When comparing Steam vs GOG, the Slant community recommends Steam for most people. In the question“What are the best online stores to purchase PC games cheaply?” Steam is ranked 1st while GOG is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose Steam is:
Over 125 million users actively use Steam, with over 15,000 games to choose from.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Biggest digital distribution platform for games
Over 125 million users actively use Steam, with over 15,000 games to choose from.
Pro Steam sales
Steam has daily and weekend sales as well as publisher sales, though their biggest sales are their winter and summer sales. Steam is known for their deep discounts (discounts on games range from 10% to 95%) on games and has pushed many other stores to do the same seeing Amazon and other storefronts match their pricings when sales go up as well as hold their own seasonal sales.
Pro Cloud save games
Sharing save games between Mac and Windows machine is pretty nice though the game has to be a Steamworks game in order to have this feature.
Pro Support for cross-platform games
Most games that have a Mac and Linux version available can be found on Steam.
Pro Wide selection
There are a variety of games from indie to AAA. There is a curated list and even classic games.
Pro Gift games
Users can gift games to their friends, which is great for when there are sales as one friend can pick up games for the rest of his friends cheaply. There is often 4 packs of a single game that can be picked up to easily gift to 3 other friends as well.
Pro Offers refunds for games that haven't been played for more than 2 hours
If you stop playing a game within the first 2 hours, you can ask for a refund.
Pro Fast downloads
Steam has excellent servers and their download speeds tend to be the best out of any digital store online.
Pro Steam achievements
Most games on Steam have achievements. It's also nice that you can see how many people who own/play the game finished a particular achievement.
Pro Steam Workshop
Steam Workshop makes it easy to create and/or find mods and extra content for games that support it.
Pro Active community
The community frequently helps solve questions, review games, and make great content via Workshop.
Pro Integrated VoIP client
Text based chat and VoIP chat are both included with your client. Of course this only works with people on the stream platform.
Pro DRM free as a rule
GOG refuses digital rights management on principle.
Pro Seasonal sales
gog features summer and winter sales every year and offer quite a lot of games at lower than retail prices.
Pro Client is completely optional
You can either download games directly from the site or use their Steam-like client, GOG Galaxy.
Pro Occasional free games
Every so often, GOG will have a game listed as free to add to your account.
Pro Money back regional pricing
GOG may charge more in some regions as publishers request so. But in those cases they give the extra cash back as credits for buying another game.
For example, the lowest price for the game is U$20 in US, but if in your region it costs U$30 they will give you U$10 back as credits for your next purchase.
Pro Money-back guarantee
If GOG can't help you fix a game, you're free to refund it within a month of purchase.
Pro Excellent support
Support is handled by an in-house team working for the company, and staff are knowledgable about their platform and games.
Pro Good puzzle games
You can find puzzle games like Superliminal and the Myst Series on this website.
Cons
Con Lots of DRM
Many games are not only Steam DRM protected but by another DRM system. It just cries for something to go wrong.
Con Little support for older titles
Many older titles (10-15 years or more) are no longer supported and thus require much manual tinkering to run properly on windows 10, requiring digging though forums and trying many things. Compare that to GoG where these titles often run out-of-the-box.
Con Lots of junky games and violated content
They never clean up their store and they post nudity content on their store.
Con Company actively self-sabotaging
Valve have ripped off bad launcher design from competing stores instead of sticking with the better design they already had. Strong negative response including multiple customers suffering medical issues is being ignored instead of taken on board.
Con Support is an epic fail
EA Help has more positive feedback regarding their support than Steam.
Con Buggy client on Linux with little customer support
Linux support is generally overlooked. It is recommended to disable in-game overlay and to use a real browser to interact with steampowered's website. Basic library access works usually without a hitch.
Also do not expect real tech support on Linux. Forum questions of bugs often go unattended and unanswered.
Con Pricey
AAA titles are very pricey, very often more expensive than at other online stores and sometimes brick & mortar ones.
Con Games cost a fortune on the official Steam store
Buy keys from other shops, never on the official store.
Con Requires to log into Steam every 2 weeks
Steam forces you to periodically log into Steam Store every two weeks, or your games will stop working. They will force you to keep adding the API number, which is a pain. There is an Offline Mode, but you still have to log in at least once every two weeks.
Con Linux games distributed as installation scripts
Installation scripts have a lot of bugs and dependencies. Packing games in archives would be better. Extracting archives from installation scripts is possible, but difficult.
Con Many games only for windows when they also have a native Linux version
The Linux library on Steam is far bigger than in GoG, many titles have its Linux version both in Steam and its respective web page, but GoG only lets buy the Windows version.
Con No Linux client (yet)
They say it's coming. And meanwhile you can still install Linux compatible games directly.
Con Limited, often dated, library selection
Con No compatible support with (Steam) achievements
Steam has achievements that many appreciate. Unfortunately, those same achievements are not available when you buy the GOG version of the same game.