on steam before putting in wrong info
1) if steam goes poof you can play your single player games in onffline mode
2) steam does not ban accounts anymore outright for the worst offenses you will be limited from doing anymore trades, cd key activation and purchases . the account will not be disabled
3) there is something called steam guard to prevent your account from going belly up from hijackers , its a simple matter of enabling and having it tied to a mail account like gmail where you can have further protection of by activation of 2 step login process in gmail.
so even if anyone knew your password they cant login.
4) in most cases of hijacking once support is notified that your account is compromised they lock it down to prevent misuse.

lets be a bit practical here , if you were a hacker which account would you want to steal ?
a steam account with tons of games and items or a gog account ?

we already know carnival73 has a habit of wiping stuff in his steam folders which conflicts with steam guard store info , i am guessing he turned off the steam guard to avoid the cooldowns