I think most gamers care about DRM. But they are reflective enough to distinguish between different offers of DRM. And they have decided that Steam has no downsides for them that would warrant any kind of boycott.

Try selling this bundle with an always online DRM. I think the difference would be very noticeable.

I have exactly the opposite view. Developers and publishers exist to please gamers. That is it.

And people ask why the word entitlement always comes up ...

They exist to please the -majority- of gamers in order to make a profit. Fifty million Steam accounts and half a million THQ bundles sold suggests the majority of gamers don't really care about low levels of restrictions or DRM.

Strange, did you just forget about Steam offline mode...

And how do you measure "enough inconvenience", listening to certain person, you included, downloading a patch and double clicking on it to install it is already an insurmountable inconvenience, so finding a VPN, downloading it, installing it then using it to receive/download the game is OK... but starting once the game and switch to offline mode is too much... strange.

Yeah right, because it's true that an industry at the mercy of its customer it's very bad... but customer at the mercy of said industry it's good (especially when the industry in question abused of every bit of power it ever manage to gain).

It's a question of compromises... giving all the "tools" to one side is not. In the end your dream world with every game being streamed and the industry having absolute power on every second of your gameplay will probably come true soon enough... no need to wish for it to come closer.

This would be the same as the pirated version. Not to mention multiplayer ...

That is actually quite the opposite of what I want. But I guess that is hard to comprehend as for some people black and white are the only options ...

I believe the point is that regional restrictions (which are ultimately a form of DRM) can exist to alleviate unfair worldwide pricing, preventing (or at least obstructing) Westerners from just buying Russian Steam keys for pennies. This isn't necessarily an advantage from the perspective of the comforts of the USA or Western Europe (whilst we end up paying more for a game than someone living in Russia, we also have a higher income anyway), but it is ultimately "fairer" from a global economic viewpoint. Control is sometimes necessary to make a system fair (note emphasis).

Facts:

1)I care about the state and long-run health of DRM free, cross-platform gaming.
2)I care about people keeping to their word and principles to the greatest extent possible.
3)I don't mind Steamworks and other such minimal DRM outside of contexts of where it conflicts with 1) and/or 2) but
4)I will never prefer games with DRM no matter how minimal to games without DRM because
5)DRM *in and of it self* doesn't add anything at all to games. Steamworks for example has other things than DRM but it would be conceivable to use those features without using the DRM features. You can provide achievements without DRM, you can provide community chat without DRM, you can provide cloud saving without DRM, etc

Edit:

On regional restrictions, I will just say that I find it unfair that I have to pay more for games than americans.

That's fair enough, and you're entitled to your opinions, but you still have to appreciate that publishers and developers don't care about you as an individual. They care about the majority consensus.

Not caring that much about DRM, considering that Steam is not a too evil DRM is one thing; but suggesting that Steam could (should?) make it's DRM more draconian, and that industry should be given the tools to control it's evil customer.... it's a lot closer to black than to light gray; I supposed that between dark gray and pure black there are plenty of in between shades... but do they really matter that much.

You can't have everything, you can't support the implementation of new/improved/stricter DRM methods and hope that said industry will be nice enough to stop and not take the final step that would make those system unbreakable.

And if anything, if you think that region restriction is a "positive" thing then it would be logical for you to a supporter of streaming as it's basically the "dream" solution for that : impossible to crack and thanks to technological limitation it even makes the use of VPN also impossible.

This is exactly what I'm saying.

Considering eg. the widespread of breaking apart PWYW bundles this control is necessary.

And Steam is currently a very low intrusive option that is working very well. The Russian expansion has shown this. I expect similar results from the Brazil expansion.

What I consider also very necessary for every bundle is that the buyer has to decide if he wants Steam OR DRM free OR Desura. Not all three together. And one Steam key for all games.

It all depends on how well the other partner, the gamer, behaves. The more one side exploits a system, the more power the other side needs to prevent that. I never said I want that. But if the greed and entitlement of the gamers makes this necessary for devs and publisher to survive, that is a necessary evil.

If this is the only factor you look at, sure. But I'm not that narrow-minded. I will never use any Streaming service. Stream is "not just a DRM". DRM solutions are vastly different. But again, black and white and all that.

Seriously, do you really think that regional restriction actually has anything to do with making the system "fairer" ?

The question is not to make it any fairer, the only question is : "how much can you ask in a market to make a profit ?", region restriction is only there to prevent other market from taking advantage of it.

If games in Russia are cheap it's not because it's "fairer" that way, it's only because of the high piracy rate that was prevalent in the country, if they had a way to sell over there games for 50$ and still make enough profit they would have done it without hesitation even if it would mean that only 1% of the population would have been able to afford them.

1 - Secure content delivery
2 - Secure inter-platform mobility
3 - Transfer flexibility
4 - Content security
5 - Tracking flexibility and operationalization
7 - Software version and content syncing

There are more, but low level DRM make every single one of these EASIER, before you say anything, yes it is possible to do them without DRM, but with it can be automated, made easy and much more user friendly and convenient.

There are benefits to DRM also, it is just that in most cases it is implemented as a restriction. A tool is just a tool - you can use a hammer to kill someone, you can use it to build a house. A tool is not good or bad, it all depends on the implementation. DRM is a tool. Benefits and disadvantages is what you make out of it.