I said already which kind of DRM I would find acceptable, something that wouldn't change the way you install/play your games.

Yes, DRM is "that bad". It's the reason I don't own any games on Steam or any other DRMed platform (plus the must-have client sucks, and would be enough for me to not spend money there). If GOG were to be stupid enough to start with DRM, I would never spend another dime here, and I have spent rather a lot.

GOG is the beacon in the night.

What DRM is: controlling how you can interact with your content.

What DRM isn't: a convenient management and content delivery platform.

Steam is both a DRM and a CMS (content management system). This gives the illusion that it's only a CMS with a lot of convenience for people to ignore the fact that they can't do anything they want with their purchased products. Even when Steam loosens the reigns by making it feel extensible you still have to realize that you're tied up.

So don't confuse a good CMS with a good DRM. There's no such thing and being locked to specific use scenarios or limited activations is never cool. That's not to say Steam itself is bad. It's rather very convenient and a good way to get free games once you learn the trading system. "Is DRM bad if you're getting the games for free?" - That's a better question to ask in my opinion.

Is Syphilis that bad?

Are we at the point now where limited internet is a valid reason to move? First world problems, I guess...

That's what everyone who has a weak position says.

It's true that DRM is far from perfect in achieving its goals, but it does work to an extent. On the flip side most honest customers hardly suffer from it. If DRM was a serious problem for most, Steam wouldn't be the success that it is.

My opinion, if it wasn't clear, is that DRM-free is better, because consumer good trumps corporate good. However my opinion is also that in practice DRM isn't that much of an issue, and DRM platforms (such as Steam) tend to have enough benefits that most people just ignore this issue.

That doesn't make DRM a good thing, but I feel that it's not going to go away, so the way forward is two-pronged: trying to get law makers to clearly establish a good line on consumer rights in the digital space (the EU has been doing decent work on this front), and building on DRM and expanding its feature set to cover more rights (as Valve has been doing to some extent) and using its features (such as Amazon is doing with Underground, where it pays devs by play time).
IMO GOG's direction with Galaxy is the right one. GOG needs to offer Steam conveniences without dropping DRM-free. If DRM-free is to succeed, the DRM-free position needs to always be stronger than the DRM one. If DRM allows a refund after install just because you don't like the game, DRM-free needs to offer that too. If DRM allows you to easily brag to people about your gaming achievements and play time, DRM-free needs to provide that too. As long as DRM platforms have more features, there is no way you can tell people who want these features that DRM-free is better for them.

Ever had CRC (cyclic redundancy check) error with your disk? Or Securom not working? THAT is why DRM-free is better.

I agree, it is understandable from their point of view. But that doesn't mean I should be fully fine with the idea too, if it somehow inconveniences me as a customer.

For instance, when the video recorders originally came to market (so that you could record even movies from the TV and watch them as many times as you wanted, loan it to your friends etc.), the movie content owners tried to outlaw them IIRC. It was perfectly understandable they tried to do that, as the video recorders took away some of the control that they had over the movie and TV series content.

End-users, obviously, disagreed with that. They loved the convenience that video recorders gave them. So who was right? Both sides, in their own ways?

So what is the form of DRM that doesn't have those drawbacks? Steam CEG (DRM) doesn't fulfill those requirements, as it does (at least try to) prevent offline installation, and future use without the Steam service existing.

Watermarking would be such a thing, but then not everyone really considers it as truly a form of DRM, at least it is not something they have in mind when discussing about DRM. I personally would be fine with watermarking in games, whichever way that would be implemented. I don't mind that if my GOG games somehow leaked to torrent sites, the IP rights holders or GOG could track it back to me as the original purchaser of those copies. After all, it is my duty to make sure I don't leak my purchased GOG games to anyone else. GOG gave me the control with DRM-free, and I should employ that control responsibly.

If someone misuses the trust by sharing their DRM-free games, then those people should be the target. I am in the minority, but I didn't have an issue with CDPR going after the pirates who were sharing and pirating (DRM-free, mind you) The Witcher 2 on torrent sites. CDPR got a lot of flak for that, as if they shouldn't have reacted to the pirates at all apparently. Maybe the law firm they hired should have used some other method than the threatening legal letters ("pay up or we sue you!"), but in general I don't have an issue with CDPR going after the pirates.

I prefer the model where all customers are not automatically considered as potential criminals (with restrictive DRM), but the IP rights holders go against the very people who are the actual wrongdoers.

Nailed it right. I consider that DRM, whether free games or paid games, is still bad. Of course you can come and say that free games do have a price to pay in order to be played, which would be the DRM in this scenario, but these very same free games are lumped together with paid games which are also DRM'd in the same way. Whether I pay a price (using money, any forms of it) for the game or not, be it via a giveaway or utilizing these lame trading cards or whatever, I'm still bound to the DRM.

GOG occasionally does free titles for a limited time, and the price I have to pay for these free titles is just the time I spend to claim the game for myself. After that I can download it here on Earth and then take a space trip to the moon and install said free title offline up there and play without the internet. Oh wait, why am I talking about outer space?

Now I'm making also the following considerations... beside customer rights vs corporation greed, there are also the developers that often prefer DRM. Take Bethesda, they'd never release Fallout 4 on GOG, because they don't want a DRM-free version of it. Yes some of their games are on GOG but only the old ones, not even Oblivion, because they know it can still sell well on Steam. Why did they allow the older ones then? Because they sold what they could sell on Steam, with no much hope of earning much more there from them, instead appearing on GOG would have instantly meant a lot of new sold copies. Even if after that it would have been easier to pirate it, it would have been a lot of instant money. This way GOG risks to be a secondary market for older titles that have been milked already on Steam.

For many new games piracy is also impractical because most new games (at least nowadays) are released with bugs and need lots of update, with the period after the launch becoming an user-paid beta-testing, and this makes many people buy them on the only platform that has them, that is Steam, to get all the updates when they come out.

Very recent titles on GOG tend to be either indies, or games like Pillars of Eternity that covered their costs already with their kickstarter campaigns and that had a DRM-free version among their stretch goals, or games so big that they are guaranteed to sell, even on Steam (the Witcher 3 has over 1.000.000 owners there, checked on SteamSpy, and it's never been discounted below 50%, so many people bought it there even if hey can have the DRM-free version here...). I've been rather surprised to see Gal Civ 3 here, because Stardock has usually been very picky with DRM and registration stuff. I guess somebody takes the risk, considering that GOG has a certain hype anyway.

Finally, even for pirated games, there's a big difference, games that have DRM are shared with cracks, and many contain viruses or malware, and this discourages many potential "customers", whereas a DRM-free game can be shared and downloaded almost without risks. I also think that people that use to play pirated games belong more to the Steam crowd more than GOG's, they wouldn't need to buy from GOG if they want its games, while they're forced to buy the new ones from Steam. All this puts GOG in a position that is more vulnerable than Steam.

With all this I'm not advocating for DRM on GOG, because I understand it myself that it would be like suicide. If GOG has a following, it's because it's different from other distributors.

"Watermarking" as you call it would make the installation files traceable and make the practice of sharing them through torrents riskier, at least you wouldn't find the whole GOG catalog on torrent sites. And for the customer nothing would change, really.

But nobody's perfect, and anyway one pirate customer over one million is enough to pirate a game for other millions of potential customers.

So let's say GOG allows DRM in their games (either third-party DRM, or their own implementation, like Steam's CEG, or both).

What would be the selling point for GOG.com after that? Why would you buy Fallout 4 from GOG.com instead of Steam? Cheaper price? Better multiplayer support? Better mod support?

At this point offering DRM-free games (and officially supporting them as such) is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, selling point for GOG.com (the other big one would be the old games, ie. GOG trying to make sure they really work on newer PCs). I think GOG realizes that if they gave in to DRM, in practice they'd just be a cheap imitation of Steam, nothing more.

At that point, maybe it would be better to give up with its own infrastructure altogether, and simply start selling Steam keys instead, like GMG, Gamersgate etc. GMG also has or had their own "capsule" system, but it seems most people didn't see any point to buy a capsule version of a game, rather than the Steam version. Same seems to have slowly happened to Gamersgate, most people seem to regard it only as a Steam/Origin key seller at this point.

What does that have to do with DRM? Some publishers' delays and reluctance to bring updates and DLCs fast to non-Steam platforms isn't due to DRM, but them prioritizing Steam service above others, as most of their customers are there. Prime example being e.g. Hands of Fate, where the GOG version got the updates only recently, and the DLC is still missing, and apparently no idea if they ever come here. If the GOG version had DRM, I don't think anything would be different really (not even sure if the Steam version has any DRM either).

So is it specifically watermarking that you are pushing as the kind of hassle-free DRM? Ok then, but are any games using it yet? Maybe there are some technical hurdles there too so that every sold copy of any game could be watermarked easily, and that it isn't too easily cracked (removing the watermark with some simple utility from all your games).

Yes I agree and I have to repeat that I'm not pushing for this on GOG.

It does in the sense that no regular patches are issued for thos games, only Steam updates, this makes it difficult or impossible to patch a previous pirated version. Also the custom of keeping theGOG version less updated is in my opinion intentional from somebody's part, to incentivize sales on Steam. GOG is seen as an alternative market, that is additional profits, but with higher risk.

I don't think actual games could be watermarked, only the setup, it would be crazy to think that GOG can host a different copy of the game for each account, while a setup file could be watermarked on the fly through some software when a game is downloaded from the account, if it were easy to remove the watermark it would be useless unfortunately.

The reason I prefer DRM-free games is for the indirect advantages of 'copy ownership' and 'offline play'.

Its a cliché thing to say by now, but I do feel that I am only borrowing or renting the games I have on Steam.
No matter how eloquently and rationally pro-Steam users argue their case I still have this feeling.

In contrast when I buy a game DRM-free, or on a physical disc that doesn't require you being online to play...whether on PC or on console, I feel that actually own something, that my money has been spent wisely on something tangible.

To me this depends on what future plans GOG has, if it wants to keep focusing on classic PC games and indie titles there's no cause for concern, if I understand your point correctly.

Should GOG decide to focus on new triple-a titles instead there might be cause for concern.
However it is highly unlikely that the big publishers would ever release their latest triple-a titles on GOG.
The only games they've allowed GOG to sell have been older titles that nobody buys on Steam or console anymore. In other words GOG is the very last chance for them to squeeze out some profit.

I don't agree with your conclusion regarding GOG and pirating, for a number of reasons:
1. many if not most of the classic games on GOG are already easily available for free as DOSbox versions
2. kids today who pirate and use pirated games don't care about old games, they want the new and popular stuff
3. I've been around people who pirate games, they talk about cracked games....not GOG games
4. it only takes one cracked game to make seamlessly endless copies...so GOG games are not more exposed than Steam or Ubisoft games