EA has announced that they’re releasing a slew of their older games onto Steam, including Command & Conquer - The Ultimate Collection.
Command & Conquer – The Ultimate Collection
SimCity 3000 Unlimited
Populous
Populous 2: Trials of the Olympic Gods
Populous: The Beginning
Dungeon Keeper Gold
Dungeon Keeper 2
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack
The Saboteur
      •  MudMan   ( @MudMan@kbin.social ) 
        5•4 months ago

        Well, most of these run on Dosbox and you can download DRM free installer packages directly from their website, so there’s that.

        But the Linux gaming crowd here keeps telling me how well Lutris and Heroic are supposed to work when I explain to them that I use a Windows handheld while my Steam Deck is gathering dust, so I’ll point them to this next time instead of just telling them those don’t quite do it for me.

        All joking aside, yeah, I’d love GOG having a better client overall, including a Linux port, but the quality of the packages and the lack of DRM easily trump that, so still buy these on GOG.

        •  Dark Arc   ( @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ) 
          4•4 months ago

          It may work great, but that store has given me significantly less for my money than Valve has.

          For me the investment in a top tier Linux experience is worth the risk of maybe someday (if there’s even DRM in the steam version of these very old games – probably not) I won’t be able to play something I purchased. Which is also true of GOG unless you’re downloading and backing up every game you’ve bought from them.

          I don’t tend to play my older video games much at all anyways, so yeah for me the store experience is way more significant than “does this game have DRM?”

          Now when it comes to music (ideally movies and shows would also fall into this category but that’s not happening anytime soon)… I agree with you 100% DRM free is very important to me there but that’s a completely different beast.

          •  MudMan   ( @MudMan@kbin.social ) 
            2•3 months ago

            It is exactly the same beast. The beasts are the same. It’s the same picture.

            I mean, respect to your extremely wrong preferences, friend. Not everybody has the same use case. I’m not too sure who feels the need to come all the way out to do PR for a multibillion dollar corporation specifically on the basis of not being super into playing the stuff they buy from them, but you guys are clearly out there and I hope you are living your best lives. I’m not gonna say the cultish vibes one sometimes gets from the Valve apologia aren’t concerning, but if it works for you it works for you.

            For the record, I don’t even dislike Valve. They’re just a gaming first party like any other gaming first party. I buy stuff on Steam just like I buy stuff on PSN. It’s all good. And I do like most of their first party stuff. If they ever decide to get back in the business of actually making games I’ll probably check them out.

            Also for the record, I do download and back up everything I buy on GOG. It all goes to the same backup space where I dump my BluRays and my CDs. And I absolutely have purchased most of the 2000+ games I own on GOG through sales, so I don’t know about the value part either. Just today I played a 30 year old game and bought a brand new game from 2024 on GOG, so…

            •  Dark Arc   ( @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ) 
              1•3 months ago

              I mean more power to you. I’m not out here to defend Valve. I’m here to say “giving GoG isn’t giving me the return on investment giving Valve money is.”

              Linux gaming and a stable Linux desktop is my #1 priority. Valve has put a lot of effort and money into making that happen. They also do have (as I said) DRM free stuff in their system.

              I don’t backup my games because most of my games are multiplayer games that (for me) are play for a while then (fairly) throw away. My favorites right now are Hunt Showdown and Last Epoch (if the servers shut down I’m out of luck).

              You started this conversation with “buy them on GOG” (market for a large company … CD Projekt Red … yourself) and I’m saying, “no thanks, if they did these things I’d consider it”.

              “Good for you, not for me.” applies here.

              •  MudMan   ( @MudMan@kbin.social ) 
                1•3 months ago

                It absolutely does.

                I do take issue with the idea that shilling for Valve versus GOG is on the same level, though. CDPR’s entire market valuation is like 20% of Steam’s revenue for one year. Based on best data available CounterStrike loot boxes make more money than all of GOG’s store.

                I’m not shilling for GOG. I’m shilling for DRM free stores in general. GOG just happens to be the one that has these EA games, but if you can find what you’re looking for in a different place with a DRM free mandate go for that!

  •  Varyag   ( @Varyag@lemm.ee ) 
    7•4 months ago

    I instantly picked up SimCity 3000 there, it’s literally the first computer game I’ve ever played! It was practically free and runs well. Might grab the C&C collection too, I didn’t play those back in the day.