Quick question-I love sales. So far, I've only really used Steam, GOG, and Amazon to buy games, and I was wondering out of the other sites (Gamersgate, Direct2Drive, Impulse, & GetGames are the ones I've heard of), which one is "best"?

I love how cheap games go on sale on Steam, so any one of these that get really good sales, or don't have an invasive program like Steam? Just curious, and I'd love for a recommendation. :)

Steam is my facorite, due to the insane deals, and added features provided by it. Sure, it is DRM, and most titles in there cannot be played without the launcher, but it is convenient and provides useful features, like automatic patching, contact tracking, server searching from out the games (which tends to be BETTER than ingame server searching), and so on and so forth.

After that, GamersGate, which is nice, provides DRM-Free games and has nice service, the site is still kind of messy, even with the new overhaul.

Direct2Drive I use only when they have a great deal/outdiscount Steam in something interesting (New Vegas for 12 bucks? Hell yes), but otherwise it is worse than GG or Steam, horrid download systems, a TERRIBLE client, and just not that useful in general.

Green Man Gaming is pretty bad, but they do provide insane deals and free games from time to time. Their DRM scheme is very restrictive (but makes sense considering their gimmick, revoking game licenses for instore credit), but hey, free games.
I still have not bought a single thing from them, and have like 6 games (Including Arma II!) from them.

Thanks for the recommendations.

Yes, although Steam can be a pain in the butt, it seems to be the best with sales and stuff. <3

Looking at these different sites (and thanks for reminding me of "Greenmangaming") makes me wish I could work for a gaming website for money. I do work for a gaming website, but it doesn't pay, and my game catalogue suffers because of it. :P

Well, my favorite is clearly GOG. You're here, you can guess the reasons why. I like GamersGate and Direct2Drive about equally. After that, I resort to Steam if I absolutely must. I dislike Steam for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which involve being banned from the forums for no real reason, and having my community privileges revoked earlier this week for the next 1/4th of the year.

"Abusive content" apparently, but I only had a statement saying that "I'd been banned from the Steam forums, and due to my treatment by the moderators, will no longer be buying from Steam, and recommend GamersGate, Direct2Drive, and GOG as alternatives". I had five pictures from Sanctum, my YouTube account linked (none of which had anything really offensive), a good number of well-written, unoffensive recommendations, a handful of groups, and the same avatar I use here.

So now I have no avatar and can't use community features until November, so I've uninstalled Steam for the time being and sent a message to support, who will undoubtedly not give a damn in the most callous and robotic way they can.


I already stopped buying credit before the Summer Sale, and still have a good amount of credit left for any purchases I can't get elsewhere before I quit buying from them entirely. The verifying, the client, their approach to support, their forums, their attempts to monopolize the gaming industry by getting people to actually prefer Steamworks and spreading themselves into the retail market.


All said, they're still better than Impulse, Greenman Gaming, GFWL, and most of the other stuff out there, but after buying countless games from them for half a decade and practicing perfect conduct in the community, only to suddenly be treated like so much shit, I'm not giving them another dime, and it's my sincere hope that I can convince as many others as I can to do the same.

I used to love their service, as I learned about digital downloads after having bought Half-Life 1 Anthology and liked all the features and convenience of it, but I became wise to better alternatives and took to encouraging others to check out greater sales, drm free versions of games, and superior services. I recommended Steam to so many friends, who in total have bought hundreds of games and regularly play together through Steam's community, but now I feel terrible, terrible guilt for what I'd done.

Their sales are amazing, yes, but sometimes I wonder if it's worth the savings...

Which site is "best" depends on what you want. If your highest priority is steep discounts, you will probably be disappointed with pretty much anyone. Obviously, the more sites you watch the more likely you are to find a good deal, but Steam cuts prices the way they do because they know their competition can't afford it.

Gamersgate is my preferred shop following GOG, and they are about as consumer-focused as this business gets. They will bend over backwards to make you happy. Despite a minor language barrier, their support is second to none (I have NEVER gotten a form response) and they are very eager to please. You also get 5% store credit on every purchase, which is nice.

Gamersgate runs respectable daily, weekly and weekend discounts (often 50-75% off), though a lot of the discounts page is cluttered by obscure Z-budget tractor sims and things like that. They will sometimes go out of their way to match Steam deals, especially if it's something they've already marked down.

You retrieve your purchases by downloading a small authenticator / installer that then pulls all of the install files directly to your hard drive. Once installed, you don't need a client or internet connection to play. The authenticator is kind of a pain, though, because even if you're reinstalling from a completed download you need to login, and it doesn't work from read-only media. However, it's also trivial to remove the authenticator from your downloads, which leaves you with essentially a downloaded retail disc with no additional Gamersgate DRM. The fact that I can easily strip out any dependency on the vendor is the biggest reason I spend so much money at Gamersgate.

Direct2Drive is passable, but not very interesting. Like GOG, they are a clientless service from whom you download a simple .exe installer - nice and clean - but this kinda bothers me, because I've never clearly understood whether or not this installer connects to D2D, the game server, or both when you authenticate. If someone could answer that, I'd appreciate it. A handful of games are completely DRM-free.

The best site of which you've mentioned is Gamersgate. It has some huge promos from time to time. Last week was Ubisoft week and you could buy SC: Conviction or AC2 for 5 euros/dollars

Now there's SEGA week, and you could buy Empire + Napoleon total war for 8 bucks.

Also, gamersgate have some classic games that GOG for some reason hasn't. Like Daikatana or Alien vs. Predator 2000, for example.

I could recommend www.greenmangaming.com if you buy new games, because they usually have lower prices than any other shop (for example DNForever was for around 35 bucks as a pre-order)

1. GOG.

2. DotEmu.

3. Indie developers selling their own games DRM-free.

I have only used Steam and GoG, but thanks for the heads up on GG, they have Lost Horizon pretty cheap and I've been looking for it the last day or so, cheers :)

1: GOG. Best service I've encountered so far, and where I buy most of my games. Prices at $6 (usually) or $10. Large catalogue focused on high-quality games no longer available in retail. Only real drawback is lack of update patches - need to download the entire installer to update a game to a new version. Of course, you're here so you probably know all this already.

2: DotEmu. Similar principle as GOG, but more flexible in pricing and types of game that they stock. I haven't bought anything from here yet, but I hear that it's service is good.

3: Direct2Drive. Can get newly-released games from here as well as classics and indie games. DRM-free titles are clearly-marked as such, and really are DRM-free. When downloading they tell you to use a special client program, but I've never used it because their HTTP download that works just fine.

4: GamersGate. I haven't used this service, but I keep hearing good things about it. Somewhat controversial download system apparently requires minor shenanigans if you want to keep your installers, but that hasn't stopped anyone yet.

Gamersgate is probably your best bet overall when it comes to a customer friendly business model. They pretty much stock any damn thing they can get their hands on, which is a bit of a double edged sword sometimes.

DotEmu is pretty much the closest thing to GOG out there. But they have regional pricing. But being in the US you're not on the receiving end of that. Generally there's no reason not to buy anything you're interested in on offer there.

Direct2Drive is worth keeping an eye on too. Especially now they're not a part of the Murdoch empire.

Can someone explain the negative remarks about Gamers Gate to me please, just bought a game there with no problems and a great price as well.

The only negatives I know of are regarding the downloader. Specifically, even on DRM-free games it encrypts the installer so you have to run the downloader (and sign in again) to install again. There are a couple of ways around this, my preferred one being to go into Task Manager and end the downloader process once the download has finished and while the installer is running.

Ah, OK thanks for the heads up :)

GOG, GG, Steam, Battle.Net, Origin, indie devs' own websites... That's enough for me.

How are the "really DRM-free" games marked?

A couple of days ago I was checking the Direct2Drive version of Kohan Warchest (which includes Kohan, Kohan 1½ and Kohan 2), but my understanding was that there is DRM, ie. whenever you install the game, you'll have to validate the game on D2D server. Thus, I decided to pass it, at least for now.

I presumed all D2D have similar DRM, but isn't it so, then?

In comparison, GoG games are fully DRM-free, ie. you can re-install the game as many times as you want without any re-validation.