Your average gamer doesn't ask questions like why does this game/feature need to be online, over a decade of precedent means it's just accepted and unimportant to them. Even if they do ask, they will still put up with it in order not to "miss out" on the game. The time to ask for refunds and give low review scores was 5 years ago when it actually mattered.
On your last point, you're absolutely right, those games will top the charts, and it's not going to change for the better. My fear is that in the years to come, technological and market trends will make PC gaming transform into something so alien that it will have effectively disappeared as we know it, replaced with the most "convenient" solutions like streaming. Even folks like the pro-DRM Hideo Kojima are starting to come around and express concern over the future of digital media.
https://twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/1423414153478168576

The answer to some of your questions is: 100% of mainstream "games journalists" are shills.

They are never worth listening to about anything, ever.

Best not even to patronize their websites and/or social media channels at all. They don't deserve any clicks or views on their ads.

Because most people don't care about the things you care about and have different values from you. Be happy if you only get that feeling about an issue like video games and not about more important things.

1. It works for them.
2. They don't see any issue.
3. It's not a problem for the majority of them.
4. Because the release itself wasn't newsworthy to them, but the outcry was.
5. Because the previous installments set a precedent. Hell, Diablo 4 will also be always-online even on consoles.

These are all interesting questions I've been asking myself these days as well.

It may be a cliché, but most people are really a bunch of sheep without any ability to reason, lazy and easily influenced.

I've read with disgust comments from people who claim to already have the game in 10 other versions, but here on GOG they want it to be totally DRM-free. It's too hard to take a stand with autonomy, to boycott a game on its release because it's full of absurd DRM and online requirements, because they must have the new toy at all costs.

It needs another corporation like GOG to do the work for them. And when the platform gets it wrong, the fury of the herd comes down on it with furious anger.

As you say there is no hope to reverse the trend, sooner or later we'll stop having video games as we know them today and there will only be a giant cloud under the total control of corporations, which will offer entertainment to those who will pay a monthly fee. I just hope it takes a few more decades so I can completely ignore the crap that will happen.

You are misreading the situation.

Game websites aren't reporting about Hitman DRM.
They are reporting about customer response to Hitman DRM, when customers were buying with the promise of DRM-free.

There's nothing newsworthy about DRM as such, games have had that since 1983, possibly even earlier.

It's not even that shocking that CD Project is involved in DRM, the review versions of Cyberpunk 2077 were not only on a different platform than GOG, but also had third party DRM.

This is all about customers and their expectations.

It's about the controversy where on the game card "Internet connection is required to access Escalation missions, Elusive Targets or user-created Contracts" is written right next to "No activation or online connection required to play."

It's pretty simple:

1) The games are actually good in so far as they are games. Many Hitman fans consider them to be the best Hitman games to date.

2) Internet access these days is pretty ubiquitous, so the issues that come with online-only content aren't really all that apparent at this time for the average consumer. It's not that they are "sheeple" who are ignoring the problem, it's that they are unaware there is a problem at all.

Most people do not think that far ahead into the future as to what will happen when this series of Hitman titles become old, and the servers to handle the online elements become too costly for IO to keep up.

People have raised valid points in this thread.
Personally I can understand young folks not really caring about DRM issues. Young folks under 40, who came from a console background and never had to deal with the hassle of checking the manual or the code wheel for the copy-protection answers and were used to the "press START button - play game" system. Or people who were only introduced to PC gaming after 2004.
I guess for most young people, steam was just the PC-version of their childhood gaming. But instead of inserting a cartridge, the client installs the game and you just click the Launch icon.

Now... what I don't really get is the huge number of people from my generation (40+) who buy on steam and epic or wherever they can get their shiny new games.
In my case, I'm the only guy from my childhood group who doesn't have a steam account. And all the other guys from my social circle who still play have 1000+ games on their steam accounts (or even double or triple that number).

I'm one of those "grognards" who always decided to vote with my wallet. And the only reason I've been buying on GOG for more than 10 years are the DRM-free offline installers. If they're gone then I'm gone from here as well.
And even if GOG collapses and the zoom store takes over the DRM-free banner, who's to say that it won't follow the same path somewhere down the line?
If people keep eating and enjoying "Soylent Green", then it's what they'll inevitably get. And not only are people enjoying "Soylent Green" but the gaming press (likely funded by Soylent Industries) keeps telling gamers that S.G. is helthy and nutritious for them.

I'm not optimistic at all about the future of the videogame industry. Not only concerning DRM politics but also because of the quality of its products. Despite hundreds of games being released each year I find less and less interest in them. Whenever I browse the steam store to check what kind of games are being made it seems that I'm always seeing the same 10 or 11 games being remade, just with different textures or assets.
Maybe I'm just wearing the nostalgia glasses right now, but I still remember - many years ago - whenever I saw the magazine coverages of E3 I would be amazed at the richness and diversity of the games being produced. Flight sims, strategy, RPGs, racing, sports etc etc... all sorts of games for all tastes. And most of them (with better or lesser success) trying to bring something new to the industry.

Maybe I'm getting too old for this. Or maybe things are really getting worse.
I believe things will improve one day. Unfortunately I fear that, when it happens I will be either dead, destitute or just too old to play games (or even lacking enough "Social Credit" to be authorized to play videogames)

I gave up following commercial AAA games long time ago.

There are lots of brilliant games still being made, but most of them are indie games, and many of them are freeware. In fact, many of them you don't even find on Steam, you have to look elsewhere.
But all my wishlists in different stores combined I have about 1.500 games that I am looking forward to play some day.

Obviously some of them are made with some assets packs and so on, so there's nothing really outstanding from the technical point of view, but if you are looking for good games, like they used to make in the past, you can still find them.

Thank you for your opinion.

As for AAA games I don't even bother about them. In fact, I think the last AAA game I played was Far Cry 2 (bought on GOG). Almost all of them are tied to DRM of some sort nowadays, so I never even bothered to check them out for many years.

As for indie games, the question of wether a game is good or not is obviously a very subjective one. I agree with you that there are many good games being released or being worked on. No doubt about that.
Personally the issue is that they're all starting to look alike to me.
Nowadays 90% of games seem to be comprised of Souls-like, Rimworld-like, 4X-like, generic RPGs (Wizardrys-like, Baldur's Gate-like, etc), Command&Conquer-like, Post-Apoc survival sim-like, Sim-City-like, Xcom-like, etc etc...
I'm not denying that most of these games have quality and bring an innovation or two to the genre. But bottom line is that they all seem to be copying each other.
Makes me remember the mid-90s, when every month you'd get Doom clones galore, almost every one managing to be worse than the original.

Just recently I talked to a friend who was always an avid strategy gamer. He complained that for the last 3 or 4 years he never managed to finish a single strategy game. Every time he gets to the middle of the campaign he starts to get bothered and feels like he's been playing the same game again.

I admit that the issue could be related to me. I've played too many games and the wonders of my boyhood have faded, leaving only behind the nostalgia, cepticism and bitterness of the old folk :(

In all honesty, most don't care about DRM. The Hitman story only got legs after the review bomb topic, not the DRM game on DRM-Free storefront.

Most users consumers don't know what DRM-Free is, so it's hard for them to care. That's kinda why it's important for stores selling DRM-Free to explain what it is or highlight it as a key feature. Will this change in time? i don't think so. I think DRM-Free is in a similar shape to vinyl collectors, a small but passionate group of people compared to he majority

The sad truth is the mainstream don`t really care about DRM. If the majority cared about DRM Steam would never have become the market leader in online PC sales (and for some time the Monopoly), hell for many years the majority are `No Steam = No Sale`` regardless of what you are giving up to get it.

Hell the Steam Client DRM was actually blocking games I legally owned and when I complained forum users just told me to `Leave Steam alone it`s probably on your end``, and after an IT person helped me prove it was Steam and we sent in the findings I got an E-mail pretty much telling me if I ever attempt to `circumvent`Steam DRM my account would be deleted meaning I would lose legal access to all the games I purchased. I was the victim here yet I was treated like the criminal. I boycotted Steam after that, but then people just mocked me saying Steam is PC gaming.

Now things are moving towards Streaming services where people are more than happy to spend monthly subscriptions and video game publishers are jumping on the bandwagon and the majority are just happily going on for the ride despite the issues movies/Games as a service hold.

Nothing ever appears out of a void. Everything is inspired by what came before it (in a lesser or greater degree).

Accept that you'll never have those first experiences again, not in the same way as when you were growing up. Now move on! (however you want to*).
*It's a mental process - I don't mean "move on" as keeping up with whatever the current trend is.
Or not, and become a bitter old man (or woman, or... any other lifeform)!

This is just my view and I'm not saying that it's easy (a flip of a switch). Maybe you know all this already - nevertheless, it's still worth sharing. ;-)

edit: addendum: I left out any social aspect that may or may not be relevant for someone else.

Valid point.
Maybe I've just played too many games in my life. And too much of something is usually not too good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8