I’ll have to take a look at GoG anyway… I don’t remember but I heard it’s like an aggregator of some sort too, right? Like, you can access games from your steam account too or something?
I don’t remember but I heard it’s like an aggregator of some sort too, right?
GOG the store is just that - a store. They only sell games that have no DRM at all, which means a couple of things. One, they almost never get AAA games at release (the exception being games developed/published by CD Projekt, as CDP owns GOG), and two, there’s a high likelihood that GOG will offer game versions that are out of sync with or missing features from the same game sold on other platforms (for example, if a game uses Steamworks for its multiplayer, many devs will just strip out multiplayer altogether for the GOG version rather than patching something new and store-agnostic in).
What you’re thinking of with the aggregator is GOG Galaxy, which is their (completely un-required) launcher software. Unlike Steam and EGS, GOG’s DRM-free nature means you can just buy games on their site, download the installers directly, and go on about your business. Downloading games, starting games, etc., is all just done manually. If you want a dedicated launcher software similar to the Steam and EGS clients, that’s what GOG Galaxy is for. And as a value-add, they implemented aggregator features where you can have it pull in your library from Steam, EGS, EA/Origin, Ubisoft, etc., and just view and launch everything from the one spot. I’ve generally found Playnite to be a little better at being a one-stop launcher, though everyone’s mileage will vary of course.
It’s the only way they can ensure it works, I suppose. They might need to control specific cookies and reported supposed clients depending on plugins, and so a packaged in-app browser for the login is easiest. Playnite does the same thing.
This is to be expected and don’t let it turn you off using Galaxy. Once set up you can automatically launch (and close) the game and client from here without seeing the other apps.
It does work with Steam, Ubisoft etc but the login will expire every week and need reconnecting.
GOG Galaxy let’s you combine most of your game library in to one but it has it’s issues. GOG, Epic and Microsoft Store all work great but the other clients aren’t officially supported.
GoG isn’t terrible, but is a little bit of a pain with Linux. They don’t have native support with the desktop client. Although, there are things like “Heroic Launcher” and “Lutris” that work well as a substitute. Granted most of my experience with those are on my Steam Deck. And it just caused too much pain to get CP2077 working for me. That I got it again on Steam when it went on sale.
To be clear, it's not less DRM-y, it's straight up DRM-free.
They had a poll at one point asking the community whether they were fine with DRM-enabled games and/or modern releases. As I understand it, the community said yea to modern games, nay to DRM, so now they do games of all ages but only if they're willing to give up on DRM.
I'm amazed they haven't turned back on that, because a couple years ago they were bleeding money and you can tell they really need to cut costs or increase revenue somewhere. But hey, at least you can back up your library.
Instead of offering anything to be a better platform they are burning money on the platform in hopes they can pay their way to dominance by paid exclusivivity and giving away games. One of those isn’t bad for users. Now consider what Epic offers beyond being able to buy and download a game. Nothing. Epic is only a storefront and they’ve had years to work on this at this point. Steam has gained dominance and maintains it in no small part due to all the additional features available to everyone. Do you use the steam workshop for any of your games? Have you used the steam community forums to troubleshoot a problem? Do you use big picture mode for a more console like experience? Do you customize your controller settings with the pretty expansive controller support built into steam? The overlay? How about the custom profiles and badges and trading cards? Epic is only a storefront. That’s it. That’s all that’s on offer. So they supplement it with bribing devs to be exclusive to their store and giving away games to try and attract users.
I love the steam chat, as someone who doesn’t use discord very often at all. Having the chat is an easy to too flick a message off to someone while i play
These are true criticisms, but I’m not sure if they’re fair. To the best of my recollection, Steam had none of those things in 2008, either, about the time they were the age of the EGS, now.
You could say they should (be able to) compete on the merits alone, without free games or paid exclusivity, but that argument wouldn’t reflect reality: you need a hefty carrot to lure people away from their comfort zone.
Yes, true. But it’s not 2008 anymore. It makes no sense for companies to compete based on features and functionality equivalent to their age.
If someone starts a company today offering only old 1960 color TVs, I’m not going to say “Well they’re new, and that’s what TV manufacturers would have had at the time”. That makes zero sense.
If Epic wants to compete with steam they need to actually compete. They offer nothing of value presently. They have the money and the technical talent to make a good launcher. They just appear to choose not to.
They have the money and the technical talent to make a good launcher. They just appear to choose not to.
This is completely the case. You can’t tell me the makers of Unreal Engine couldn’t figure out how to replicate at least some of the more commonly used features of Steam. Of course they can do it. Someone somewhere in the corporate ladder decided they don’t need the extra features to compete with steam. Maybe burning money on the exclusivity contracts and game giveaways will work out in the long run, but I doubt that when they flat out said they’re spending more money than they earn in their 800+ person layoff just a few months ago.
Honestly, if their launcher wasn’t so buggy and didn’t refresh itself every 10 seconds, I would use Epic a lot more. They have given out a bunch of great games over the last few years I’m trying to play.
Been putting a lot of hours recently into Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader. It's been a while since we've seen a really high quality 40k game. Most of the popular (and good) Warhammer games take place in Age of Sigmar and not 40k. (Boltgun being a notable recent exception here)
But damn, Rogue Trader really hits the nail right on the head so far. I've never played Dark Heresy tabletop so the ruleset takes a little getting used to for someone primarily familiar with Pathfinder rules, but once you understand the basics the rest of the game falls right into place. The lore is spot on and the adventure is fun and interesting. Highly recommend to tabletop fans and Warhammer fans each separately, and if you're both like I am, it's a must buy.
I know very little about 40k or Warhammer in general, but want to give Rogue Trader a shot. I've read a bunch of positive comments about the game, but since it's Owlcat, I'll wait some months for patches to fix the game.
I've only just recently gotten into Act 2 but so far I haven't come across a single bug, actually. Seems very polished. It does require a bit of a Warhammer primer before coming in if you want to know what's going on though. The game does a good enough job of explaining things that are important within the game but a lot of the context and fine details will escape you if you don't know at least a little about the 40k setting at large.
I was recently "burned" with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which is still in rough shape, after all this time (I think there's some fuckery going on with the publisher, where Owlcat can't update the game anymore), so I'll definitely give it some time. Rogue Trader might also be in a similar boat as BG3, where the later Acts have more bugs, since those weren't in any playtests or betas, but that's just what I read.
I'm also fine with not getting everything, so that isn't an issue. All I know of 40k is basically through various memes on the internet, throughout the years, so basically nothing.
Yeah, I'm not sure what's up with Kingmaker. It got dropped like a hot potato in favor of Wrath of The Righteous, which is to this day still receiving updates and is, in my opinion, a stellar game. Kingmaker for sure got the short end of the stick though.
For me it’s simply EGS paying developers to lock games only their store.
If they were just competing, trying to deliver a better product I would massively support them, similar to how I support GOG, however when you start locking content to your storez you end up with “PlayStation vs Xbox” devision of content.
This is exactly it. They’re not building their brand by providing a superior service/experience or driving market prices down. They’re using venture capital to fund giving away games to get you to use their wildly subpar services. They’re trying to buy market position without the services to justify it.
I wouldn’t have much reason not to buy from Epic, but I also wouldn’t have any reason to buy from it either. Other than free games I don’t see why pick Epic over any other place. Steam has more features and GOG is DRM-free, even ItchIO has the benefit of being more supportive of smaller and upcoming game devs. Epic doesn’t do anything but the basic.
Occasionally Epic had better deals on, and if I was a big developer I might be tempted by their lower fees. That would certainly be offset by lower sales though.
The Epic store will probably stop being attractive to anyone as soon as “the kids” swap Fortnite for something else. They’ve basically got $6 billion in spunk money every year to try and make it a good alternative to Steam. When that money dries up, the Epic store isn’t going to make enough money to be worth keeping going. I doubt they’ll go bust, but they won’t be able to just hurl money at it to keep people interested.
There needs to always be multiple game stores to keep prices in check. Steam can not be the only option or prices will skyrocket. See game console stores for reference. I use Playnite to seamlessly bridge my game libraries from Steam, GOG, Epic, Amazon Prime, itch.io etc. This is the way.
For me it’s entirely self-centered and I’m dispensing with all the aspirational and political feelings that people have about the way businesses operate.
Quite simply I recommend Steam because it is a product with so many killer features, it’s really hard to take anybody else seriously.
It’s just shy of 2024, and Epic is still a non-realized alpha product. Their website, store, and launcher/library is a perfunctory effort at best. The most recent feature they added that I even consider to be an improvement would be the ability to look at my own games library - that should sound like a pretty funny joke but it’s said deadpan. They don’t even have proper controller support for PC, whereas Steam for example recognizes that PC gamers come with a variety of input hardware.
I mean it’s so simply that steam is such a mature product that offers so much to the gamer, and epic just wants money and they’re not really doing anything to compel me to want to use that platform.
GOG is great, it’s a simple system that gives you the power to own your own games and I very much appreciate that. Personally I don’t like to splinter my collection across different services so I’m mostly avoid them but I can’t say anything really negative.
Anyways this is just my opinion, I feel like steam has tons of killer features, the otherS simply don’t. There’s lots of valid discussion in other areas about ethics and things like that but really I’m just looking at it from the perspective of what do I want from my money. Steam gives me the most, and the others don’t even hold a candle.
I try so hard to be a rational consumer and not an emotion-driven zealot for any company or product. I just look at Epic and what they tell and show gamers/devs/publishers about who they are as a company. They don’t hide it.
Epic doesn’t seem to add any killer (and at times rudimentary) features while they focus their pitch down to more money for publishers now but we own your soul; By comparison Valve says here’s a robust and trusted, feature-rich platform you can deploy upon and we’re improving it constantly.
Valve engages in continual expansion of their Steam ecosystem (look at the Deck alone and how much value that added overnight); Valve does continual short-lived research projects like the Steam Link / Steam Controller, which don’t survive as stand-alone products but pound one novel killer-feature after the next into the platform; Epic treats their product like an afterthought and their customers as wallets.
This is really what is at the crux of it. I am not sympathetic to Epic’s way of doing business where the customer is last, the developers and their art are the pawns, and publishers are plied with sweet, predictable short-money in exchange for souls.
I’ve seen enough enshittification to know at this point that doing business with a bean-counting, value-wringing company hurts us all, and perhaps I’m out on a limb here but I feel like this sentiment is becoming highly solidified among many.
The whole idea of digital licenses are stupid and risky. If you can find it on GOG, it’s preferable to get it there. The games are DRM-free, and you can directly download the installers and make an offline backup of them.
What if Steam went bankrupt, or start playing less nice?
Thankfully, there’s not too much reason to worry about this yet. Steam is a money-printing machine, and it’s not a public company or beholden to investors who demand increasing profitability every quarter. As long as Gabe Newell is still alive and doesn’t sell out by taking Valve public, things probably won’t change much.
It’s important to note that just because you got it on GOG does not guarantee it is DRM free but they do try. (Unless things have changed since I last looked)
This is where I’m often torn. My sentiments lean fully to the principle of the user owning his/her purchased software.
But I want Valve to have my money and I trust them, because their entire business model is giving me the power to play my games in the most ways possible, and in ways that having the OG installer on my Desktop can’t do.
I can stream my entire 900 game Steam library to my phone and when my Deck gets here I’ll have access to it all there as well. Muahahaha. Take my money. No GOG RAR Installer is going to give me that, ever. This doesn’t seem to get talked about enough. Valve adds so much value, they make it so I don’t even want to pirate.
I’ve found scans of old game guides on archive.org, and you can still check out gamefaqs.gamespot.com for walkthroughs, many of which are just .txt files that you can save and/or print.
Most of the guides I will try to add to my kindle or save on my laptop. Looking for Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, Animal Crossing, Elden Ring, Demons Souls. Thanks for your help, I appreciate it and may make a personal list of all the games and links.
I don’t know of any single site where different game guides are aggregated, at least not the same way they were in the 90s/00s. Most games tend to use their own Wiki/Fandom sites for that sort of thing now.
You’ll probably end up needing to print several different pages and aggregate them together to get a single, offline guide for a game, but certainly possible with prep time.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne