I am a little wary buying from these two companies. Understand though, that I haven't bought much from either company. 1. GoG..... I have had a hard time getting games to work, but even when they do, they don't make me all warm and fuzzy, like I would have hoped. What was awesome back in the day, leaves me tepid today, in many cases. 2. Steam.... I have had 2 games that stalled while downloading. I had to contact them, and they did fix the problems, but it took a few days. On a scale of 1 to 10, my personal satisfaction with these two services is about a 5...... Maybe even less..... That said, I know it was well over a year since I last made a purchase,so maybe it is better now.. What you you, T A members?
I have around 180 Steam games and never had any download problems, although have had the occasional time where for no apparent reason Steam thinks it needs to redownload the entire thing again out of the blue. From GoG I probably have around 20 games and never had an issue. Happy enough to use either, I generally know that what I've paid for is what I'll receive. Unlike the App Store.
I'll preface my comment with this: I like older games as much as I ever did. I'm also extremely comfortable with DOSBox across my devices (iPad, iPhone, Nvidia Shield, etc.) I buy games from both services because I like having digital data files that I can move to every platform on which I'm likely to play them. I like GOG more though, no-DRM hoops, frequent sales, better selection of older material. I use Steam because of some exclusives (Id Software and Lucasarts stuff in particular) but their customer service is slow and subpar. The DRM isn't much of an issue to me because of the titles I "own" - only the launchers are affected not the data files.
GOG has been focusing more on newer and indie games recently (i.e. they just released Sir, You Are Being Hunted). More so than others, GOG patch/mod games to work on modern operating systems and fully test the games on those formats before "certifying" they work on the game card. GOG is legendary for getting the old Baldur's Gate games (previously incompatible with modern systems) to work when no one else could (so GOG had exclusive sale of BG for a while). GOG has a 30 day money back guarantee if you find their games somehow doesn't work (http://www.gog.com/support/website_help/money_back_guarantee). I also much prefer DRM-free games. I haven't had many problems with Steam, but some of the restrictions they support on games aren't ideal. I see Steam mainly as a cheap place to redeem nearly free bundle keys (i.e. humblebundle.com's pay what you will) or for their exclusives when I have no choice. On my prior computer Steam always stalled out and their support is painfully slow/insufficient.
I used Steam from 2012 to 2013. However, I've transitioned to GOG ever since because not only do they provide extras but they make the entire purchase & play process really easy and accessible. I haven't had any issues with either service. It's just really preference. The only major downside to PC gaming right now for me is the fact that I can't get some of my favourite games DRM-free.
