What's so wrong about non-Steam DRM services?

Uplay - Ubisoft goes back and forth on the always online thing every few years. Just because they are currently not always-online in no way means they will stay that way. There are also a lot of people with bad memories of earlier Ubi attempts at DRM, who will now refuse to touch anything Ubi makes, but especially something like Uplay.

Origin - many do not trust that EA will keep their service up and running in perpetuity, or offer alternative methods to acquire purchased items when they do decide to close it down. EA's past history with games, servers, and service does not engender much trust

Securom - broken, buggy pile of crap

GFWL - early attempt to make it a rental service burned any widespread support it might have earned. General bugginess and lack of support burned any remaining trust in it

Desura - unless you're really into the indie game scene, Desura doesn't offer anything that the other services don't provide

If you need to know- baring any rumors, limitations they put on me or hate to the publishers who happen to own them- I don't use DRM other than Steam because I can't be arsed to instal them in the first place. (Except Desura because after buying a lot of bundles you end up getting it sooner or later. :D ) If you say that that way I'm limiting my options... well, seeing as how I have a backlog for the next 10 years or so and am having issues deciding where to start... limiting is not so bad sometimes.

Offtopic,
Haven't you left SG?

Could you please not mix the term DRM with gaming platform, they are totally different things.

Desura doesn't belong in that list, because it isn't a DRM service.

uPlay is an annoying piece of software in general that rarely works and when it doesn't work you're f-ed. When there's a service that actually makes me use Tunngle and Hamachi because it doesn't work but also won't let me play...well then it's just intrusive.

EA has real trouble with Origin, when it does work, it's always syncing things for some reason. It's not that intrusive for usage, but the idea behind it - of limiting you as a customer is really evil basically. They just copied many Steam functions and in the case of "origin points" (which do nothing), just didn't know what to do with it.

I just don't want to have several clients installed. Especially if most of them would only have a game or two.

They don't have the Orange Box.

I use them but they just aren't as good as the Steam experience. Origin is actually pretty solid and would be a good alternative to steam but their cloud servers are very dodgy: my saves/games regularly get corrupted at least 3 or 4 times a year.

In my opinion Steam > DRM-Free > Orgin> GFWL> Uplay > SecuROM

I have no problem with Origin or Uplay, there still unecessary... but i can understand that big publishers want it though. With uplay i in fact prefer to have the uplay version, because having the Steam version gives no benefit whatsoever as Steam will just launch uplay when you want to play a game. My only problem with Uplay is that it does not close to the tray and you will need to restart the program each time you accidently close it.

In general they are half-assed STEAM counterfeits with poor functionality and NO sexy features or attractive deals, produced by suits who have no understanding of the industry they're part of or the customers they are trying to extract transactions out of.

EDIT: hmm, I thought Desura was DRM-free.

EDIT the second: Also, it's a pain to have to juggle with multiple clients, accounts and shit.

I have nothing against non-Steam DRM - it's just that having all my games on Steam is a lot more convenient. Additionally, both Uplay and Origin aren't as well thought out and easy to use, and things get really annoying when games are purposely withheld from Steam to force me to use Origin, or when I have to play a game (ahem Far Cry 3) through BOTH Steam and UPlay. That's just annoying.

Origins and uPlay aren't needed anywhere... Why do you need an Origins/uPlay account on PS3/360/Wii U if you already have an account of the respective service?

And regarding Steam, they're just a Steam with basic friends and achievements funcionality as well as serving as a digital distribution system. Also Steamworks is great compared to whatever those two do...

Back when Origin was released (BF3), it was a pain in the ass for me, i could barely download the game without the download being cancelled, or just "forgetting" where it left off, having me download the game once again at a staggering 20kb/s speed.

Now that i've tried again, it would seem the client has grown a lot. There are still a lot of little details that need to be polished, but the main issues it had are not as bad.

As for GMG/Desura, i cannot do anything but rejoice on those plattforms, they work flawlessly, and have great prices.

The biggest "issue" people seem to have with these, is just a typical resillience to change -something quite characteristic of a 12yr old, if i may add- The same problems arose with Steam back in the day when boxed copies were the thing and -much like myself- had their own huge collection of boxes in a shelf, now have them in a digital library.

There's nothing wrong with them, only that Steam has a lot more features and users, but not playing a game because it's not steam it's just ridiculous.

"It's not that hard to open a different window"

With Uplay games it's worse, they just pay a lot more just for having the play time tracked and to avoid creating a non steam game shortcut...

Generally, Steam is the most reliable service and, as far as I know, the only one that promises to patch out their own DRM of your games should they ever decide to discontinue their service.

I don't know why Desura and GOG are even in this conversation. Those are not DRM services.

6you7me confirmed shill?

Some people do care about the DRM. For example, I bought Assassins Creed Saga and Splinter Cell Blacklist at Uplay, because you have rewards there. Usually, Ubisoft games have better stuff on Uplay and EA games have better stuff on Origin. At least, this is my case. I do use those three DRM (Steam, Uplay and Origin)

I'm fine with them. I use Origin, Desura, Gamersgate, GOG and even Big Fish Games (for one game). I just wish I could have all of my games in the same place.

They aren't headed by our lord and savior, Gaben. Only digital distro that could compete would be one lead by the true creator, Nicolas Cage.

I use Big Fish Games, GoG, Origin, UPlay and (less and less these days) GFWL. There's not so much wrong with them, so much as I want all my games to be in one place, linked to one service or at least accessible through one client.

Thankfully, GoG, Origin and BFG all allow the games to be run without their client software active, which is a big positive for me, and in fact GoG completely lacks any form of DRM which is awesome.

Steam just happens to have the most customisable interface and the place where I have the most games, as well as the only client that allows you to launch other games, so therefore I decided it was the best choice as my "main" platform.

A mixture of convenience and laziness. I just like having all my games in one place. Pre-Steam that was my shelf, and now it's Steam. Sure Steam isn't perfect, but it does most things right. Installing yet more programs just for those 1-3 games that interest me on them seems like a waste of space and time. In the end it should be consumers choice, there was a time where we could buy those Games (like, say, Mass Effect 1 & 2 vs Mass Effect 3) on Steam and avoiding installing other clients. I'm annoyed they took that option away in their stubborn attempts to be the 'new Steam', but I guess not everyone is like me because they sure don't seem to have problems surviving with their tactic... but it's not for me, it's either my shelf (no DRM, like GOG) or Steam - nothing else.

EDIT: Oh by the way, I actually did try Origin because of Dead Space 3 from Humble Bundle. As far as clients go its not the worst, but I still found it to be lacking and annoying. I ignored the game and went back to Steam. Might I miss out on a cool game every now and then? Sure maybe. Do I regret it? Nope, just gonna spend my money on other great games on Steam. There's not enough time to play them all, so rather keep things tidy in one place :) Some of them I can get on the consoles, too, which leads back to the "keeping in the shelf".

Unlike most DRM systems, Steam is very unobtrusive, so much that sometimes the games come down from the client with no DRM at all. Plus, Steam is like the benevolent dictator of copy protection systems.

As for Origin, Uplay, I don't think that publisher-specific stuff makes a lot of sense: sooner or later they'll grow sick of their little toys and break them.