[ManlyBread]

GOG is no different, you're still renting licenses and GOG still has the right to revoke your license, effectively making your "offline installer" no different from a game downloaded from myabandonware or a similar website.

[carra]

Pretty different, actually. You don't have to worry about possible malware, and you get to support the developers of games you like (aka "vote with your wallet"). Also even if you get your license revoked it's not such a big deal as in other stores, where in some cases they may even delete the game from your devices remotely, without warning. The offline installer is a guarantee for you as a consumer.

[ManlyBread]

Malware is easy to avoid if you know where to download from and if you engage in the herculean task of uploading the .exe to something like virustotal.com in case of any doubts. Not like it matters much anyway seeing how there are examples of GOG games using cracks from the internet anyway.

Supporting developers is a weak argument considering that GOG's claim to fame is that they're selling old games where the development studio no longer exists or has been bought out by a corporate entity like EA.

Revoking my license isn't a big deal? I paid real money for the game.

The offline installer is about as much of a guarantee of anything as a pirated ISO is.

[wilg]

I genuinely don't understand what people think "own" means here. Downloading from Steam you "own" it in exactly the same way as if you install it from a CD: you have a license to the game. There's nothing to own in any case, unless you literally own the copyright to the game which of course you don't.

Also Steam doesn't apply any DRM unless developers add it, so backing up your Steam library folder to an external drive should be fine for your personal preservation at a platform level.

[bigfishrunning]

That's true, the CD is a license in the same way steam is. But practically it's different, because in many cases there's no mechanical way to revoke the license from that CD; it'll keep working after music rights expire or the game producer gets cancelled on Twitter or whatever. The game won't just evaporate like it can on steam

[account42]

The main difference is that the license you get when you buy a CD is transferable, that is you can sell it to someone else when you are done with it, while Steam explicitly disallows this.

Transferable licenses create a second hand market which keeps prices in check, which of course publishers don't like at all.

[wilg]

You can just back it up though.

[chrisjj]

Different, because GOG provides good customer support.