CD key is DRM (Digital Rights Management) though by todays standards it's ineffective DRM and very mild DRM but DRM none the less.
It is a digital check to mange the right of the game owner to play the game.
No key = No play whether you paid for the game or not, that is DRM. There is no disputing it, it's a basic fact.
GOG uses no CD Keys for single player games, though some multiplayer components of GOG games come with a CD Key, it is the Multiplayer Server that requires it, not GOG.
You are wrong to call such games DRM free because the key is undisputably DRM, the first DRM ever used in fact, long before the name DRM was invented.
The fact it's always been "Useless DRM" is irrelevent, all DRM is useless at stopping piracy, the supposed target. Only honest users are stopped by DRM. We all know this. even Ubisoft admit it now, but they still don't really understand what it means
Ubisoft: DRM Can't Stop Piracy - GameSpot To fight piracy, Early explained that Ubisoft needs to not only focus on making better, more compelling games, but also ensure that these games have more online services (which are not available to pirates) baked into them
So "Online Services" that paying players may not want is what DRM Free means to them, it just means "Online DRM" to me."
They just don't get what Custermer Service means and never will, Ubisoft and EA are the worst Game publishers there is in my view, they care only about profit, if getting more means exp[loiting paying customers, it's done, over and over, again and again. They pretend to listen and mend their ways. Then do the same crap, over and over, again and again. They cause more piracy by these actions than any DRM has ever stopped.
Preaching to the converted I know, but reading that article raised my hopes and then immediatly dashed them in one sentence.