The vast majority of my games are Steam, though I've bought Steam keys from other sites, like GMG and those shadier ones from Russia or wherever. Have a few on GoG, mostly old favourites I've bought not for the DRM-free aspect (though I do love that), but for the guaranteed compatibility with modern OSs.
The only exceptions are Squeenix games which I get physically from a friend who works for them and can get staff discount (£5 for just released Tomb Raider, Hitman, etc) though these are activated on Steam. I'll be buying Thi4f in physical copy too, as I do with Bethesda games and the X series. I actually like having things available in my Steam library as it makes it so easy to install them whenever I want. It's also great for modding as a mistake can be rectified by simply "Verifying" files to put them back to normal again.
kiri2tsubasa said:
It is insulting that I have to use their services to play a game that they didn't make, publish, or touch in any way.
They provide Steamworks services which the publisher incorporates into it. It is no different than 360 games using XBox Live services for multiplayer and community features which Microsoft provide (to Gold subscribers only) despite having no other involvement in the game's development.
Steamworks provides a publisher with a distribution platform, easy patch/update deployment, community and voice chat, match-making, copy protection and is already in use by many millions, costs nothing to the end user (unlike Live Gold or PSN+) and offers a store page for sales as well. The publisher chose to use it and pays Valve for those services.
What do you have against it anyway? I can assure you that I've been using it for some years now and it's a brilliant system for buying, installing and playing games, particularly multiplayer. Frequent sales, wide choice and competition (you don't even have to buy steam keys from steam) with an easy to use UI and negligible performance impact. It is actually better than piracy, which is saying something.
