What pro-consumer policies does Steam have? They still have a lot of games with DRM, although I guess that’s the publisher’s choice, not theirs.
Their refund policies aren’t great. Not being able to get a refund if you encounter a game-breaking bug just because you’ve played the game for more than 2 hours isn’t a good policy. Thankfully it’s been ruled illegal in some countries like Australia - in those regions, you can get a refund for major issues regardless of how much you’ve played or how long you’ve had the game for.
I agree that they’re better than some of the competition, but at the end of the day they’re still giving you a license that they can revoke at any time. GOG gives you actual ownership.
The refund policy is that it is an automatic “no questions asked” refund if it qualifies by being under 2 hours played or 2 weeks owned. If it doesn’t qualify, you can still get a refund, there just are questions asked then. Their refund policy is pretty much the gold standard.
Valve lets them add DRM after launch, you buy a game and play it for months or even years and then BAM! you have online DRM or anti-tamper killing mods or a flippin rootkit for crappy cross platform multiplayer that never works, or adding a damn third party launcher along with the Ubislop levels of derp and Bamco/ATLUS inability to eveer patch anything that’s actually wrong but “fix” cracked DRM instantly…
Until I can count on Steam to let me keep what I flippin’ paid for they are beyond sus, and my (Crap, 1337, what a game count.) “Game Industry Guardian” becomes a “Meh, nah, I’ll use your forums to ask the dev if they plan a GOG release and maybe redeem some Humble keys if they’re cheap enough to consider it a demo for a GOG purchase later.”
Primarily their review system which is hands down the best in the industry, as well as the laundry list of shady practices they’ve banned companies from employing. They’re not perfect by any means but they’re still head and shoulders above the competition. They’re also at least somewhat responsive to the community with them either implementing new policies to protect consumers when major scandals happen and even occasionally being proactive and banning bad practices when companies start talking about implementing them.
As for GOG they’re a bit of a mixed bag recently. They started carrying games with DRM at some point so they’re no longer the DRM free zone they once were, although the majority of their catalog is still DRM free. I believe they do warn you when a game has DRM though. On the plus side though they recently committed to improving their support for Linux which many people will be happy to see.
What pro-consumer policies does Steam have? They still have a lot of games with DRM, although I guess that’s the publisher’s choice, not theirs.
Their refund policies aren’t great. Not being able to get a refund if you encounter a game-breaking bug just because you’ve played the game for more than 2 hours isn’t a good policy. Thankfully it’s been ruled illegal in some countries like Australia - in those regions, you can get a refund for major issues regardless of how much you’ve played or how long you’ve had the game for.
I agree that they’re better than some of the competition, but at the end of the day they’re still giving you a license that they can revoke at any time. GOG gives you actual ownership.
The refund policy is that it is an automatic “no questions asked” refund if it qualifies by being under 2 hours played or 2 weeks owned. If it doesn’t qualify, you can still get a refund, there just are questions asked then. Their refund policy is pretty much the gold standard.
Valve lets them add DRM after launch, you buy a game and play it for months or even years and then BAM! you have online DRM or anti-tamper killing mods or a flippin rootkit for crappy cross platform multiplayer that never works, or adding a damn third party launcher along with the Ubislop levels of derp and Bamco/ATLUS inability to eveer patch anything that’s actually wrong but “fix” cracked DRM instantly…
Until I can count on Steam to let me keep what I flippin’ paid for they are beyond sus, and my (Crap, 1337, what a game count.) “Game Industry Guardian” becomes a “Meh, nah, I’ll use your forums to ask the dev if they plan a GOG release and maybe redeem some Humble keys if they’re cheap enough to consider it a demo for a GOG purchase later.”
Primarily their review system which is hands down the best in the industry, as well as the laundry list of shady practices they’ve banned companies from employing. They’re not perfect by any means but they’re still head and shoulders above the competition. They’re also at least somewhat responsive to the community with them either implementing new policies to protect consumers when major scandals happen and even occasionally being proactive and banning bad practices when companies start talking about implementing them.
As for GOG they’re a bit of a mixed bag recently. They started carrying games with DRM at some point so they’re no longer the DRM free zone they once were, although the majority of their catalog is still DRM free. I believe they do warn you when a game has DRM though. On the plus side though they recently committed to improving their support for Linux which many people will be happy to see.