When comparing Steam Greenlight vs GOG, the Slant community recommends GOG for most people. In the question“What are the best distribution platforms for an indie desktop game?” GOG is ranked 3rd while Steam Greenlight is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose GOG is:
GOG refuses digital rights management on principle.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Greenlight Concepts section can help get early feedback
The Concepts section of Greenlight allows incomplete projects to be put on display and receive feedback, including mock-voting as if they were full Greenlight submissions. This can be a valuable tool for refining design, presentation and marketing techniques.
Pro The largest and best-known PC distribution service
Steam's user base is over ten times that of the next nearest competitor, making it by far the largest single marketplace.
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 Registration costs $100
In order to submit games to Greenlight at all, you must first purchase a $100 activation for your Steam account. Note that this does not represent profit for Valve: all proceeds are donated to charity. It is strictly a barrier to entry.
Con Approval process is a competitive market
The Greenlight submissions with the most votes are approved in arbitrary batches, generally 50 to 100 per month. No metric is used other than raw quantity of positive votes.
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.