Millenials? No, most of them don't even know what DRM is. Older ones. Toughest customers who both know and seek DRM-FREE feature, are those who went through the golden age of gaming (1985-2005).

Great analysis. About the no Steam/no Sale, though, it is not only the gamer's "fault", but mainly the DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER 's!!! Should they decide to open up to Steam exclusively, what can GOG (or others) do?

Cracks:)

I think this has already happened and it started a long time ago. Mainly because the main share of the market is made up by "casual gamers" and I think it is safe to say that this group is more content with any form of DRM. Not saying that any casual gamer fits this pattern but they care more about the game itself and not around the surrounding "obstacles".

You just have to look at the success, if you want to call it that, of Steam and Origin or the console market. Even games like Diablo 3 which comes with a very restricted from of DRM was a huge success. This is especially strange when you consider the shitstorm that came down on Blizzard when they announced the online only approach of their game. And this is the norm and not the exception, going back years now.

And yes this will only becoming worse in the next decades. Gaming will be more and more a social event, like a gaming evening with friends back before we even had computers, and as long as companies know how to hype their games people will buy them without thinking twice about DRM.

The DRM free movement, for lacks of better words, is basically a niché. It has a strong base and people feel very strong about it, just take a look at how upset people are here now with the galaxy client, and it will probably grow even stronger or even oppose the DRM pro faction but it will always remain a niché in my opinion.

Even I am not really sure where I make stand, if I had to stand. On the one hand I like having DRM-free games but I am not against it on principle, simply because there are games out there that I will buy even with DRM. But ever since I joined and bought my first games here I have come to appreciate the other side, and for the I am really grateful to the people behind gog who made this happen.

They're not going to care, probably. Especially with internet rapidly becoming a common household thing, arguably even a necessity in today's world.
I think you hit the whole thing pretty much dead-on.

Short of them having an incident where they can't get online for an extended period and that makes them unable to play their games, no, I don't see most gamers giving two shakes of a shit about DRM.

Which is probably why Steam finally got around to fixing that bug where you had to be online to get into offline mode.

Steam is mostly unobtrusive, and most of the time most people can run games on it with little to no apparent interference from the DRM in it, and so long as it keeps being mostly unobtrusive most people won't care and will merrily keep using it, and products like it, to buy their games with no reservations whatsoever.

While I won't say that I will never purchase Steam only games, I will tend to prefer DRM free alternatives, saving Steam for the few "must have" type titles, of which I personally haven't had one since Skyrim. (Also, I guess, for humble bundles, but even there I tend to get the ones that have DRM free download options.)

I'm 38 but have only been gaming on PC for 4 years. Whist I understand why people care about DRM and I agree it's a good thing to free of it, it's not something I personally give any significant thought too...

Yes.

Example - Crimea.
Windows activation prohibited.
Steam access prohibited.
Reason: "because (insert fake reasons here)".

I think only children don't care about DRM.
// Please don't derail into politics here.

Unfortunately, the general feeling I get is that modern gamers don't care for the DRM.

The whole software industry pushes new users to DRMed platforms. Modern "convenient" operating systems (Windows and especially 10 on PCs along with all those mobile OSs) have been and continue to be the vehicle.

I think that the majority of modern gamers don't even know what DRM means. They don't care of how things work, just for the convenience of one click (or touch), no matter the intrusion on their privacy, the security risks and the zero value of their purchases. When the server will die, will take the DRMed software with it, and all have been accepted in the EULA.

I buy only DRM-free games.
DRM shows no respect for legitimate customers and there is no need for unnecessary dependencies.

I think, all of us, who support DRM-free, value our privacy, purchases and the gaming experience itself, without external immersion breaking motivations. Even though such motivations like achievements may be provided in DRM-free games too.

Depends on the form of DRM. Steam? who cares. UPlay? ugh, no. "Register on this website so you get a time-limited activation key you need to input into one of two background processes so you can use one of your five activations to play the game"? yeah, screw it. That seems to be roughly most people's opinions, judging from Steam reviews and online discussions.

Personally, I don't care so long as I can play the game without crippling my PC in other forms (SecuROM, I'm looking at you). If I cared about principles and the likes, I wouldn't be playing closed-source games on a closed-source OS in the first place and neither should you, but we all compromise sooner or later; no reason to berate those who compromise just a little bit further.

Yes, for preservation and not having to use a client.

Just my guess that many don't give it a thought as long as it doesn't inconvencience them, nor prevent them accessing their purchased items for good. So as long as e.g. Steam is up and healthy as a service, most of its users probably don't care much, and don't even understand what is the problem and what would be the choice.

However, remembering from the past how some "casual" made a big cry about how he/she suddenly lost access to their online library of, was it either music or e-books... I guess that person suddenly realized "hey, what happens to all our purchased digital items if either the store/service goes down, or they just decide to cancel my account for a reason or another?".

It might be that some of those people incorrectly believe that the store is somehow forced to give them access to their purchased items, one way or another, even if the store itself goes down. I guess that is where all those claims come that if and when Steam ever went down, Valve has "promised" to flip a kill switch which magically makes all Steam games free of any restrictions so people can continue using their purchased items even after the store goes down. "There must be some customer-protection law or something to prevent us from losing access to our purchased items, right?!?" Wrong.

So I'd say quite many of those "not caring about DRM" is because they haven't really given a thought to it yet nor experienced any severe ill effects for it (like, losing access to their thousands of purchased Steam games for good).

If we really talk about people who think "well, so what if I lose access to all my purchased digital items at some point? Meh, I'll do something else instead, or buy them all over again elsewhere.", I think that is another group of people, probably not as big as the former one.

Yes, especially those who:
1. Got their older games unplayable on new OS because of DRM.
2. Got their current games unplayable because of internet connection was unavailable for some period of time.
3. Got their account stolen and can't install their copy of game from downloaded installer until customer support return them their account.
4. Got their country banned from store for any reason thus losing all their games. If i remember correctly, many games had build-in Achievements in offline mode. Mass Effect and Dragon Age, for example. For older games - yes, you will need wrapper. Yes, but some people lost their accounts for political reasons. And they never had a chance to make a backup copies of games for access to whose was payed by real money. Yes, that is nice. Because of that, there is new type of pirates appeared who share their games for a small fee with other people. :) Well, all this is accessible without DRM. DRM is preventing you launching the game without it's authorization by checking the disk/online. So, if you can download installer, after that turn internet connection off, install and launch game in offline to play single player - there is no DRM. Read comments in Steam - many players refuse to buy games with Denuvo DRM. When new game appears in store with Denuvo on board - there is many people saying "I won't buy this until Denuvo is present!". And, to be honest, DRM-free Witcher 3 had much better sales than games with Denuvo even when there was no cracks for it.

My experiences and views on this matter are limited to how things are in my country, so this is subjective, I don't know how things are in every country around the world.

I'd say 90% of all modern gamers don't care about DRM: they care about pricing first and foremost. I'd also say that a good chunk of GOG's current users are gamers with bad and/or very expensive internet options. I wonder how many of them would still be around had they access to better and cheaper internet access, which I think is just a matter of time. Although Andrey brings up some other good points in his post as to why you'd want DRM-free options.

The "Steam system" is becoming the standard today for watching movies and listening to music, like iTunes for example. This is how modern gamers consume their music and movies. So naturally Steam & Co's DRM system is not an issue. In the future we are going to have lots more of this. So the people who care about DRM will be increasingly fewer.

Most gamers today are mainly interested in the multiplayer aspects of a game, regardless of genre it feels like, and Steam offers a huge advantage in this over GOG.

I also don't think it's a generational issue as most older gamers seem very happy to accept Steam & Co.. Of-course kids who started gaming as Steam arrived will accept- and know of little else. Similarily with those who grow up with the PS4 and XBox One consoles. At least with the older consoles (Sega, PS2 etc) you don't need to be online to play a game on them, their online support died a long time ago. [My own motivation for favouring DRM-free games lies in not having to be online all the time.]

I do think that many of them fully understand the benefits of having a DRM-free version, however they still value the benefits of having a Steam version more: usually cheaper, all games in one place, better multiplayer options, all their friends are there.

For example, recently my older brother and I became interested in the same game, StarCrawlers. For me it was a simply choice to buy it on GOG since I will always prefer a DRM-free version. My brother however, who is close to his forties, based his purchase decision on how accessible the game would be and where the best deal for the game was.
After explaining that Galaxy works in a similar way as Steam, regarding access to your games, and the fact that the GOG discount was better, he softened towards the GOG version. The DRM thing was not even part of his evaluation process, even though he fully understands what it's all about.

The answer to that is a louder no, but a surprisingly yes as well.

On a certain *cough* piracy sub (who also supports DRM-Free and are aware of DRM issues), a poll was done on it's users. Of course, while it's merely a sample size and not representative of everyone, there is one interesting piece of data amongst the results. And that is, the larger majority of users are younger people below the age of 30. This is notable, as enough people seem to claim that DRM-Free is merely nostalgia from the older crowd who still cling to the concept of owning and keeping your games or some such thing. But it's clearly not the case. So, this isn't a matter of dying dinosaurs piping their last squeak, before being swept away by the new. The people who care about DRM-Free are not driven by age, but by other reasons.