GOG or Steam if going offline

[JeenLeen]

I may be losing internet access soon, and I recently got Divinity: Original Sin Extended Edition via Kickstarter, so I need to choose to get a GOG or Steam key. I have a Steam account, and I know it can have an offline mode, so I think that would be safe, but I wanted to get others' input.

Is either account preferable if I won't have line access and still want to play my game?

[GloatingSwine]

GoG always works fully offline and you can download and keep a DRM free installer.

[Maryring]

My experience with Steam and GoG can be summarized as

Steam best online.
GoG best offline.

I don't know the game in question, or if it offers any online interactions that you'd like access to your steam friend-list for. But if you're only going to play it Offline, then GoG is better.

[Pendulous]

I had a period of no internet as well. From my experience, Steam is a little janky when you play games on it offline. You won't keep the achievements you've earned, and certain games may not save other important bits of data from it. I've had to restart games each time I played it because the data wouldn't save. You're better off, I think, of just getting a download from elsewhere.

[Grinner]

GOG is really your only option. Steam's "Offline Mode" has to reconnect every so often. Furthermore, from personal experience, it also has to reconnect every time the program starts up.

[JeenLeen]

With GOG, do you need an account you log into like with Steam, or do you just get the game-key, download the game, and then run it from the PC? Never used GOG or really looked at it before today, so I'm pretty ignorant about it.

Also, if this PC dies, is it relatively easy to get the game installed on a new one? A big pro of Steam (I think) is that, if my current computer died, I could still access my games via Steam on my new PC.

[Grinner]

With GOG, do you need an account you log into like with Steam, or do you just get the game-key, download the game, and then run it from the PC? Never used GOG or really looked at it before today, so I'm pretty ignorant about it.

Also, if this PC dies, is it relatively easy to get the game installed on a new one? A big pro of Steam (I think) is that, if my current computer died, I could still access my games via Steam on my new PC.

GOG is a bit like Steam in that you need an account to purchase/download games, but the games themselves aren't locked down with DRM. Given the choice, I'd take GOG over Steam every time.

As for your second question, GOG is a digital distribution platform like Steam, but given their no-DRM policy, I think they're more customer-friendly. The upshot of that is yes, you can always re-download the software. Or, because it's DRM-free, you can just burn the installer to a DVD.

I would recommend that you take the time to download either the Steam-like game manager (GOG Galaxy) or the much simpler download manager. A game like Divinity is probably too large to download without corruption via the website.

[Dire Ferret]

I would recommend that you take the time to download either the Steam-like game manager (GOG Galaxy) or the much simpler download manager. A game like Divinity is probably too large to download without corruption via the website.

Larger games are split up into multiple files, I haven't had any corruption problems downloading them from the site.

[factotum]

With GOG, you download an installer and install the game from that. If you want to install it on another computer you just need to copy the installer over to that one and run it there. If you're concerned about the computer dying, and you don't want to have to wait to download the installer again, just make sure you include the GOG installer in your backup strategy (you have one of those, right?). They do have a Steam-like client in development, but it's not necessary to use it yet and hopefully never will be.

The ability to access your game via Steam from the new PC means you have to download the whole thing again, unless you take a Steam backup of the game's files--so again you'd have to keep a backup. Also, Steam will need to reconnect to the Internet to validate the game to reinstall on the new PC, whereas the GOG installer does not need to do that.

[JeenLeen]

Looks like GOG it is. Thanks, y'all!

EDIT: I've run into a bit of a snag and posted the details in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?454485-GOG-game-problem-with-MSVCP120-dll) on the Science/Programming subforum. If anyone can help, much appreciated.

[AgentPaper]

It is worth mentioning that for many games, it didn't matter if you use steam or GoG or you're online or not, because you can just open the game folder and run the exe directly. Steam itself is not DRM, and most games on it don't have any DRM on it either.

I don't know about divinity: original sin specifically, but given that it's on kickstarter it seems fair to assume it wont have DRM.

[Domochevsky]

It is worth mentioning that for many games, it didn't matter if you use steam or GoG or you're online or not, because you can just open the game folder and run the exe directly. Steam itself is not DRM, and most games on it don't have any DRM on it either.
...

False on both counts, unfortunately. Many games have their exes wrapped/encrypted, meaning you cannot start them without Steam running to decrypt them at runtime.

[AgentPaper]

False on both counts, unfortunately. Many games have their exes wrapped/encrypted, meaning you cannot start them without Steam running to decrypt them at runtime.

Like I said, it depends on the game. This is probably true for many games from big publishers, but for games from smaller developers, the exe is usually not encrypted.

I guess it was misleading to say that Steam isn't DRM, though. Steam itself isn't DRM, but games on it can have DRM using Steam's tools.

A more pertinent question, and one I don't actually know the answer to, is whether there are any games that use DRM on steam that are also on GoG without DRM.

[Grinner]

I guess it was misleading to say that Steam isn't DRM, though. Steam itself isn't DRM, but games on it can have DRM using Steam's tools.

There's a community-maintained list (http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games) of Steam games which use none of Steam's DRM or third-party DRM. Turns out that Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition is included on it. :smallredface:


A more pertinent question, and one I don't actually know the answer to, is whether there are any games that use DRM on steam that are also on GoG without DRM.

Yes. Morrowind, for example. GOG's been expanding their catalog a lot lately.