You know that Steam has neither? And often the "no Steam no sale" fanatics are stating exactly this as why to avoid a product. Heck, many Steam users think that the DRM component of Steam isn't even a DRM. Saying Steam is the "gateway drug" to DRM is like saying cannabis is the gateway drug to crack.

Many people actively choose Steam because it currently is the best service on the web. Not because they don't know better.

What made always online more acceptable is that a huge portion of the target group is always online.

I'll say the same I said there, I don't consider porting installation files makes a game DRM-free, I think being able to install the game is necessary to call a game DRM-free. I consider that the installation is a guaranty that you can play a game as intended. If you can only move installation files, you can eventually find problems for the game to work properly.

The vast majority of people use Steam because many triple-A titles require it. It's not a matter of choice, but rather a lack of understanding. A cursory Google search reveals untold numbers of "lay" gamers who are absolutely pissed because they can't resell their games or have got into trouble on eBay or Amazon for selling used Steamworks games.

I "boycott" Steam.
Actually, I just have no reason to use Steam, here's why:

* I don't want any of the "community" features. (Chat, "Friends", etc)
* I don't play online multiplayer (only LAN for me) → No need for Steam for simple LAN games, unless games don't have a LAN mode, like Starcraft 2, which I don't have.
* Not enough games I want. I play mainly classics, which I get from gog or friends/retailes/abandonware/etc. No reason to run Steam for Dawn Of War 2. I've got other good games to occupy my time.
* No Linux games. (Admitted, this is will change) I prefer the GOG installers, there are awesome Playonlinux scripts just for GOG versions. And for native games, I look to the humblebundles. Awesome titles there!
* I absolutely hate DRM, and the way it tramples on consumers.

... and that is thereir fault for not taking the time to look it up before purchasing.

If a game came along that was steamworks only that I really wanted to play I'd consider paying at a heavily discounted price. That said I haven't "bought" anything on steam in a long time, and have no plans to anytime soon.

After the introduction of indie bundles and other stores having fairly expanded game catalogs, I have such a backlog that I have no need to give Valve money for more games.

I do boycott not only Steam but any "service" that ties my game to a specific account or forces me to be online during singleplayer.

It is not a means of curbing piracy (Steam games are pirated just like any other game), and while it does offer convenience regarding patches or buying new games, none of that would actually need the restrictions that come with the client. For example, I can't resell Steam games and losing my account for whatever reason would result in losing my entire library even though I paid for the games in it. That will never happen with a DRM-free copy that I have on my shelf at home. I own those games and, as long as I have the necessary hardware, I will be able to play them forever regardless of any publisher shenanigans.

I know that it is very unlikely that I would actually ever lose my library and I'm not on a crusade to stop anyone from using Steam or something similar. But to me personally even the possibility that a publisher might take away something that I legally bought is something I cannot and will not tolerate.

I am not boycotting Steam but I don't go out of my way to buy games there either,personally I'll never understand the whole No Staem!111!!, No Sale!!11!! mentality I mean I get their motivation it's just that I'll just never understand why it just seems stupid to not get a game that you want only because it's not at that one digital store it's not like a console where it wont work if you get it from another site, if a game I honestly want is only available there and/or at a price I can live with or it's on sale then sure but if it's available elsewhere and doesn't require steam/has Steamworks then I will happily get it elsewhere.

Really? That's odd. So Valve puts the bandwidth and the money goes somewhere else? But you said developer/publisher, but not DD. I guess GG or DotEmu, etc. do have to pay Valve something for the licenses. In any case, this can only mean that Valve benefits enough of attracting users to their platform, that they don't care for the unpaid bandwidth. I'd say the network effect is one of the most profitable discoveries of recent years.

And Steam may not be closed, but one thing is true, at this point, most studios/publishers just cannot allow themselves not to sell through Steam (maybe EA), which gives them a frightening amount of power over PC gaming.
That makes us two. Two is a big number, isn't it?

I don't boycott anything, i just play the games!

Not sure if this is what he wanted to say, but Valve are basically the parents of modern DRM.

The process here is the same as it always is with the people and the elites when it comes to rights. The elites will continually push for more control, while the masses sometimes manage to stop them or even force them to retreat and sometimes they get used to control. Activation limits was a total PR disaster, so they had to retreat. Online activation was eventually accepted so every big publisher is doing it now. Always online was too ambitious in 2003, so Valve had to retreat on that. But now more people have reliable connections, so it's slowly coming back. And there will be a moment in which more people than not will say: "always online is not that bad, it gives me pointless virtual junk and I'm online all the time anyway".

That's how things work generally, and they have the best paid experts on the matter, so it's only going to get worse.

I think you misunderstood my point, I was not commenting on the mindset of gamers but of publishers. Uplay, Origin and GFWL all tried to model themselves, in one way or another, after Steam. The publishers looked at how successful Steam has been and decided to emulate that model. There are some quite vocal proponents of Steam who don't like those other services and are upset that the game they want is tied to one of them, but this is exactly the type of model that got Steam to where it is today. If Counter Strike had fizzled out and Half-Life 2 had poor sales with players all sighting Steam as their reason for not buying then we would not have all these mandatory online services. Digital distribution would still be around but the landscape would look very different.

I don't buy games FROM Steam, but if I buy a physical game and it has a Steam key... what choice do I have?
I have a decent number of games on Steam, but like I said, I do not use their online store. They ask for a load of personal information to buy things, and I did not really feel comfortable with that.

After I found GOG, I liked the system more, and much preferred its (moreso than Steam) respect of privacy. The lack of DRM makes the process that much less complicated, and as a result, my library here is much larger than it ever will be on Steam.
Modding can also be a tad more frustrating on Steam, given the extra hoop that you have to jump through.

Only games I have over there is a Halflife compilation that was a gift; I've avoided any game with always on type DRM across the board, regardless which online service it is tied into. Don't define that as a boycott though.

Just a similar stance as why I am not getting an e-book reader until the market moves away from specific online service tie ins - i.e. until it's possible to actually use any hardware to purchase from (most) online shops without risking remote deletion of books bought.

Any form of closed access / closed standard that depends on one specific company to survive just is a no go. [Another example is the drobo ... like the concept, won't buy one unless they make their "Beyond Raid" an open standard. At the moment if your drobo - i.e. the hardware not the hard drives - dies you'll need another drobo to access the data stored on the drives. If it'd be an open standard I am fairly sure someone would develop a workaround should Drobo Inc. go under.]

Since I met GOG, I've stopped buying on Steam.

But with the recent support for linux in Steam, lately I've been thinking ...