Now, don’t get me wrong- I love Steam, and I’ve the play time to prove it. Occasionally, however, one might want to shirk Steam’s strict rules about how one’s titles are managed. And believe it or not…Steam doesn’t actually have everything. While there are literally thousands of games in the platforms not-inconsiderable library; while there’s definitely something for everyone, if you’re looking for a particular title, you might be best served looking elsewhere.
Believe it or not, even though Steam dominates the digital distribution market, there’s still an entire gallery of competitors waiting in the wings- and many of them are…actually pretty bloody awesome. Here’s just a few alternatives to Valve’s platform that you can use to serve your gaming needs.
Good Old Games(GOG): Want to play a game from the 90s? Craving some digital entertainment from Gaming’s long lost golden age? Looking for an old-school game that might not necessarily be in Steam’s library? Want that title to be DRM free? Good old Games is the place to go. Great prices, a reliable platform, and no DRM- it’s pretty much the perfect place to go for all your old school needs. They’ve started offering a few new titles recently, as well- but nostalgia’s still what they’re known for.
Direct2Drive doesn’t provide a client or a community like Steam does, but on the other hand, it doesn’t use a client like Steam does. While I personally enjoy the Steam client, some folks might find it refreshing to simply be able to download their games without having to go through a tertiary application. If you’re looking for primarily independent game titles, you might be better served elsewhere- while the site certainly does contain a number of indie titles, games from larger publishers are most promoted. You can choose to download games either with or without a proprietary download service, and re-download any titles you may have missed at a later date.
Impulse: Originally developed primarily to distribute Stardock Games’ products, the Impulse client has since expanded far beyond its original horizons, and now exists as a third party games service very similar to Steam, complete with forums, friend lists…you know, a community. It also features automatic updates and the like, as well- again, much like Steam. Unlike Steam, however, the Impulse client doesn’t have to be open in order to play an Impulse game- you can choose to open a title either with or without the client.
Impulse also goes the opposite direction of Direct2Drive- they’re more geared towards independent gaming than major, AAA publishers, though they still do have a few big-name titles in their selection. Impulse was acquired some time ago by Gamestop, and rebranded as Gamestop PC Downloads.
Amazon Game Downloads: If it exists, you can probably buy it on Amazon- digitally distributed games are no exception to this rule. While they primarily deal in products that they ship out to you after purchase, they actually do run a fairly large digital download service- DRM free, of course. If you just want to play a game, and don’t want to bother installing any clients, it might be worth giving Amazon a look- all purchase information is, of course, linked to your Amazon account, assuming you’ve already got one.
GamersGate: GamersGate is pretty much exactly like Direct2Drive…except that it focuses heavily on independent publishers and indie titles rather than AAA games. Certainly it still carriers a great many titles that stem from the larger market, but it also heavily promotes the lesser-known games. There’s a good chance that if you’re looking for a particularly rare, ‘niche’ title, you can find it on GamersGate.
These are far from the only alternatives to Steam, but they’re definitely a good starting point for those of you interested in branching out a little.
Image Credits: RTS Guru
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I have to make two corrections:
1. Impulse was bought by GameStop, and they have changed the branding from “Impulse” to “GameStop PC Downloads.”
2. Good Old Games has also changed their branding and is now simply known as GOG.com, because they have started selling new games, not just old games.
In any case, I’ve used Steam, Impulse (nee GameStop PC Downloads), GOG.com and GamersGate (especially for Paradox Interactive titles), and all of them work great. I’ve also used desura.com. Desura is mostly indie games, and has a client to download, but it’s not required to be running to play the games.
I’ve heard bad things about Direct2Drive since they were bought out by GameFly, but I think that’s mostly from people who had games they had bought from D2D that they were no longer able to access.
One more correction:
Direct2Drive is also gone… As of Jan 2012 Gamefly absorbed it, causing many people to lose their games. Perhaps it would have been appropriate to mention Origin as well.