People only buy games with Steamworks and on Steam when they are cheap . ( 66-75% off )

Also :

Speaking about always online DRM :
http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2012/05/18/fish-out-water-big-fish-games-announces-plans-move-cloud#comment-form

I'm sure you have research to back that up... oh no wait, you don't, and pulled that fact from your rear end.

Skyrim says hello, amongst a hundred others. People get made when a game does NOT have Steamworks, like Borderlands.

Skyrim ? Bethesda , Zenimax , and Valve are assholes ( game overpriced , overhyped , buggy , region restricted ) Who want to own that DRM infected ( even the retail copies ) game ?

That's only because there is no choice. Some new games like Skyrim have mandatory steam so if you want them you have to use steam. So I think a big part of steam customers is just that because they have no choice if they want to play some games. It doesn't say much about what people really think about steam.

No. 'Steam' increases sales.

When people say things like "no Steam, no sale", it's far more likely they mean "if I cannot buy it on Steam, I probably won't get it at all", as opposed to "if I cannot buy it laden down with DRM, I probably won't get it at all".

Steam never releases statistics. So we'll likely never know. But remember that all the retail copies were Steamworks. So a lot of people might have bought the game without realising that.

One thing that doesn't get mentioned here, is that at some point in time, those always-online games will be unplayable. It may look far in the future, but few years from now, publishers will kill game servers as there is no point for them in supporting them anymore (Don't believe it? EE is the example, although it used it only for MP). And what happens then?

Jesus man, you really need to stop thinking everyone shares your opinion. That game sold amazingly well on PC, people like the achievements, Steam workshop and cloud saves, among other features. People like this stuff, whether you and I do or not.

Many people actually likes Steam features. They have one all games in one launcher for all games, cloud saves, account bound games (makes it easy to swap machines), Steam Workshop, social functions and so on. Say what you want, but Steam does make PC gaming very convenient.

Most people do not actually care very much about DRM at all... (unless it becomes to intrusive)

I don't mind account binding of games. I try to be a resonable buyer and I get the games I want to keep. And usually do reserach beforehand so that I'm not (too much) disappointed. So in the end I buy the games I don't want to sell.
There are always some good sides of things, even stupid DRM methods.
Heck, today even the idiotic always online DRM of Diablo 3 became somewhat useful when a friend came by and wanted to check something and play a little and just logged into his account and voila, his saves, characters, all there.
I think that the worst DRM was the one with "limited activations" when it recognized a small change to the hardware as a new system and used up one activation. It was unnecessary, stupid, didn't fix anything when it comes to piracy and just annoyed the legal users.

That IMHO the main reason why GoG should really implement a optional client with download/launch, auto-patch download, cloud save and even maybe achievements if anything just to prove that you can have Steam-like features without necessarily having the DRM part bound to it.

That's one of the very silly thing we often hear where peoples seems to believe that Steam can only offer such features because of the DRM and that those wouldn't be possible without it.

Stardock had an interesting idea with their "Reactor" thingy, sadly like a lot of Stardock thing it never was anything more than a good idea.

I'm surprised that I am having to come to the conclusion that achievements are now an important part of gaming for a lot of people. They are the gamer equivalent of a dog biscuit, but there are way too many people that are starting to demand their existence, and I think its one of the bigger issues involved when trying to detox someone from Steam.

Any sizable company could probably provide some sort of application manager that manages and launches their purchases. Achievements however, may be technically more difficult, especially when talking about GOG's back catalog being littered with games that were both made and acquired for sale before any such system was in place. If GOG can't provide a consistent product in that regard (and probably wouldn't) then it could be a mess.

I don't know by what process games hook into steam, but I'm thinking going forward game devs need to be tracking achievements internally and broadcasting them in some standardized format so that anyone can write an achievement tracker. Right now I doubt any such standardization exists meaning the only way you can get them is by staying loyal to whatever service you purchased your game from.

Even then this only really helps going forward. Unless some open standard can be agreed upon by developers, Steam and similar will just get to continue dangling achievements and saying "You do want these right?" Yes. Apparently we do.

I do realize there are multiple platforms that support achievements, but I'd prefer not to consider Steam a "platform." PC gaming doesn't need sub-platforms, its fragmented enough without any of that.

I don't need those .
And achievements sucks .

Achievements are just another form of feedback a game gives you. Denigrating them by calling the "dog biscuits" isn't very self aware. Now, like any gaming feedback they will be both poorly done and masterfully done, but that's not a flaw inherent to them in particular.

I don't know about Steam achievements. They seem like a real poor man's implementation to me. I've seen third party websites for help with XBox Live's achievement system that are more in depth, with better feedback, and more interesting. The base XBox achievement system itself is also more interesting, again imo, but the Steam system just doesn't seem to provide much besides the badge and percentage of players that have gotten it.