The Steam Summer Sale 2023 is here, but Gog is the way to shop
The Steam Summer Sale 2023 started yesterday. It runs from June 29 to July 13 and offers discounts on thousands of games, apps and also hardware.
Steam users can grab a Steam Deck, Valve's handheld PC gaming device, for 20% off, get a discount of 50% on the Great Acc Attorney Chronicles or the under-the-radar-flying Cookie Clicker.
There appears to be no integrated event anymore this Summer Sale. Just discounted games, no pretext that the Sale is more than that.
The sale is the biggest games sale on PC, but it is not the only one. While Valve gets the bulk of sales on PC, there are other stores that also have Summer Sales. One of them is held by Gog.
Gog is special in a number of ways. It flies even more under the radar than Cookie Clicker, but undeservedly so.
One of Gog's biggest selling points is that its games are DRM free. You don't need a client or launcher, e.g. Steam, or an Internet connection, to play these games. When Gog dies or is shut down, all games continue to work.
The Gog Summer Sale runs from June 12 to July 3 and the company claims that over 5400 games are discounted during that time. Gog's sale is dynamic, as there may be flash sales for games that offer even better discounts. There is also the occasional free game to grab and genre-based bundles, e.g. a GOG RTS Bundle.
Gog does have a disadvantage, as most major games are not available on the platform. Game publishers are still wary when it comes to offering their games without DRM. Still, there are plenty of games available.
Here is a short selection of games that you may check out at Gog:
Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty DLC bundle for $59.96 -- Cyberpunk 2077 has had a rough start, but CD Project Red managed to turn the wheel around. Its first and only DLC, Phantom Liberty adds a lot to the game, and Gog is owned by CD Project, which means that the company is getting more out of sales on the platform than elsewhere.
FTL: Advanced Edition for $2.49 -- a strategy game in which you control a spaceship and its crew.
Terraria for $4.99 -- Terraria is all about digging, building and exploring the world around you. It is a massive game that gives the player a lot of freedom.
Yakuza Complete Series for §36.32 -- The bundle includes 7 Yakuza games in total, including several remastered versions. If you like Japanese culture and excellent gangster games, this is definitely something you may want to check out.
You can browse the full list of discounted games on this special page. There you find filters for genres and price, and sorting options.
Closing Words
Gog is a haven for PC players who are interested in, mostly classic and independent games, and like their games to be DRM free. It is lacking when it comes to modern PC games, but other stores, such as Steam or Epic's Game Store are available for those.
Now You: do you buy PC games?
My pc’s are purpose built for gaming.
I’ve been on steam for 19 years and I do purchase games from GoG.
If not for Denuvo I’d spend a lot more money on games as I do have it to spend.
Typically, I’ll purchase a game after someone, anyone, removes the DRM then play the DRM free version.
Non DRM is superior, always, without fail :)
Thanks for raising awareness. I’ve actually used GoG before, whereas I typically pirate PC stuff, unless it comes on a disk.
Thanks @Martin for this article! :]