Leucius: There is no grey. Games designed with Steam integration are DRM protected. I'm not saying I don't use Steam, but let's face the facts here.
Yes, there are tons of games you can buy from Steam, install, and play without having Steam running, but the ones designed specifically FOR Steam are DRM'd unless the Steam features get stripped and it gets resold on places like GOG, which has been known to happen.
mabrookes: The first person I replied to said steam as software is only drm, I was pointing out it is a platform that has drm capabilities but can also not be used that way for any game that does not have drm (so not including any example of games with drm such as ones requiring steam for integration) I was already taking the games you mention into account by stating games without drm.
In other words steam is not drm by default like they said, it is a platform capable of being no different than any online store (with small differences) but has plenty of drm capabilities that are often used (probably a large majority now). It seems people don't quite get what I was saying though either from my explanation or not seeing the original post for context - and probably a little of both.
(I clearly said it is a grey area for games
without drm as well, you cant then reply with there is no grey area and use games
with drm as the example :P)
To be fair, I was working on 3 hours of sleep and my reading comprehension skills were lacking this morning. Sorry.