I feel we have entered a new DRM-free golden age of gaming. There was a period when a policy of not purchasing games with DRM resulted in me not buying games at all for a long time, since so many games have DRM these days. Did it mean I had to pass on games I was really looking forward to? Sure. I would love to have played Diablo 3, Skyrim and Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example. I thought I was going to quit gaming altogether.

These days, though, the DRM-free gaming scene appears to have been reinvigorated, especially in the CRPG genre. In 2014 and 2015 alone we got or are getting numerous amazing titles, including the Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, Torment: Tides of Nuemera, Wasteland 2... just awesome. Perhaps it is only temporary reprieve we are receiving from the onslaught of draconian DRM, but let's enjoy it while it lasts! When this era ends, I will truly slowly (still buying a number of older DRM-free games I wish to own but haven't yet purchased) but surely get out of gaming altogether. Still, currently we are living in good times and with so many great DRM-free CRPGs, the bite has been taken out of not being able to buy some of the anticipated ones with DRM. Hurray for DRM-free games! :)

With the Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Nuemera, 2015 looks set to be a peak year of this new golden age!

Yeah except for the occasional company like Frontier Dev who makes sales off of the concept and then switches to DRM full, we are golden.

I truly hope that the Anti-DRM philosophy will spread. Even music is now widely available with DRM-free options and Indies simply don't even waste time and money on DRM (except it's for certain online features, where DRM is just an annoying side effect). I really, really hope this will spread further and further. Even to consoles!

For me, DRM-free products are very important. The most important feature even. DRM means that the game you love and cherish - no matter how much money you spend on it - is on life support. If someone pulls the plug, the game is gone. This is why I love GOG. They can pull the plug, but your games will continue to work.

Having nice and convenient services is awesome but being able to enjoy games, even in the far away future, that IS the future (for me) - and the only way I want to go.

It would be great if 2015 could be the Year of DRM-free Gaming! Wouldn't it be nice if more and more publishing companies would drop their draconian DRM nonsense and just focus on making games?

Are you divisionbyzero.620 back with a different tact?

Was divisionbyzero.620 also suggesting we may currently be in a DRM-free gaming golden age or approaching one? Yeah, I agree that that's actually really disgusting. I completely agree on the reasons for why DRM is such a bad thing. It affects the longevity of games by artificially shackling them to the public lifetime of activation/installation/gameplay servers.

Although I believe the DRM-free gaming golden age is upon us, I am less sure how sustainable it will prove in the medium-term and long-term future. We will just have to wait and see.