I think this is a bit too high morale ground. Everyone is a potential criminal and I think it makes sense to actually take some precautions. Otherwise we would never need fences or surveillance or other measures. It rather always depends on the amount of anti-crime measures - if they are in proportion.

They tried it but quickly failed there too. I guess because of bad publicity. Maybe the public prefers actually Steam to the direct persecution of pirates.

For me the reason quite often is to get over the copy protection of the original retail game so that I can play without the CD. For some reason I seem to have problems making working ISO images from old Windows retail games, e.g. I had to play Heavy Gear by actually keeping the original CD in the tray, even though it is quite an old Windows game.

And it is still a choice. You are not forced to buy the same game several times, you choose to do so for whatever reason. As it happens, I haven't re-bought games I have on retail CDs from Steam again. Save for maybe Deus Ex, and only because adding it to the Deus Ex bundle (which I bought for Deus Ex: HR) cost next to nothing. I am not looking forward to play the Steam version of Deus Ex, though.

Not really. I could erect normal wooden fences around my garden and it wouldn't affect anyone who breaks the law. But I could also take even more precautions and erect electric fences that make this irritating buzzing noise and interfere with transmission equipment. Online DRM is very much the latter.

The quality of a anti-contravention measure like fencing or DRM is defined not only by the manner through which it prevents contravention, but also by the manner it affects other parties not contravening the rules. DRM affects everyone, not just pirates.

I'm certainly not arguing that it's a choice. I'm just saying it's a choice people often make.

...

Player 1 starts Steam and launches a co-op game.
Player 2 tries to start Steam to play co-op game with player 1.

Steam says "Steam instance is already running" and refuses to start for Player 2.

This is the latest reason I have discovered.

...

This is one of the rare cases GOG may prove the same actually. For games that use them, they only supply you 1 multiplayer key.

But yeah, it's guaranteed with Steam, you can't have two people on the same Steam account (by default), so two people playing the same multiplayer game off the same Steam account is certainly not a possibility. (assuming you tried it with offline mode)

We are talking about the company-customer relationship. If the fence or camera surveillance would somehow make it harder for me to use the product or service I am buying, then I would prefer to buy it from a store which doesn't inconvenience the use of it the same way.

Or if we are talking about e.g. airport security, I actually consider it part of the deal that they try to make sure that no bad people with fire crackers enter the same plane where I travel. I want to be safe when travelling on the plane.

DRM in a game I have bought does not give me similar perks, only more inconvenience as a legit customer. It is the same reason I wouldn't buy a book which requires me to call the book store every time I wanted to read it.

Actually the main complaint (I hope) was that they might prosecute people who had not pirated The Witcher 2. But if someone was really defending the actual pirates (as in, they shouldn't be prosecuted), shame on them.

Why would anyone have to?

And it would still be your choice, either way.

Come again? DRM is needed in order to prosecute a pirate? You must be joking.

you know.... that is so silly it is not even worth a reply. it is about finding out who is the pirate. You need to separate the ones playing a legitimate version, and those who do not. But then I guess we can just blanket IP attack people, that seems to work.

Unfortunately you are in a minority. Witcher 2 sold at least five times more copies through Steam than through GOG afair.

Even worse often there is no such choice because there isn't any DRM free version. At least then most people (my estimate) will finally accept DRM.

You'll always face the chance of getting a false negative (unless you have total control). You cannot just go only after the pirates.

In a way I would actually say yes. GOG is all about not fighting piracy. So how would you prosecute piracy of GOG games?

In a way it seems that DRM free is the cheap option when you think that DRM is not effective. It might be less of an ideology, but just a practical thing to do when you capitulate to piracy.

Never said anyone 'had' to? I'd simply prefer not to. I don't feel any need to.

I don't want to spend the next years/decade downloading/backup-ing games I buy. Storing it on DVD's/USB Sticks/HDD's, making backups of the backups. Remembering where I left it every time GOG shows that 'new' tag, wondering if my collection is actually up to date, whether they changed something in it that I have or haven't backed up yet. Wondering if it's all updated. Dealing with manual install/uninstall/updates.

I've *had* stockpiles of cassettes, floppies, disks, cd's, dvd's, and I rarely ended up needing any of it, with some rare exceptions. I'm done with that. I've been done with that for a long time. And the market has changed to accommodate that. I don't need to bother with it anymore.

Does that mean that some day in the future, something could go wrong and I may loose access to stuff I previously bought already? Sure. But if it happens, I would still prefer digital cloud backups over the hassle of local backups again. Even if I had a GOG style library all backed up of everything I previously bought. I'd still go looking for a replacement for the digital library I lost. And luckily by that time most of it will probably be cheap to regain, and quite possibly in better versions than the ones I originally bought.

They have to be stored somewhere, either on GOG/Steam servers or on your computer. If you rather get them from hard disc or download them, seems more like a matter of taste. However actually GOG could make it easier for me to download and synchronize a local library of installers, like when you mark all installers you want to have local and then the client keeps them uptodate (automatically or asking every time) and you can download them again on a new computer with one click as a background process and such things...

I prefer them out there in the cloud. Then I do not need to worry about space (as in physical) , about my backups getting corrupted, do not need to worry about running out of space (as in MB's), do not need to worry about having the latest version, it is easily transferable if I move and so on.