I publish on Steam (in addition to Itch), but I would never ever buy a game there. I’m not spending money on a game that requires an internet service to run.
Ironically, I have used Steam to try out demos. If I liked the demo, I bought the full game on GOG or Itch, because I like to actually own things that I buy.
Yeah, I don’t mind if devs spread their game across as many platforms as possible - I just want Itch to be one of them.
I foolishly bought a game on Steam once. I really wanted to play it, but the dev did the demo-here-full-game-Steam thing. I’d remembered seeing somewhere that after creating an account, I should be able to easily download and play free games, demos, and DRM-free games I purchased without using Steam’s client. That’s no big deal; I create accounts everywhere else.
After buying, I figured out that what I thought I read was impossible. Even though there was a giant green button that misleadingly said “Download” on the page, it still forced me to install the client first.
I repeat: For free games. And demos. And DRM-free games purchased on Steam.
What absolute nonsense.
Anyway, I thought it wouldn’t be such a big deal to install it just to get my game and then uninstall, right?
Omg. The amount of crap lodged deep within my computer that I had to remove…big antivirus software/malware vibes. I bought an app called Hazel just to make sure I got it all.
Never again.
Edits: typos and a missing sentence sigh
