Oh, we didn't have one of these "Steam has/doesn't have DRM-Free games" conversations for a while. I predict it will take the same path as previous conversations; the Avenue of Nowhere.

So the same question to you: if GOG games required you to always log into your GOG account with a web browser before you can either install or even run a GOG game, would you consider them DRM-free? After all, you'd use this open https protocol for it, so no DRM? You are in control because of the protocol/tool?

As I said before, being able to download (deliver) your games with several different methods may be more convenient, but it still has absolutely nothing to do with DRM. DRM discussion is relevant only when you have the game in your possession, how the service or publisher tries to control your usage of it at that point. When the game is still in the store, or on Steam/GOG servers, it is not yet in your possession.

GOG doesn't offer a choice to get your purchased games on burned CDs that they deliver to you, or even go to their office in Warsaw and copy your games to an USB memory stick yourself. Yet, people don't consider it DRM that they don't offer such game delivery options, but you actually have to go log into your account online, for a delivery.

When someone claims essentially that "getting a game from steam is the same as getting it from GOG", it's a falsehood that has to be challenged, pointless or not.

Claiming that the delivery methods are identical, and that one delivery method has DRM while the other has none, are two completely different claims.

Nobody claimed that the delivery methods are 1:1 identical, of course they are not. It may be more convenient that one has several different means to obtain their purchased games (even if e.g. GOG sent them to you on CD-R discs), but it has nothing to do with the DRM discussion.

Also when we discuss about the DRM-free Steam games (after delivery), to me personally the important point is that they are not officially supported as DRM-free products. So if you have any problems trying to run them without the authentication, you are on your own. And like I pointed before, that "DRM-free Steam games" list has lots of such remarks, like that saving or reloading a game doesn't work without a client, or only part of the game works without the client, or you need some third-party tool to make it DRM-free.

Let's be clear. There's obviously got to be a way to differentiate between people who own something and people who don't. You can't just let anybody download any game, any more than people would be allowed to simply walk into a games retail store and walk out with the game. Paying for the game in a retail store provides that way to differentiate, while authentication provides that for online purchases. There simply isn't any way around that. It isn't about control, it's about the system functioning properly at all, the same way that the HTTP protocol is necessary for an online shop to exist. DRM is not about basic functionality such as that, it's about control, so no - logging in as a requirement on GOG is not DRM. Possession =/= ownership? I'd say that DRM kicks in once you own something - you should have full control over something as soon as you own it.

As you say, DRM is about control over your usage. Steam controls that usage, both to install the game you have purchased (which cannot be avoided) and in many cases it's required to also play. Retail stores don't generally offer downloads for products you buy there, either. No, it's not DRM, nor is lack of physical delivery mechanisms from GOG DRM. It's simply difference in delivery. There are multiple ways of delivering a product, and most shops don't want to/can't support them all. That has nothing to do with any effort to control your product.

Agreed. there is lack of support for installing or playing any steam game except through the steam client. That you can do that at all with some of them is a workaround of the DRM inherent in the steam client.

To what end? Will you change their minds? Will you shut them up? The answer is, and has been the same, for many years; No.

No, you're right. But it's not about that. It's about there not being an unchallenged assertion left as a record in the narrative. Remember that we are in the age of alternative facts.

Besides that, entering into such an argument can crystallize your own thoughts.

to stop them changing someone else's mind.
One thing recent events have shown, people get swayed by lies.

Actually yeah, lol almost every new person seems to need their very own shiny gog vs. steam thread. lol

It doesn't seem to work.

Personally, I preferred:
"Where's my Steam key?"

Admit it. You are jealous you didn't get one when you joined.

I am....that bitch. lol

I think there is quite some truth to your points.
But well, some games (probably many) actually do allow you to make backups that can be accessed without Steam. The only question is if that works for the games in that list and if an update won't make that impossible.
If you can't make working backups that can be accessed without Steam, then the following is true for that game: Steam DRM = online-activation-at-install-DRM

I think the main problem with Steam is that there is no reliable information on that type of thing. Third party DRM isn't always reliably informed about and Steam's own online-activation-at-install-DRM isn't either, which is probably true because it is intended to be the norm. Moreover, all games may change in that regard after purchase.

There are 20000 titles according to this resource:
https://steamdb.info/genres/
How many of these games do we know to be DRM-free? That list is not exactly disproving your point, I think. :)

However, many pre-Steam-era games and self-contained indie games surely allow you to make working backups because they don't need anything but the game folder to run.