Halo 2 did have an activation thing but it was the same system as the Windows OS used at the time, and was not an inherent part of GFWL. That's why most GFWL had a separate DRM system, like GTA4's SecuROM, much to people's annoyance.

Again though, this is based on my experiences. Every game could be different, so it's hard to say definitively.

Two examples of really bad DRM implementations:

UPlay: Far Cry 3. The game ran fine, but whenever I opened the menu (for inventory, map, whatever) the damed thing tried to log onto/check a Ubisoft server (for no apparent reason), which more often than not was very flaky, I had to sit there and wait for it to tell me after a half a minute (or longer) that it couldn't connect before I could do anything with the game. This happened so frequently that I simply abandoned it.

Rockstar Social Club: Max Payne 3. To this day I've never been able to sign in/authenticate via Rockstar's retarded DRM measure, so I never got to play the fucking game. Rockstar never seems to have patched it since this "feature" broke.

Consequently, I've never bought anything from these 2 companies again that require these DRM schemes, which is practically all of their games going forward. Oh well.

Indeed. For instance Dead Rising 2 used a zero day DRM which forced the user to tether the license to their account, same with Red Faction Guerrilla. Meanwhile Street Fighter IV (base) used the same as Halo 2 possibly (maybe Gears of War 1 as well?), and it kind of looked like Fallout 3 didn't use either of these as the key wasn't even necessary to start the game.

Hmm I didn't have this issue. Maybe try offline mode? Could be a connection problem or something.

No shit? =P Nah, at the time I tried a number of things without avail. The game kept wanting to check for a fucking server that wasn't there or working or whatever due to its online features being hard-coded. As far as I'm aware, there is no off switch for that. It had nothing to do with my actual internet connection, as I could still download files, stream videos, etc. just fine while the game was aimlessly looking to connect.

I guess I was suggesting that putting Uplay in offline mode might stop it trying, but I dunno. Could also block the game's access to the internet entirely after activation, which I think is possible.

I do care about DRM. I am fine with games like FFXIV (which I have an active sub to) for always online (and would recommend further DRM to deal with RMT/hacks) requiring always online. However, with a SP game like Anno 2070 or 2205, it has to be patched out BEFORE servers go down and they will go down at some point or your legit bought game will no longer play. With Steam, I get annoyed when I have to backup modded files for a patch then restore them. However, Steam will either be bought or declare bankrupcty and any/all promises and games may be inaccessable (or require a monthly fee to utilize). I can hold trust that SOME dev's will provide solutions like GFWL but the vast majority may be left to find on other sources.

Basically, if a game uses MP, it should run a check for modded code/flush the address list (cheat engine entrypoint) before going online and check again when entering a game online but aside from hitting the botton for MP, should NOT access the internet in any way, shape, or form. If it's MMORPG, it should be protected so honest players aren't buying crafting materials gathered by bots-however that protection is I dunno but it needs to be more effective than watching a bot for 6 months to
perma ban a bunch. It SHOULD be "watch a bot and how it accesses the game's code then patch that exploit" THEN ban.

No, it didn't. On the contrary: Steam is among the worst DRM ever (possibly Steam is slightly-less bad than malware like Starforce, but not by much).

With pre-Steam DRM, you still get to keep the games you bought forever, and being able to play them is not contingent upon having perpetual access to an online account, controlled by a company who has the power to ban you at any point and thereby steal all of your games.

In theory, yes - but only if you have cracks available, and that includes a crack for the setup. For instance my boxed copy of Black Mirror is useless now because it's not possible to run the fucking Starforced setup on 64bit machines.

Even more problematic is the disk protection on floppy disks. I think many of my Amiga games won't work anymore, simply because floppy disks deteriorate over the years... and most where copy protected. And you can't even check them, since they're "broken by design". :-/
I actually have backups of all non-copy-protected games on the HDD of my Amiga 1200. I'm sure those still work.

Luckily you can find everything on the internet nowadays...

Not sure how useful my opinion will be to this thread, but for me in particular, I'm probably a bit different from most of you in that I actually use Steam a lot more than I do GOG, on the whole. I have a solid internet connection, so DRM barely bothers me at all, I can think of very few situations in which it's been all that much of a nuisance for me. However, despite the fact that I don't personally mind using DRM, I still consider myself an advocate for DRM-free just on principle alone. It's not too big of an issue for me personally as an American with good internet and all, but I know that there are plenty of people out there whom it affects, not to mention that there's almost no justifiable reason for publishers to even bother using it.
DRM has never personally effected me and, in all likelihood, probably never will any time in the forseeable future, but my personal habits shouldn't dictate the methods of others or even the industry at large.

Pretty sure I was buying Blizzard games with online authenticated keys before Steam even came out.

SCREW DRM AND ALL THAT IT STANDS FOR
fuck drm

Steam started with HL2 in 2004. The same year WoW was released. AFAIK key validation was only used by Blizzard for MP for the existing games. SP for WC3 and SC only required a CD key I think, with no online check.

It's probably the multiplayer I was thinking of, I think I remember getting one for D2 at the time.

MP key checks really took off with centralized servers (i.e. Battle.Net). Before the check was mostly "1 key per player per server". So two players with the same keys could play at the same time, but not in the same server.