Best Digital Distribution Platform for PC Games

[kemosabe]

I was going through IGN and find about 2$ tuesday sales at D2D.So far I only used Steam and love it. I like to know from fellow IVG PC gamers - > Direct2Drive,EA Store,Windows Games on Demand,Microsoft Store Online,Good Old Games ,,How are these digital distribution services hold against Steam in terms games,price,performance and features

 

// These discussion is strictly from PC gaming perspective so no PSN Store, iTune and XboxLive here please

[Noctis]

D2D often gives good offers and I have purchased from them before, but it doesn't have a platform like steam and because of that I try to avoid them if at all possible.

 

GOG is great for the games it deals in. Classic titles with no DRM or whatsoever. There is a GOG thread on the downloads section which is almost as active as the steam one.

 

GFWL sucks, and very badly. Nuff said. (unless you are an achievement wh*re)

 

EA store is a great option for us since they have an Indian store which sells games much cheaper compared to the other sites. But often those games are even cheaper in the boxed versions sold locally, so it kind of misses the point.

 

 

There are a few others like Impulse Driven which looks good, but I have never used them.

[Bulovski]

Steam and GOG are all that's required. Both have their own dedicated threads where grown men bitch about the sales. GOG is superb for abandonware - basically old old games where production had stopped.

[devil_angel]

D2D often gives good offers and I have purchased from them before, but it doesn't have a platform like steam and because of that I try to avoid them if at all possible.

Do they sell normal games, like, say, COD?

[kemosabe]

As for D2D and EA Store, Do I need a client to download and play the game or its like GOG - I will get the setup file for the game.

[Bulovski]

D2D needs a client afaik.

[spindoctor]

^ no d2d doesn't *need* a client, but there is an optional one if you want to use it. and that's only to download/update the game if you want to use it... you are never forced to use it while trying to play a game. they have good sales all the time.

 

the ea store has a client called eadm (ea download manager)... it is required to download the games, but once installed, you don't need to have it running to play games. they sell games in indian rupees at full price with very rare sales and a pretty limited selection. not recommended, especially when you can just buy the retail copies of everything they sell for less.

 

gfwl requires a client to download games, but again it's not required to play games. however, they very rarely have competitive prices for their limited selection, so it's not very good.

 

gog.com is awesome... no client required at all, but again there is an optional downloader you can use to download the games. they deal in niche games that few other sites do.

 

gamersgate is another decent site. no client required, but they do use a downloader. they have a decent rewards program and offer lots of titles (more than steam i believe) and they have decent sales.

 

impulse is run by stardock and is the only source for stardock games. they use a client to download/update games but it is not required to run it to play them. however, they have a crappy selection of games and almost all the good ones are region locked. their sales aren't very good either.

 

gramps was right.. steam and gog are really all you need. between the 2, you will get almost everything that digital distribution has to offer. but keeping an eye on sites like d2d and gamersgate is a good idea because they run some awesome sales from time to time. there are sites which keep track of all these sales... this is one of them - http://dddeals.blogspot.com/ just subscribe to their rss feed or something and you'll get info about all deals on all sites all the time

[Bird Bird Bird]

Thanks for the deals site Spinny ! Repped !

[kemosabe]

excellent feed Spindoctor,,Repped

[AkKiNeNi JaJi]

Ty Spindoctor