Hey,

so first of all I guess I have to explain my strict opinion and viewpoint:
I am a person who follows a certain ideology and absolutely dislikes any form of DRM or unfairness, when it comes to the Internet and games (and of course a few other things).
I do not buy anything from Steam, I actually try to convince anybody interested to not to buy games from them or a similar distributor. I think it is a mess of a business, with too many restrictions, a forced client, and so on and so on. I would not even give away free Steam codes I own, because I do not want to support anyone in using this service (this one is rather radical, I know). The same goes for anything which includes DRM (yes, the Humble Bundle too, because they offer Steam-only games), obviously.
I also dislike unfair practises. There are many examples for this kind of thing happening, for example fake FLAC files (and they are very hard to expose), bad support concerning failed transactions, and so on and so on. More generally speaking this includes every business dealing with their customers as purses, rather than as persons.
Now, I am really happy to have found GOG.com as an alternative. As far as I know there is nothing comparable out there. I can agree with GOGs terms and policies to a hundred percent, and I am the guy who cries in anger, when they announce something like regional pricing.

So, here comes my question: Is there any bundle or store, besides GOG.com, which fulfils my requirements?
And by the way, this goes for anything (also music, eBooks, et cetera), not only games.

I would love to hear anything from you guys, since this seems to be the best place to ask such a question (with people elsewhere just scratching their head in lack of understanding).

So, thank you in advance.

For ebooks if you're into science fiction and fantasy then there is BAEN EBooks.

Since Jim Baen died I've been afraid they would change their policy (specially since they've stopped adding title to their free library) but it has not happened yet.

Most of the games on Desura are fully DRM-free with their client being optional (a minority requires the client, I've heard).

For e-books, there's , and every once in a while there's a [url=http://storybundle.com/]Storybundle, both being fully DRM-free. Books pubilshed by TOR/Forge are DRM-free wherever you buy them.

For music, have a look at Bandcamp.

You may want to check out Smashwords for e-books.

Regarding music, I need you to elaborate on "fake FLAC files" before making a suggestion, if at all.

For games, I don't believe that there's another store that sells exclusively DRM-free besides DotEmu, if that's what you're looking for.

There's sadly very little choice for DRM-free proponents.

Which is why I've come to look at individual products rather than the store as a whole.

Steam is, of course, a clusterfuck since they don't tell which games are, in fact, DRM-free (yes, they do exist, even there) and with the list changing over time, and Gamersgate are just being dicks with using their encrypting downloader even on DRM-free titles (though it's easy to get around).

go check out www.epicbundle.com they got most bundle deals listed, be it games, ebooks, music, audiobooks, programming software

Thank you that is an awesome find since im a big fan of scifi and fantasy stuff :)

They do, however, tend to lie. Humble Bundle support has informed me that they consider offering any downloadable installer as sufficient to qualify as "technically DRM-free", regardless of whether it is complete or even functional, and regardless of whether or not it uses DRM-imposed limitations.

Awesomenauts is labelled DRM-free, but after installing and running you are greeted with a fullscreen banner informing you that in order to play the game you need to get the real thing via Steam. You're then left with something which could generously be described as a demo - it's outdated, missing almost all of the content, and limited strictly to "practice mode".

Monaco is also labelled DRM-free, but when you try to play it detects whether you're logged in through Steam and, if not, disables all network multiplayer functionality. None of this is ever disclosed before purchase.

Humble Bundle are well aware of all of this, but they deliberately mislead their customers in order to target those who are specifically interested in playing non-Steam-dependant forms of the particular games.

I regret every tip I've ever given them.

Okay, wow, thank you very much for the mention of Baen and StoryBundle, those two look very nice.

Smashwords seems to be okay too, but I do not like the fact to have to look at every book by myself to find out whether is has DRM or not, and that is something you have to to if I have understood everything from the FAQ.

DotEmu has regional pricing, so there is no way I am going to buy something from them.

Desura has the same problem as Smahwords, since not all games are offered DRM-free, and there is a client... generally a little bit too much odds and ends.

Humbe is unfair and tends to lie ever now and then, as I had to experience by myself, they also offer Steam-only games, and so on, so sadly this is not an option for me either.

Bandcamp is a little bit more difficult, since it is a great service and I like to buy music there, but they offer those aforementioned fake FLAC files (which are in the responsibility of the artist, to be fair).
Fake FLAC means they took a normal lossy file, for example a MP3, and just converted it into a FLAC. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, which means the file is compressed but has no loss in quality, while lossy formats (MP3, AAC, et cetera) are smaller but have a loss of quality. So, when offering a FLAC, you are offering the best quality, which a fake FLAC cannot have, since it was created from a lossy file. Unfortunately you cannot find out whether a FLAC is fake or not, unless you already have the file on your computer.

That's a very dodgy practice that needs to be exposed more. Any pro Humble fans care to comment on this ? For what its worth Storybundle *does* have the occasional book they cant sell from a bundle to x country -- one of the recent bundles i tried to buy for a specific book (there is actually a second i just realised as well possibly) -- book was available anywhere but in Australia and other Commonwealth countries because of a previous agreement the author had prior to getting into the bundle :/ "The new DRM-free editions are available from the same retailers that have sold Tor e-books in the past. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books."

Interesting.I dont know of too many ebook stores at all. I wonder which other ones out there sell them? hmm

Hmm, that does not sound very good, I will have a closer look at them, thank you for the warning.

Allright, my recommendation is thus withdrawn.

The following part of the FAQ confused me:
DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and it refers to schemes in which a digital book is copy-protected, or limited to reading on only certain devices. Books on Smashwords do not contain DRM. However, these works are still the property of the copyright holder, and most are only licensed for the personal use of the purchaser. At Smashwords, we give the author the freedom to specify their licensing statement (see Smashwords License Statement below, which is the most common version used by our authors).

Reading it now, at 3:00 PM instead of 3:00 AM, it makes total sense to me and seems to be fine, so I will have a closer look at this one too, so thanks for the additional call.

Mhm, nice, they actually explicitly say they offer FLACs (and other formats of course), which originate from a lossless source. But I would have to buy something from them to check whether that is practically true or not. They also seem to support iTunes, Spotifiy and other "evil things" and that is something I feel not so comfortable about. But I will check them out eventually.

Baen is absolutely great, and I can highly recommend them.

E-books from Tor, on the other hand, are not necessarily DRM-free. I have bought quite a few on Amazon, and some actually do have DRM.
Example: Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (I just checked).
I think (not sure, though) that it is the difference between "Tor Books" and "Tor" as the publisher listed on Amazon: "Tor Books" - DRM-free, while "Tor" may not be.