Posted July 25, 2023
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.
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.
Which is sad, but understandable, so yes. In such cases its better to just buy them on Steam indeed because many of those indie developers don't really care about drm too, so most indie games there are drm-free or easy to turn drm-free with community tools.
Still, many games there can be easily turned drm-free with community tools, or they are drm-free and can be turned into offline installers / self extractable compressed setups for later offline use. It is what I did last year and many of my games there do work completely offline without problems.
Examples of games that I did this process and are 'safely stored offline' without any drm:
Devil May Cry HD Collection
Death to Spies Moment of Truth
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
Psychonauts
Trine
World of Goo
Be warned though that many games there do not support this kind of process and have executables hardcoded steam launcher tied drm, so a good research is nice to know if the game you want has any kind of hardcoded drm.
A good place to know if the game you want is free of any drm is here:
https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
..and their specific thread on Steam Discussions, but that link I can't post here as it would break Forum rules. :)
Post edited July 25, 2023 by .Keys
