Laser Eyes on 7/12/2009 at 23:40
What's been your experience with the online game distributors other than Valve's steam? Good, bad, indifferent?
Also do all the online distributors use their own DRM or are there any that don't use DRM?
Pidesco on 7/12/2009 at 23:56
I've used Impulse, GOG and Gamersgate. They all worked fine, without any problems, whatsoever. You pay, you download, and no one ever bothers you again. Of these 3, only Impulse uses a client. However, unlike Steam, the client is only required to buy and update the games. Other than that, you never have to start it up. It's just an auxiliary tool for the customer.
Although, all in all, I'd say the only real, measurable difference of quality between the lot are the prices.
Jason Moyer on 8/12/2009 at 00:09
Impulse is awesome. All you use the client for is buying/installing/updating, and once a game is installed it's totally independent from the client. I'm not sure what their policy is in regards to DRM, but nothing I've bought from them uses it.
GOG, of course, is great. Many games have proprietary patches to help them run on modern hardware (see: Arx Fatalis), and everything comes as a single executable that installs the game with no copy protection whatsoever. You can re-download as many times as you want, there are extras you can download on the site (manuals, wallpapers, icons, strategy guides, etc), and even if GOG should disappear at some point in the future, you can still install the games from your hard drive as much as you want. They have their own download client, but I've never used it, as you can just grab whatever you want on the site through normal HTTP.
I've used EAStore, and can't really complain, although I'm sketched out by their disclaimer that files are only available for 2 years or something similar. It's not really an issue since you can manually back up everything it downloads, and I'm not really sure what sort of protection it uses for non SecureROM games, as the stuff I've downloaded just comes with an activation code that you can use for authorizing the game without the EADM client like a disc-based SecureROM system.
I vastly prefer Impulse/GOG to steam since they don't require any sort of client software for playing the games, and I suspect that Impulse would be destroying Steam if it weren't for Valve's own games being Steam-only.
TheOutrider on 8/12/2009 at 01:09
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Impulse is awesome. All you use the client for is buying/installing/updating, and once a game is installed it's totally independent from the client. I'm not sure what their policy is in regards to DRM, but nothing I've bought from them uses it.
Stardock-published games (Demigod, Sins of a Solar Empire) use Stardock's online activation which is pretty much exactly like Steam's mechanism sans "log in every few weeks to re-authenticate". Aside from that, I think the copy protection used is entirely up to the developer/publisher.
mothra on 8/12/2009 at 04:37
gamersgate is roughly the same and ok as well. you just login to download and install, they don't even have a client, only the installer comes with the login.
Shadowcat on 8/12/2009 at 06:55
GOG > Impulse > Steam, and unless any of the others go DRM-free I doubt I'll get involved with any of them.
Not much else to say about GOG. Total freedom to download/install/play the game wherever/whenever you want. It's the best.
Impulse doesn't require you to use their client to play the game, only to acquire and patch it, which is pretty reasonable. That said, I think they have a variety of DRM options these days, so I suspect not all purchases work exactly the same way...
...but I imagine they're all better than Steam, which I personally dislike. I wouldn't mind quite so much if starting it in offline mode wasn't every bit as slow as starting in online mode. What the hell is up with that?
Steam's community features are pretty nice if you want to play online, though.
EvaUnit02 on 8/12/2009 at 07:28
Fuck Impulse. I just tried to restore an Impulse encrypted backup of 7+ GB game and it refused to do so. "The archive could not be restored." Now I have to download the whole fucking thing again. I'm on capped broadband (like most people in NZ), so this shit costs if I go over my allotted data cap. This sort of bullshit hasn't happen with Steam backups from my experience.
Following GoG.com, Gamersgate is the best of the lot. You don't have deal with annoying client software requiring online activation period, just a light weight manager/installer for each game. My only complaint about Gamersgate are that the download servers are like in Sweden vs. Steam having content servers in both Australia and NZ.
Shadowcat on 8/12/2009 at 13:08
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Fuck Impulse. I just tried to restore an Impulse encrypted backup of 7+ GB game and it refused to do so. "The archive could not be restored."
Ouch :(
If you haven't already ditched the original file, try using 7-zip to open it. The .impulse files I have are all just .7z archives with a different extension.
gunsmoke on 8/12/2009 at 16:07
I just bought Manhunt 2 from Direct 2 Drive. They gave me Manhunt for free. Anyway, I have had zero problems with the actual purchase and completed the game itself with no issues. This was my first time making a digital purchase outside of Steam, and I would do it again. Happy Customer. :)
