Steam vs Other DRM/DRM-free

stay away from SecuROM, GameShield, Uplay, Tages...

Steam is my favorite platform for AAA games, updates, portability between computers (i.e. saved progress), game matchmaking / co-oping (including PS3 for Portal 2), chat, deals, etc. I also like that Amazon sells keys and Steam doesn't try to control all sales (i.e. Amazon can undercut their prices).

Desura I like for indie games since they seem to be easier to get a game on (for smaller studios) then steam. It's also a good place for mods to games. It seems like it's less of a hassle for game makers to get keys for their games on desura compared to steam also. Desura doesn't seem to be as well setup for DLC as steam (i.e. look at games like Delve Deeper).

I really like GOG too. I like that they give you all the goodies (maps, docs, etc) in addition to DRM free copies of the games.

The different viewpoints are nice. To add more fuel to the fire, I also think console games are groovy.

DRM-free is always the best, hands down. That being said, if it has to have DRM, light DRM (eg, enter a CD-key when installing the game and then never have to worry about it, or put the disc into the drive to play the game) is always better than heavy DRM (eg, make a phone call to the company to activate your product, require a login every time you want to play your game, or constant internet connection required). Steam is pretty bad when it comes to DRM, but Valvae fanboys will bash you if you try to suggest that they should treat their customers with some modicum or respect. But luckily, some of the games on Steam actually ARE DRM free and can be played directly from their EXEs without running Steam. I don't remember the full list, but I know most games from the Humble Indie Bundles are there.

Steam Pros:

• Nice to have all your games in one client so that looking up and installing your game isn't complicated.
• Automatic updates
• Steamworks - cloud saving, achievements, stats, etc.
• Easy to connect with community

Steam Cons:

• Subscription based - technically you don't really own your games (Valve has a lot of power over your games and accounts)
• Internet connection required to activate games (applies to many non-Steam DRMs too)
• Offline mode is far from perfect and may either refuse to work on your system or works for a while but then stop working
• Prone to disconnects and outages rendering certain games unplayable during that time
• Needs to be running to be able to play most Steam games
• Can't pick updates to install

Is there a reason I should care about you caring? Do whatever, it's the same game.

For me Steam only. All games in one place, on my account. Easy to get them any time, any place without collecting a bunch of boxes and discs at home. I don't have enough room for collecting such stuff. The fact other DRM-s exist is problematic, because I don't enjoy having things split between Steam and the rest and then run several of those, add friends separately on each...

As for DRM-free copies... Well, if they don't have DRM and they aren't assigned to my personal account anywhere, making it quite official that I own them, then all I have is some files that are being sent over torrents anyway online, so to be honest... I could just as well grab them from there. That's probably what I would be doing if it wasn't for Steam, so... DRM is keeping me from piracy. Congratulations for that to Steam. I'm not a pirate now.

I like consoles for games that I just want to play through once then I can just sell them back. I basically pay under $10 to playthrough a new game. Also with the preorder bonuses/sales, occasionally I actually come out a bit ahead.

As for PC games, I like to hedge my bets. I've got games on maybe 5 services now. It's really not that much of a hassle. Heck if anything scrolling through the number of games on my steam library is probably the hardest part of finding a game, not launching a service.

I prefer Steam. I rarely buy non steam games and I dont think I'm missing much ( I did get Diablo 3 and GW2 this year (non steam of course), prove me wrong - please, what am I missing.

My personal PRO's:

• All games in one place
• Steam cloud
• Can redownload wherever I am on multiple computers
• Gameplay time tracking
• Auto updates
• Simple way of finding and adding mods to games
• Steam forums (old game specific forums and not the new trash forums)
• Account based DRM

CONS:

• Shitty offline mode
• If i move to russia, I'll lose half of my games (region protections)

I use GOG on the side but rarely buy games there. All the extras are nice but I really dont care about digital extras.

It depends. If a game has frequent updates, I prefer to have it on Steam. But if it isn't going to be updated much or at all, DRM free is best.
And I also like having games on Steam if they have good achievements, such as the ones on Super Meat Boy and the Left 4 Dead series. The right achievements can add a great challenge to an already fun game, encourage you to explore it more, or make you think of different ways to play through it.

Steam Workshop also makes it a lot easier to download extra stuff for my games, which is nice.

I prefer DRM free, for the very obvious reason of just being able to copy and past onto any pc I use without running another sw to verify, but steam is by far the least intrusive drm as far as my comfort is concerned.

Prefer steam to have all games in one place mainly i go out of my way to get a steam version of something

both of them are good I think, because in steam you can't play bf3 or fifa

I'll always prefer DRM-free over Steam. Your Steam account gets banned, you lose all your games. That wont happen if you have physical disks that don't require online registration.

DRM is not a great thing. Steam changes that a bit cos you get some cool features while using it. It would be great to use steamworks support while having DRM-free game that you could play offline, while not connected to steam - but nothing is perfect. Steam DRM is a price you have to pay for those automatic updates, cloud support, achives and so on. If those features aren't that good for you try to find DDRM free versions and stick to them. And ofc most of other DRMs are even worse, or at least as bad as Steam DRM but don't give you so many features so Steam wins this match ;)

i just have 1 thing i love about steam: i can add a game, and download it anytime i want. and they are all in one place. that is it. nothing more. i dont care about chat (i am using xfire for years) and xfire also has video, screenshot, game hub etc. for years.

What I like about steam: Big Sales, prices in BRL, easy interaction with others players and to download things.

What I dislike: DRM, offline mode that doesn't work (I just played once in offline mode, all the other times I tried it was a miserable fail). forums.

In most of cases I prefer Desura or GOG (DRM-free plus offline mode for the win!), but I can't buy there because they are about 33% more expensive for brazilians what is a pity. I am not into the achievments wagon so I don't give a damn about it.

It might have mattered if I actually played the games I bought.

LOL why do you own Witcher 3 times xD but idk, I like having as many of games as possible on Steam, just more comfortable this way, it keeps your games up to date, and you can chat etc though you said you don't care for chat

DRM-free is always best, because it means you own a complete copy of the game. Any DRM lessens your ownership, and many make a point of forcing you to re-purchase a game after a certain amount of installs.

With Steam, you've got a barely tolerable DRM (it's only ever prevented me from playing once) plus some useful features. Namely, easy installs, automatic updates, in-game overlay (for chatting; for browsing in games that aren't programmed to alt+tab properly; for easy taking of screenshots; also allows you to see group announcements and incoming friend requests in-game), time played tracking (this is important for me), community groups and discussion areas for each game, the Steam OpenID (which makes things a lot easier for community sites like this one), the Steam workshop, the ability to invite friends to join your game directly, the ability to store and trade giftable copies of games, the Steam inventory in general.
There's also the Steam Cloud, but that doesn't work well enough to be considered beneficial. Oh, and achievements, but I wouldn't call that a useful feature. More like fluff. I may have missed some features, feel free to correct me.

The downsides to Steam, aside from the DRM, are the silly memory usage of the program itself, the utterly bonkers memory usage of the overlay's browser and the fact that not every game gets its Steam version regularly updated by the publisher/developer.
However, with the overlay browser being an extra, optional feature to begin with and the not-up-to-date games being few in number, the main and overwhelming criticism against Steam is the fact that it is DRM. You need to have it running (and thus consuming memory) to play a game. You need to be connected to the internet. Valve's servers need to be online. If running Steam was optional, then it would be light years ahead of any other way to buy/play games.

Still, for me, the positives outweigh the negatives and I mostly use Steam for gaming.

Edit: Forgot a downside - Steam allows 3rd party DRM and isn't strict about mentioning it on the game's store page. This is one of the main reasons I don't especially respect Valve. It's a dick move to let people buy something without telling them it can only be installed 3 times before they lose it. There's a community-made list of games that use 3rd party DRM, but it's not comprehensive.

Next we have Good Old Games. If a crappy internet connection frequently leaves you unable to use Steam, then GOG is your best choice. A DRM-free policy and free extras are the highlights. The only downside is the lack of the features provided by Steam, particularly the automatic updates. For quite some time now, developers have loved to release untested games and use the early buyers as beta testers. Buying from GOG means you'll have to search for patches manually. But for games that have reached their final version, this is a non-issue.

Every other online store can be pretty much ignored unless they give you Steam keys. Buying from Origin gives money to EA, and no informed gamer would ever give money to that company. Gamersgate is similar to GOG in not having their own app, but most of their games have DRM and they don't offer free extras. Green Man Gaming, Gamefly and Gamestop have clients that fail at mimicking Steam. I don't know if all of them require the client running in order to play though.
Overall, you could use the last 4 if they offer a DRM-free version of a game that's not available on GOG or Steam.

There are probably other online shops, but I can't remember any at the moment.

Finally, if you don't mind having your games scattered across the internet and don't have access to/use/want Steam's features, then you can and should buy games directly from the developers, when possible. That way they get the most money and you get the satisfaction of supporting them.

Edit: Oops, forgot poor Desura. They're in the same boat as GMG, Gamefly and Gamestop, I believe. With one exception - They also run ModDB, and you can use the Desura client to easily install the mods hosted there.

This also got me thinking on something else. If I were to sort stores by who deserves my money most, the list would probably look like this:

• Developer's website (obviously)
• Good Old Games
• Desura
• Steam
• Gamersgate
• Green Man Gaming
• Gamefly
• Gamestop
• Origin

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Edit 2: I forgot to stress something very important: DRM and apps with useful features are not related! Valve don't need to restrict you in order to let you access Steam's features, but they choose to! It's a ploy to make people more comfortable with DRM, and it's working, sadly.