I don't buy any games from Steam that require more than one layer of DRM. I haven't bought: Final Fantasy 7, 8, Max Payne 3, GTA 4, Fallout 3, etc.

And i just don't buy Ubisoft games, ever. Even those on GOG. I don't like the company and how they go about their business. They'll never see a penny from me again.

Regarding Steam, well, it's glorified DRM, nothing more. And i spend no more than £5 for games on there. If i'm not owning but renting the game from Steam then the publishers/developers will get paid rental prices from me.

The majority of the industry still don't get it when it comes to DRM free games.

Basically, I never buy ANYTHING that needs a Steam activation.

That means I shouldn't be able to play any of the games from 2010 onward. Too bad there's internet (eh eh eh) ;)

I have no problems in pirating games with DRM. As a long-time gamer (I've been playing computer games for more than 30 years) I demand the right to play my games without needing internet connections or "parasitic client-software" on my pc.

On the other hand, as soon as I know that a game has no DRM on it I prefer to pay for it.

If publishers want to be respected by gamers, they should respect gamers first.

On release, I didn't buy Risen 2 because of DRM.
Now, I don't buy it because my machine can't run it.

But it's magical DRM! :)

you forgot ", and SecuROM, and Rockstar Social Club, and game key activation" too. :)

Stardock is a company from near where I grew up. It had the best games for me. Everything they made was like it was made just for me. Perfection. On top of that, their stance on DRM and their Windows products. What a great company.

Until about 3 or 4 years ago. They went from "buy-on-sight" to "star-who now?" for me.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/what_games_have_you_not_bought_because_of_drm/post50

+ Torchlight 2
+ Risen 2 (which I have now since it's DRM-free)

The Darksiders franchise. Damn, and i wanted it so much. What i did? I torrented it, instead. But the 2nd title did not have all DLC content... GTA 5. If it ever comes to pc, i will never buy it. GTA 4 was sitty wako sit sit, both from quality and DRM perspective; i was misguided from San Andreas being a masterpiece and bought 4 day one in false expectations. If 5 also is going to be half as bad as 4 had been, i won't even bother to pirate it. Arkham Origins, Batman. The retail isn't standalone as the previous titles, it needs steam. Let alone it does not contain inside all DLC content. Did not buy it. Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions. Steam titles. Have DRM. No, thank you. Bought the originals here. Popcap games collection. Damn, i badly wanted this one. But is only for steam. Faq it all, let it rot.

Diablo 3. Thankfully, it had DRM, and the worst form of it, ever. Thanks to it (that fact preventing me from buying), i was actually saved, because this game is horrible crap. being misguided from 1 and 2 being unparalleled masterpieces, i would unquestionably buy that sit mistaking it for a masterpiece, too, and i would have been crying over my good money stupidly spent and wasted on that

This is my list. I hoped to be bigger. Alas, i was tricked into buying some retail games, while i did not know they needed only steam to run, such as fear 2. And there are two games that i absolutely had to buy, which were exclusive to steam, but those two are sure to never be sold in any other distributor, anyway.

Reading some of the earlier posts, let's be clear: Steam is not DRM, Steam is a game launch client. Steamworks is Valve's DRM they've developed that developers are free to use, but they are not required to use. Many indie games, especially ones DRM free elsewhere (like here or Humble Bundle) do not include the Steamworks DRM even though you activate the game on Steam.

When I buy games from Steam I do make an effort to ensure I'm not buying anything with additional 3rd party DRM. I got burned recently when purchasing Bulletstorm on the summer sale, not realizing it still had GFWL and will most likely never be removed because the original developer is no more.

I'm generally OK with Steamworks as DRM because it's as consumer friendly as DRM can get. There are no activation limits, I can be offline without having to worry about constantly checking in to make sure I have a right to play the games, it doesn't destroy my optical drive drivers, if the game is available on multiple OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux) I get to play it on any of them without having to re-buy it (works out especially well for me with a prototype Steam Machine (I was one of the 300) running SteamOS, a tower dual booting Windows 7 and Linux Mint, a Mac Pro and a MacBook). The only real drawback is if Steam ever shuts down, the games may cease to function... but I tend to not worry too much about that because there are cracks for practically every game on the market, so if Steam shuts down, I'll just crack the games I bought. More than half the games in my Steam library were actually because of Humble Bundles though, so I have them DRM-free already, just in case.

Also almost every game I do buy from Steam is at steep discount. I never pre-order games or buy them during their "launch window". If I can pick it up for ~$5.00 or less in about 6-8 months then I'm usually ok with that. But again, preferably as long as it's not burdened by 3rd party DRM.

Some games I've avoided because of DRM:

Far Cry 3
Rayman Legends (probably just going to get this one on WiiU as it was originally intended)
Pretty much all the Assassin's Creeds (picked up AC1 here since it's DRM free)
GTA IV (which has the double whammy awful GFWL, and it's a terrible port)
Splintercell: Blacklist (actually got this for free with my video card but it requires Uplay. Nope.)

Uh, no.

Steam was out for about a year before HL2 was released. HL2 was notable for being the first game that required Steam, even the retail disc was activated on Steam.

And hell no, Steam nor HL2 did not come anywhere close to debuting DRM in video games. I couldn't tell you which was the first DRMed game, but I remember plenty of them from the 90's, well before HL2 or Steam even existed.

There's always DOSbox and VirtualBox or VMWare Player (and a copy of XP or 98) for running games that may not run in Windows 7, even with compatibility modes.

You might check the Humble Store, I know they had a bundle a few months ago with most of the X games which I'm pretty sure were DRM free but also came with Steam keys if you wanted to activated them on Steam as well.

Yes, I would love to play Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes but com on. Game 40€, Maps 5€, Leaders 5€, Loot 5€, Quests 5€... And all that from company that did such a great job with Galactic Civilization (two great expansions and that's it). It is now 66% off and I still would not touch them with a stick.

Sacred2 ! There were definately more games but i cant recall atm..

And a store. And a downloader. Can you download your games without the client, just by logging into the website, like here on GOG? Can you (reliably and easily) make backups of your game installers that continue working even if Steam goes down or your account gets locked for some reason?

I know there are games on Steam that are DRM-free (if you backup the installers). But what is the percentage of those games that, once downloaded, work without it?

And if people say Steam they usually mean the whole package, including Steamworks.

Diablo 3

I would only play SP... always online DRM on a SP kills it for me.

Yup. Back in the old days, almost all the big budget games had some form of copy protection. Most of the times you had to resort to the manual.

I still remember buying Eye of the Beholder and having to rummage through the manual in order to find "word X" in "page Y" :P

All stupid, considering that, back in those days, you could find cracked versions of those games a couple of months later.

I still remember that, back in the early 90's, the companies used to say that "piracy" was destroying the game industry bla bla bla.

I guess that's why Romero and Carmack each bought a Ferrari when they released Doom (one of the most pirated games of all time, if I'm not mistaken).

As far as I know, corporate greed kills the industry, not the pirates.

Sacred 2 with DRM? I might not remember correctly, but my Gold Edition on disc came without any DRM. You don't even have to keep the disc spinning in your DVD drive...

Ooh, that was one I passed on as well. Finally picked it up DRM-free from... hmmm. Can't recall where now. Gamersgate?
I believe they removed the DRM for the Gold Edition, but the original release had a 2 machine activation limit.