These online game store places, GOG, Steam, who's best? (opinions?)

[The_Arbiter]

I read an article last night about how GOG is allowing 1 month refunds for games, and is the least strict shop there is regarding refunds. I've never required such a thing, but from the article it sounds very promising and entices me a bit, especially with Indie games being mentioned. I was under the impression Steam was the be all and end all of the online store, and have never used any others. Well, i used battle.net, played Destiny 2, then uninstalled it. But what others are there, and why do they deserve my money, and are they any good? Steam has discussions, encourages mods, the sales are great, and so far Steam has really impressed me. I know of Epic, but that place couldn't be any more generic and pointless.

I did a few quick searches of OC forums but didn't find much. Do people have a preference on these, use multiple to get the best discounts etc? I struggle to find any games to play if i'm honest, Steam is overwhelming with choice, and i'm picky too, so i barely ever buy anything, but click "add to wishlist" instead.

Am interested in hearing some opinions on the online store fronts.

If it applies, yes i live under a rock.

 

[Raumarik]

Whichever has the best price.

Steam is still best for multiplayer action with friends on various games IMHO, the other lacks the same functionality.

I don't really know Epic as it works fine for me, just very little functionality and no actual community elements.

 

[imginy]

I think epic battlenet and steam are my3 favourites. I had a few account and support issues with origin and I dont like rockstar because it's capcha city when ya need to login.

5 years ago I was steam everything but now a days im bouncing between epic for red dead and battle for overwatch.

FYI you can import your friends from steam to some of the other stores.

Discord is the best way to chat and message friends.

 

[Paul_cz]

GOG is most customer friendly and all around awesome, Steam is most feature packed and useful, Epic is most publisher friendly but gives out free games to pay people to use it, Origin and Uplay are worthless and only used for EA/Ubi games.

 

[Ja5peruk]

GoG....... hands down!

 

[m4cc45]

As the above:

GoG DRM Free - download your games and install them where-ever you want with no restrictions what so ever. They take time to get the older games working. You also get the odd games free throughout the year.
Epic - only 'bought' the free games on there. Platform needs some work but it does, generally, work fine
Steam - really need to up there game - they were the only platform of choice a while back but had some great sales, etc. but now it's just bland 'beta' games

Ubi / Origin - don't really use them as there's nothing on there that I play now - I tried Battlefront and The Division but, apart from them, I never really used them.



M.

 

[Darujhistan]

STEAM is still the go-to IMO. Has easy to access mods in the workshop too, and reviews.

EPIC - Worth logging into for the occasional free games.

UBI/Origin - Nothing to commend them whatsoever, don't use unless you have no other choice.

GOG Galaxy - Great. So far I have linked all the above to GOG and launch them from there, not sure what other lauchers are supported, would be nice if XBOX gamepass could be linked as their laucher is appalling. All GOG's are DRM free and i'm currently building a library of games on disk I can play forever protected from the machiniations of publishers/devs and store fronts ending support for them.

 

['Wes]

Currently use Steam, Origin, UPlay, Battle.net and Epic and that's because i have games on all of them.

On Epic, all my games were collected from free deals, the rest were either bought on that specific platform or the game requires me to use UPlay etc.

All of them i don't have any issues with, all fine.

 

[Amnesia]

Steam is easily the best, their prices arent though.
Steam has worked years on their UI and integrated multiplayer and networking elements for players. The rest arent even close to where steam is at.

Do the rest even have profile pages where people you've played with can leave comments , can players view your screen shots or have friends able to view you playing a game ? integrated voice chat through the messaging system ? mod workshop ?

 

[The_Arbiter]

Steam is easily the best, their prices arent though.
Steam has worked years on their UI and integrated multiplayer and networking elements for players. The rest arent even close to where steam is at.

Do the rest even have profile pages where people you've played with can leave comments , can players view your screen shots or have friends able to view you playing a game ? integrated voice chat through the messaging system ? mod workshop ?

Never had an issue with prices, though i don't buy many games at all. Steam offering these benefits you mention is why i've never tried any others, and the prices being higher is fine cause of this imo.

So i guess there's no reason to try GOG still, despite the praise. For me at least. The competition is always good though.

 

[Radox-0]

Personally I will get most games on Steam, partly as I do enjoy getting achievements. Other element, given its age, its really refined at this point with plenty of features. There prices always seem more expensive, but can usually get just the CD key cheaper. EA and uPLAY exclusive games I will get on those clients however and to be honest I do not have an issue with either, rarely spend enough time in the clients and just dive into games.

EPIC I mostly have for the free games, got over 50 games free from them that way and picked up 2 which are exclusive to them.

Xbox launcher - have this, its mediocre but can see it improving and is the only way to go with the greatness (IMO) that is the xbox PC game pass.

 

[imginy]

I agree with above about the xbox launcher, it's still got issues but it's definitely much better than it used to be.
I remember trying to play the gears war trial off the store ages ago and tried downloading it 4 times, each time it failed for unknown reason at the end after downloading over 100gb. 400gb wasted and I never did get to play it. The beta app is much better than the store used to be.

The games pass has been amazing value, it's got 100s of games and the most I have ever paid for it is 80p a month. Last time I ordered it the cost was 80p for 3 months and that includes all Microsofts top games even new releases.

 

[hairyfeet]

Not alone OP,

I barely spend a penny on games anymore.. will hold my hands up and own my occasional impulsive purchase, like the wow xpac, usually out of some misguided, nostalgia fuelled notion that I will actually find anywhere near the free time I would need to actually get back into it

As far as steam goes I think my last couple purchases in recent years were those itty bitty DLC's for This War of Mine when they were releasing content and thats it. I did get Legends of Aria which plays on steam as well, but that was through a kickstarter when they first "broke ground" a few years ago. That aside, I think most of the platforms at least do something well. I still enjoy stuff like Banished which is a huge benefactor of the workshop too.

I have Uplay for the Settlers collection they put out (Loved 2/3)

GOG is the travellers best friend.. load that stuff on your lappy when you hit the road, always good value.

Have stuff like battle net simply because.. same with wargaming's one as I am still partial to tanks, thinking about it, I enjoy tanks, but the meta is horrible right now.

Origin probably gets booted up once every few months just to update stuff and thats it.

Its funny because money isn't even an issue.. I have a nice pc and love to game if I had the time especially competitively just not a fan of current trends, prefer the older stuff.

Was a bit gutted when epic basically dropped their work on the new Unreal the other year too, was getting well into that, like old times.

Maybe showing my age but you got to laugh when you look at how we gamed a couple decades back when you'd be using wireplay, mplayer, heat etc to matchmake your MP titles to the present. Come a long way, but I think some of the charm went to.

Under a rock idd

 

[suenstar]

Hard to say if there's a best platform, it's all subjective based on our own personal experiences.
Most of them do what they say on the tin so I don't have many complaints about any of the storefronts and management applications out there... I currently use Steam, GOG, Origin, UPlay, Epic, Blizzard and the Rockstar Launcher.

I'd say Steam is my most used platform as I have a good few hundred games on there (mostly thanks to some of the early sales where they sold entire publisher packs), followed by GOG, Origin and then UPlay.

In terms of how good their customer service teams are, so far I've spoken with Steam, Origin and UPlays teams.

• Origin - I've had a few games refunded on Origin, EA were pretty good at helping me out and one of the games they didn't have to refund but they did.
• Steam - Steam I've only ever contacted once, the game was well over 2 hours but as it was a new MMO and all that time was spent queuing in the lobby followed by some major issues with the game's servers, they were good about it and refunded the game.
• UPlay - My experience with UPlay's support team was a bit of a complex journey because it involved a game bought off a third party key site, which caused a bit of a headache as they needed evidence that Ubisoft locked me out of the game on my account and Ubisoft initially wanted a copy of all communications with the third party regarding the transaction. It did eventually get sorted out but it took about 4 months of back and forth between both companies.

Steam is probably my preferred platform for the social features, that and being able to download and manage most of my games in one place.

 

[BeeP]

Don't ask me.....I beta tested steam and told them it was a steaming pile of **** which would never work.

To be fair it was pretty awful when it was starting, I'd say it is the best one out there now though.