Please excuse me if this topic has been talked to death already, and I've missed the conversations. I prefer to purchase/download my games to my computer and play them DRM-free. I see lots of games available that way at GOG, but mostly nostalgia games and last year's best sellers, not too many of the newly-issued games. Has it come to pass that DRM play is the norm now for new games? I missing a site where new games can be purchased outright, or even on a disk (gasp!) rather than by download?

I don't know of one, unless you include sites that distribute free games.

Besides GOG, fireflowergames.com is another DRM-free website.
Though not as large as GOG, FireflowerGames has a few games that GOG does not (Perils of Man, Tales of Cosmos, etc).
Not that GOG is anywhere near as large as Steam.

Steam practically has a monopoly, and it's not a good thing.
See the Polygon article ***Valve is not your friend...***

As for new games on disc, if you see a new game that claims to be on DVD, you still have to check before purchase that the disc actually contains the game and not just a Steam installer.

Yeah, I tried Steam, but I really don't want to use it anymore. I will check out the others. Thanks.

What an amazing read Jenny
Off to read the legal decisions.

Yes. Thank you so much for that, Jenny100. Very informative !!

"Steam’s near monopoly has always been happily supported by players and even the press."

That sweeping statement is one bit I would highlight though because I am a player and it has certainly never applied to me !!!!

So true, Mad. I wonder who wrote the article?

There is something significant missing from that Steam article. The view of the developers who have literally been kept alive by the income that Steam offers them. It is the one place they can release that they get paid well, fairly and on time. I have a significant number of developer friends from all over the world and we chat daily, and Steam is the #1 choice for them to be guaranteed a chance to make a living. There are many sides to this story, and it is obviously written by a steam hater gathering data to attack them. Bottom line is, you can be thankful that Steam exists because without, there would be a lot less games available.

Another good comment. It always helps to have multiple points of view expressed!

I don't want to stray too far off track here, but I want to support Anna's post. I've been beta testing several games over the last year or so and this is exactly what the game developers are saying to me. Each one of these games - four of them, if I remember correctly - was released on Steam because Steam is a reliable venue for the developers.

Love or hate Steam, I will quote Anna,

I'd also like to support what Anna has stated. I'm only a player but I remember not too long ago that people were reporting that PC gaming was dead. Developers were complaining of piracy and poor revenue. Now there are a lot of independent developers who are fighting to get their games "greenlit". I feel that Steam has helped gaming in this way, but yes, they are occasionally annoying. Lately the client seems to be always updating. Game updates can also be a pain, but it's great that the developers can take care of bugs and other game issues quickly.

THey eliminated Greenlight program as well as of late. YOu can now publish on demand for 100 dollars which is refunded after $1000 in sales. Sounds dang reasonable to me, in fact all but one developer I know thought the fee was too low and were hoping to pay more to weed out garbage.

Well re. this thread .. "Buying options for adventure games" .. My recommendation would be "GOG".

I am pleased for those who like and are satisfied with using Steam but my personal experience of Steam is BAD.

I have been a GOG customer since the site was created and in all the years following have regularly bought games from them with confidence and ease.

Using GOG I don't have to download anything other than the game I wish to buy.

I can download a game just by using my browser.

The game will be DRM Free from the outset. I won't have to mess about transferring files to external drives or other computers or anything else of that ilk to make it so.

And if I have even the slightest problem, I know GOG will respond very quickly and get it sorted.

And that just about sums up what I look for when buying and downloading a game

I agree with Mad - I much prefer GOG. Well, with the exception of the comment about them responding quickly... They take a minimum of 4 days and even tell you it will be several days now. The only complaint I have about Steam is the same - they take forever to respond. I have dozens of games from both places and don't have any complaints - other than slow response times - about either of them.

They are different in that GOG sells existing games which they have acquired the rights to and then remove any DRM from them and tweak them to play on modern computers. They are not an outlet for game developers to release their games like Steam is. They release a few new titles, but they are few and far between.

I think we gamers are very lucky to have both of them with so many gaming choices.

Considering these two quotes

"The item re-sales are in full swing today, but that promised share of the profits for creators is still undelivered and Valve refuses to answer questions about where their money is. We emailed Valve for a comment on this issue before publishing the story, and have yet to hear back. After all, if you don't say anything, you can't tell a lie to the internet, right?"

"A company which will spend what has to be millions on legal fees to avoid having to pay you $15 in refunds, but which isn't “evil.” A company which exploits, underpays, deceives, obfuscates and refuses to cooperate at nearly every turn, but would never be caught dead doing “evil.”

It appears Steam is not only the same as the publishers that failed to pay developers they managed to refine the producer's fraud to an art form.

But that is how it works when total control of new games is in the hands of a single entity.

They pay the developers very well. They are not remotely like the publishers that never paid for the games and caused developers to close doors. If you don't know first hand, don't accuse. This is a biased story. There are many many more success stories about Steam than there are failures.

We have so many anti-steam threads it's like listening to politics all over again. Can we just agree that everyone can make their own decision and if you don't want to download from there, it is your choice. Really. This is getting weary.

Going to pop in here again and then hopefully, the subject will fade away - again. As Anna says, this is a very biased article and presents only ONE side and is very biased. You can find articles that read like Steam is akin to the second coming. I read a lot of technical articles and follow and participate in several technical forums. My practice is to throw out the information that is completely biased on BOTH sides of the spectrum and try to read more balanced views. I then reconcile them with my own experiences and my experiences with game developers themselves. I know a good handful, but nothing like the contacts Anna has. They all have nothing but good things to say about Steam.

Why can't we just be grateful that we have more choices for games and use the methods and places that work for each of us? The rest is all just noise...

Amen.

Don't forget Itch.io, GameJolt (which has now started selling games as well as hosting free ones) and Humble Store have plenty of adventure games on them.

I agree with having choices

Unfortunately as much as I'd like to buy DRM free games from sites like GOG newer games only seem to be available on Steam. Touchwood, I haven't had a bad experience so far & have quite a collection of games from them (not as many as from GOG) but it does annoy me that I have to be connected to the 'Steam Client' to play them.

But you DON'T have to be connected to the Steam client to play many of their games. Most games have an option to choose the "off-line" mode. Once you set it in the Steam client, you no longer need it to play. Of course, if there are any updates to the game, you won't get them.

Thanks Draclvr - I'm glad I thought to post as I never realised that!

Claiming the author of the article is "biased" doesn't address his concerns. Of course he's biased, but so is everyone else who has an opinion. He talked about problems I hadn't heard of before (since I'm not a content creator). He's also not the only one who's raised the question about Steam's virtual monopoly on games being bad for gaming in general. You can find more articles on the subject with a web search. Monopolies are never a good thing, and everyone should be paid as contracted, not just some.

Here's an article by John Walker that outlines some of the problems developers face --> ***Link***. This kind of thing is probably more of a problem for first time developers.

You'd think Steam could at least prevent something obvious like that. Be sure to read some of the comments to the article to see different points of view.


The original topic of this thread was where to buy new, DRM-free adventure games other than GOG. CaptainD mentioned itch.io and GameJolt, and Fireflower is back up again. But there is still the problem that nearly all "new" games (and many older ones) are never made available anywhere other than Steam.

This isn't choice.

Of course there is always the "choice" of not buying anything.
Is that what people want?
I think it's what's happening.

Has it really gone unnoticed that adventure game discussion forums seem to have almost dried up. Even AdventureGamers, which seems to be the most active English-speaking forum, doesn't get as much discussion as it used to. Gameboomers Discussion is mostly announcement posts and thank-you's.

So why is this? We used to have some good multi-page discussions about games people were playing, and not just complaints like with Syberia 3. Are the games most members want not being made anymore? Is there too much emphasis on dexterity now? Too much "consolitis" with gamepad-centric controls inappropriate for an adventure game? Did the lack of *real* boxed versions put people off the hobby? Is it due to lack of variety in subject matter? (something other than post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, survival horror, or cartoon comedy) Why is it that when we have any kind of "what are you playing" thread at Gameboomers that most people are playing or replaying older games? (I noticed this wasn't true for the Gameboomers' "Darkside" forum, which suggests the problem may have to do with dexterity requirements or poor/inappropriate controls in adventure games).

Whatever the reason or reasons, I think lack of game availability contributes, and eventually people just give up looking for new games and find a new hobby -- and stop posting in adventure game forums.

It seems clear to me that something is wrong, probably more than one thing.
But monopolies don't help.

The discussions are alive and well, just not on forums. I am a member of many adventure game groups on FaceBook and there are plenty of lively discussions. Reddit is also full of them. Social Media is the new way of communication. The discussions haven't stopped, they just moved.

I expect most of those Facebook members are younger gamers.
Not everyone believes in "social" media.

Do you really think everyone who used to post here went over to social media? Gameboomers had older members, most of whom won't be so quick to jump on what's pushed as the latest fad.

People used to come here because it was the only forum where they felt "safe" to ask things without being ridiculed. Why would they suddenly throw that out and go over to Facebook?

The actual number of gamers may be about the same, but I think the older members just leave gaming behind. They aren't around any more to say "these are the reasons I left." It's a waste of their time.