JakobFel: the gifting subs nonsense is unacceptable and is a literal, direct example of DRM.
"My Rewards" in their entirety are protected by online DRM. The acquisition method is irrelevant. Gifting subs is not an example of DRM. Gifting subs is an example of an indirect-Micro-Transaction, which is still bad, but it's not DRM in an of itself. It's just an overpriced DLC.
DRM is the requirement to authenticate our content, which includes everything within "My Rewards": The original free content, the Witcher and Gwent content, the Prime content and the new Twitch content. They all fall under the same system of DRMd "My Rewards".
CDP put
"DRM FREE. No activation or online connection required to play." on the GOG store page and then proceed to require online activation to actually play this content.
The purpose of not wanting DRM is game preservation. When they inevitably shut this authentication system down, all of these "Rewards" will go poof, whether they were acquired via Twitch or Prime, or ownership of Witcher 3, or for free. The entire "My Rewards" system is managed by DRM.
JakobFel: People who know me know I'm very pro-GOG and I don't agree with the "anything online is automatically DRM" perspective <...> Free drops are one thing. Connect rewards for linking with GOG Galaxy are also fine.
If you disagree that "My Rewards" as a whole are managed by DRM, then you are simply protesting an indirect-Micro-Transaction, while defending DRM.
If they generated offline installers for all this content, including the Twitch gift rifle, then it would be a DRM-Free indirect-Micro-Transaction.
DRM is bad.
Micro-Transactions are bad.
However the two are not the same and should not be conflated. One can exist without the other.