Why would they? They LIKE it. That's the whole point.
You keep spouting your niche opinion like it means something, like it's a counter-argument.

Me? Don't assume you know anything about my preferences. I am telling you the reality, not my own viewpoint. I'm pretty sure my thoughts on DRM and clients and social networking in games are well known (as in, negative).

Are there really large groups of people who will absolutley refuse to buy a game because it doesn't have cloud saving? Or offer in game chat? Are there people who activley seek out and buy only games that tell them how many hours they spent playing them? Is this player base that much larger than those who refuse to play games tied to GFWL/Origin/Steam?

How about this. Just make a game the way you want it maade and then offer it to all the digital distributors. For the sake of argument let's say they all decide to carry it. Anyone who cares about those features will buy from Steam or GFWL or Origin, those who don't will buy from D2D or GG or GOG. Where is the downside? You simply upload the same update to multiple sites instead of just one, let the distributor worry about the packaging that's their job.

Does anybody has any hard evidence that Steam revitalised PC gaming and not for example just cannibalized the existing market? Something like reliable selling charts comparing sales and turnovers before and after.

With all due respect, you beginn to sound like on of those evolution critics ....

There _are_ no reliable sales charts any more since Steam became popular. Steam doesn't publicize any sales figures. And since only Steam and the game's publisher _know_ how many copies were sold through Steam, the only remaining source of information is the publisher, who has a vested interest in blowing up the numbers. There is no third party any more that could publish numbers on a more objective basis.

There are reliable numbers that demonstrate that the brick-and-mortar sales are going down. The rest has become almost impossible to determine (for some specific games you may be able to get reliable numbers through other sources, like public reports to a company's shareholders).

You do not want numbers. You want your opinion proven, that is a difference. You do not ask for numbers whenever somebody states that there is a huge number of people who want DRM free games and wouldn't buy them otherwise.

Science is always biased, and never neutral. Human nature...

But those numbers are backed by numerous online polls. Sure there are some that can be thrown out due to bias, like any found on a Steam/Anti-Steam forum, but most show that between 35%-40% of respondents chose the I Will Not Buy option. Now there is usually a lot of pontification about how all polls are inherantly biased and therefore cannot be used as a basis for any sort of evaluation, even though they this is their primary function. So before anyone spouts out anything about the unreliability of polls I would ask them to provide the results of a better, more accurate, for of measurement.

The real problem is: more selling should not mean that humans rights are less important.

I don't understand your point.

Are you not giving an opinion as well?

What might be a revitalization of gaming for you, might well be seen by others as a rather gloomy chapter in the gaming world. I don't need to worry about Steam or other always-online type DRM schemes as I have enough games to last serveral lifetimes. My concern is for those newer to gaming, and I really do feel sorry for them as to the hoops they have to jump through.

And I really do believe DRM will fail. Sites like Steam are only succeeding because they haven't managed to get their DRM to be effective yet - look at how many are saying "I don't really care about Steam because I'll just crack the game if I have a problem..." . But should the day come that Steam really can prevent people from bypassing their DRM scheme, there will be a backlash. Of that I am pretty confident.
Appologies! I thought you were trying to convince me that Steam is a good thing.

The most telling sign of Steam being actually approached as a service (apart from me actually defending it) is probably its success on the russian market. In Russia you can get every piece of software cracked and free of charge of the internet. For a very long time piracy was the only way to get most software in Russia, heck, last time I checked you could actually buy pirated software in the supermarket.

Everybody told Steam it would be a disaster to move on the russian market. Guess what, they are making a killing over there.

Steam is, imo, only the most visible form of the shift from retail to digital. This shift was what actually put the PC gaming back on the map. Selling a game and getting 95% back as profits is something that you simply can't dream of in retail. That lead to massive discounts, which again drove users up. Steam is only the most successfull (and first, iirc) of the digital distribution services. So I wouldn't say that Steam single handedly revitalized PC gaming, but it sure is the most visible of the digital services out there.

The DRM part of Steam is less interesting to the average user as it was ten years ago, because internet is literally everywhere nowadays. That is, among other things, the reason I stopped my opposition to Steam. Even when I was in some godforsaken Hell hole of a country like Georgia, I still was able to play my Steam games. So any problems I could have with Steam were of a dogmatic nature, and games are not that important for me. (And as a strong believer in piracy, I really don't see Steam as a threat in that regard).

tl:dr. Steam is so successfull because of the services/sales they offer, not because they have the securest or strongest DRM. (Which is actually quite weak).

I think you will find that most people (those not on this site) don't really care about Steam because it works and it gives them no hassle. Most people do not crack steam games, but use the service as intended. DRM will not fail, since in the eyes of the large corporations it serves it purpose.

I think Steam is great for casual gamers who have lots of bandwidth and clearly don't intend playing a particular game for too long. I buy a lot of RPGs and I intend to play them a long time, hence I make sure that DRM schemes won't impact me in the long run. That's why I'm suprised Skyrim is Steam only. Unless there's a lot less replay value in it than previous Elder Scrolls games and people are quickly going to get bored and move onto the next big thing, I don't get it. And they don't get me either ;-)

The day Steam shuts down, I will have more important problems than games. Like keeping zombies of my lawn. And even if Steam shuts down sometime in the future I can still go to Abondia to get Skyrim. Or maybe it will be on GOG then. Those aren't scenarios I put alot of thought in because the probability of them happening stands in no relation to the loss of good games I would miss.