You can easily try out Steam and figure out how it works by making an account and playing some of the free games, i recommend warframe or marvel heroes.
I love Steam and have over 100 games on it. What I like about it:
Don’t need the cd.
It’s free. Well, Steam itself is free. You do need to buy the games.
Can play the games offline.
One launcher that has all my games.
If you delete a game, it stays in your library and you can re-download it any time you want, without paying for it again.
Friends list on Steam makes it easy to find people to play with.
Sales. Oh, the sales! Every single holiday, massive sales on (it seems like) 99% of their stock.
You can log into Steam on a different computer and your library will be there and you can download and play the games on that computer.
They don’t have THAT many older games, at least compared to, say, GOG, but what they do have is optimized for modern computers. I haven’t had any problems running the old X-Com, Wizardry, Another World, The Chaos Engine or Might & Magic games.
They have a lot of games that, while newer, are done in a “retro” style that brings back memories of older games. Examples that I have include Volgar the Viking, UnEpic, Tiny Barbarian, Spelunky, and any number of RPG’s.
It’s possible that I spend more time checking out Steam sales than I do actually playing the games I acquire. It’s an entertaining hobby. I frequently buy games I already own if they’re cheap just because it saves me digging the disc out of the closet.
I don’t check GOG.com as often, but because of this thread I checked them and saw that Privateer is on sale. This was been my bete noir for years. I had a copy I found cheap in perhaps 1998. I bought a flight-yoke type joystick specifically for this game. And I never got it to work on my computer. Or the next build of my computer. Or any subsequent build. That flight yoke still lives in my closet. Do I dare risk heartbreak again?