I avoid Steam.
Whenever I can.
Sadly, that's not always the case.
Boycott would be too strong a word. I boycott Electronic Arts and Ubisoft out of principle, but given the crap they release these days, that's about as hard as abstaining from eating roadkill. I also boycott Activision/Blizzard, but again, their focus is on colourful multiplayer skinner-boxes, which I can quite frankly do without.
If I can get a title on GOG, I will. If I can get hold of a DRM-free version on Humble or Itch.io, I'll take that instead of the steam version. I have no love for Steam's "community" features (seriously, nearly all steam forums seem to be steaming toxic shitholes populated by screaming and raging manchildren), their idiotic trading cards, emotes, paid backgrounds, I-can't-believe-it's-not-pachinko-style resale of digital items for money (or at least "store credit"), the sad excuse for a storefront they call the steam store or their obtrusive POS client.
But Steam's portfolio is pervasive. While it's not quite the only platform around anymore, they still have pretty much everything that gets published these days.
There are titles, like say, the upcoming Monster Hunter: World, that I want to play, come hell or high water, DRM and Steam bloatware be damned. But those titles are rare, and few and far inbetween.
Hell, if a game is good enough and gets re-released on GOG, I'll probably rebuy it.
Sadly, some things like the GOG version of Dragon's Dogma turned out to be a bit of a letdown due to infrastructure issues, and there's always the issue with Devs that can't be arsed to keep their games updated across all of their distribution platforms. The latter is especially infuriating.
And then there's certain sales. If I can get something decent for a fiver or a tenner, I'll probably bite the bullet, play through it on steam once or twice, and then uninstall the entire shebang along with the client. The original Dark Souls was one such title, got it for a tenner, enjoyed it tremendously.
I prefer going DRM-less. But at the end of the day, my hobby is playing games, and I prefer to pay for the stuff I'm using. I'd rather not play a title rather than pirating it. If it's good enough to play, then it's good enough to pay the piper.
In a perfect world, I'd skip the middleman, pay the developer what it's worth, and enjoy the game, but this world is anything but. I'm no saint, I'm no hero, I'm just a player of games. If it interests me, I will play it, and I'm willing to jump a few extra hoops, but I'm not about to martyr myself for a lofty ideal.
