[peatmoss]

Apart from a few games purchased on GoG, everything I buy is on Steam. It’s been a very consistent experience for a long time. My first Steam “purchase” was me plugging in the CD code from a copy of Half-Life purchased ~1999. Everything I’ve purchased since then is playable in minutes—most of it playable on Linux.

The killer feature of Valve / Steam for game developers is customer trust. For me, that trust has translated into a resolute refusal to buy games on any other platform.

[jterrys]

Shoutouts to GoG. I'll buy games off of them even if they're on Steam. Making old games compatible and offering DRM free downloads deserves respect.

[RealStickman_]

I've started to migrate off of GOG again after switching to linux.

The main reason was steam's investment into linux gaming and I decided to support that.

Also, GOG have promised a linux client for years that still hasn't materialised.

[paulryanrogers]

Considering all the broken or neglected games on Steam I've lost trust in them. GOG has started slipping in quality as they've grown, but at least they strive to host playable games and without DRM.

Competition among stores and hosting is good IMO, even if a modest inconvenience.

[debaserab2]

Platform loyalty in gaming has always struck me as an odd phenomenon. You don't hear people raving about netflix or hulu being superior, but for some reason there is a huge fanbase for Steam itself.

I mean, I don't mind steam, but I'd really prefer to have software that I purchase not check with a gate keeping entity before launching itself.

[nindalf]

I bought several games in my childhood. Games that mean a lot to me personally because of how much I had to scrimp and save to be able to afford. It took me nearly a year to cobble enough money to buy Warcraft III. And I can’t play the game anymore because I’ve lost the CD. Ditto with Halo, CS, AoE and others.

Every game I’ve purchased on Steam I can play right now with one click. Obviously others offer the same thing now but Steam offered it first. They also have region specific pricing, a huge pull for me at some point.

There are other good store fronts, I’m sure. But the amount of trust they’ve built with me over the last 10+ years can’t be replicated overnight by anyone else.

[simion314]

>And I can’t play the game anymore because I’ve lost the CD. Ditto with Halo, CS, AoE and others.

The disadvantage is that your game is locked now to your account, I cant just gift my games to my son. I have to make sure to keep my Steam version in Offline mode before he tries to play from his PC using my Steam Account. I wish there was a way to create family accounts and share the game or even gift them to your children, you could add some rules like you can't re-gift same game for say n years or whatever.

[bluely]

Have you tried Steam Family Sharing? https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing

It won't support every game but it should help you in your quest to share games with your son

[revolvingocelot]

The problem with Family Sharing is that it requires that the donor account not be playing any of its games while the recipient does. The workaround is to kill the internet connection to the donor account, then both accounts can play to their hearts' content! Er, as long as the donor doesn't mind single-player content.

Which is essentially what grandparent is already doing. Alas!

[simion314]

So we don't need sharing, I want transferring/gifting. Basically i have a ton of games , very old not this last years AAA , that I won't play again but my son will play, like Gary's mod that can import content from Half Life games and Portal if you have them installed, so I would like to create a new account for my son and completely transfer half of my library to him.

[ajvs]

Most people don't care about privacy much, so they don't notice that if you try to use Steam in offline mode permanently it's impossible. Valve like most other big tech companies wants all their user data too.

[revolvingocelot]

I don't think that's the reason. Valve is too small to really achieve anything with our user data, nor do they have any impetus to collect it. The Hardware Survey is technically optional, and my recommendations are so unbelievably poor that I can't seriously believe that feature ingests any individual user data.

I suspect it's more to do with the fact that without requiring a new Steam Ticket every once in a while, I could go and install much of my library on a friend's computer (or any number of friends!), rig the OS to deny Steam internet connectivity, and thereby allow them to play games with my licenses indefinitely and undetectably! The horror!

[Siira]

This is already possible if you just download a cracked version in the first place, and it is technically more demanding (of the users), and more inconvenient. So what is it achieving exactly?

[revolvingocelot]

Can it really be that you're arguing that turning off wifi is "technically more demanding" than locating and installing a cracked version?