I've never had a problem with Steam. I don't even think of it as DRM, it's a handy program to organize all my games in one spot, a store with fantastic sales, and a cool community.

Just curious. What could be better?

I think it's a bit slow and clumsy in general. You cannot open multiple tabs, the "Back" button is a pain in the ass, especially if you're trying to add multiple things into the 'cart,' etc. Navigation in general is fairly primitive. I also feel that it's slow and really doesn't have a lot of functionality. I.e. the right click is effectively obsolete, it's like I'm using a iWhatever. Also, I've had some issues with Steam cloud synching.

Is it? I am pointing out that Steam is a service, and as such, subject to change; that is, time is a factor. And, using previous "incidents", I speculate that history may repeat itself in a manner that isn't what I'd call "fair conduct" towards their customers. How is that a straw man? I'm not misrepresenting anyone's position, taking quotes out of context etc - Steam is a service, they do change their agreements, they have tried to take away their customers legal rights. I am simplifying things (obviously), but not over-simplifying it to the point where the nature of Steam changes.

If I'd say that you'd be an idiot for using the Steam service because one day they'll start charging you tens of dollars every month for keeping your savegames etc, and that you'd have no alternative other than accepting it unless you were ok with losing all the games you'd bought; that'd be a straw man argument (even if they could do that, without breaking any laws).

You are quite good at rethorics, but not so good with logic and reasoning..
As I said, I could be wrong (although I meant this thread in particular) =)

You realize how much change would have to happen for something like that to come up on a discussion? The success of Steam is the sales and game library. If they come up with hidden charges and make the latter complicated they will lose customers real quickly.

Also, against the common argument that if Steam goes under so does all the games, I don't think it will happen like that. Since you own the license to play them they will probably have to (by law) issue some kind of universal fix that makes all games free of the Steam client and their own copy protection (I think they use some kind of encryption on their .exe, read it one a forum a few years ago but I can't confirm that). This was not targeted against you however, just a general reminder. :)

I don't think a universal fix would be possible. But yes, Steam's DRM is just an encrypted executable, and it gets cracked on a regular basis without any problems (at least for third party titles and games that don't rely on Steamworks network code). If it came to worst, you can bet a semi-respectable curated repository with guaranteed working and virus-free executable files for Steam releases would appear on the internet within a week. With a userbase of millions, community projects can be ridiculously powerful.

(Yes, I am aware that would be probably illegal and I don't care in the slightest.)

Guilty as charged. I don't like having a client installed on my computer. Especially knowing that the games I buy are not mine. Steam would just give me access to play that game. With GOG I can download, install it, back it up a billion times on numerous devices etc. It really feels like I own the game.

It's nice knowing I own a game and I can't lose it or destroy it by breaking the discc and lose my purchase.

Hear, hear. :)

i feel steam to be handy so nope i don't boycott it

Why would they?

Anyways, not an expert on Steam users, but it is funny that you say just the contrary to the video that someone posted a few posts above, that Steam users feel the need to justify having hundreds of games under the control of a single company:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo

I specifically said "brilliant games!", not "any old piece of rubbish that gets shat onto the market". Even limiting myself to those brilliant games, there's still far more than time allows me to play. "Might"? "Does" would be more accurate. There was a case here in Germany where every international version of Half-Life 2 registered to a German account got censored by an update due to youth protection laws (despite the uncut game having been granted a rating making it legal). People were not happy.

In several other cases (e.g. Sniper Elite v2, Saints Row 3) Valve even kept German users from registering their legally bought (uncut) international versions of games again citing German youth protection laws as the reason. Never mind the fact that both importing, owning and playing the international version is perfectly legal in Germany. Therefore the only way to play your legally acquired copy is using a proxy of some sort for registration which in turn is prohibited by the Steam Terms of Agreement. Some were caught and "lucky" enough just to lose their game, some very unlucky people lost their account and their entire library.

Neither of these issues was ever adressed. Even if those examples are rare and rather extreme cases, that's not something I'm willing to tolerate personally.

I don't boycott anything, and don't particularly give a damn. I'll buy from anywhere. I just want to play games and have fun. Steam doesn't prevent me from doing that any more than GOg or Gamersgate or any other retailer whose service I use does, so whatever.

My opinion is that GG don't sell DRM-free games by my definition of the word.

Happy to help!

No.

There are two kinds of piracy.

The first is where you hand off your game to a friend. No DRM prevents this effectively, unless it's a game that requires the user to be online with no exceptions, as even Steam has offline mode, which, while stupid in that it requires you to be online in order to activate it, works in that two people can be playing the same copy of a game. This "hand it off to your friend" thing is so uncommon that it's not worth trying to combat. Show of hands: Who around here is so poor that they go around begging their friends for a free copy of a game they want? Nobody? Thought so. Only place it's common at all is when within a family that earns a singular income doesn't want to buy multiple copies of a game just so they can play multiplayer. Then there's the even more rare instance of, your friend doesn't know what X game is so you show him. Either he likes the game and keeps using the free copy, likes the game and goes and buys it just for the sake of feeling like he owns it, likes it and buys it because he wants to play non-LAN multiplayer with you, or more likely does not like it enough to either buy it or continue playing the free version.

The other is torrenting. Unless you institute some seriously draconian DRM, this is literally impossible to prevent from happening. I don't think I need to explain this part. Torrenting will always be around, and nobody will likely be able to do anything effective enough without pissing people off, that recent internet bill as a prime example.

Implementing DRM either gains very little amounts of potential sales, or more likely the amount of pissed off customers who constitute as lost sales cancel out or exceed the amount of customers gained through stopping such an insignificant amount of piracy. Either way, DRM is totally pointless.