Some games on Steam are DRM-free, even some that uses Steamworks.

This is interesting! Even Half-Life games are DRM free. I didn't expect it.

You need the client to download them. That's not "DRM-free" enough for me.

How exactly did it happen, that the reason why some videogame is not being sold absolutely anywhere is that GOG is evil? :D also Cyberpunk 2077 has bugs? damn son, that's some heavy shit that needs to be met with an outright riot or something! :o

Step one - say you are releasing a game people want.

Step two - screw over the developer because CCP doesn't approve of the game.

Step three - tell everyone you did step two because "gamers told you to".

Step four - Pretend steps 1-3 didn't happen.

Smartsteamemu does tend to work for the rest of the games with the only exceptions being the big AAA releases (since those use Denuvo or something else).. Is it still DRM if you can remove it in 30 seconds?

I don't consider SmartSteamEmu as an official DRM-free solution to circumvent Steam's DRM, though I'm not against using for some games, like Azure Striker Gunvolt, seeing that Inti Creates can't be bothered to fix the broken Steam DRM in their most overrated game and a half-baked quasi-PC port of the Switch version (and formally a half-assed port of the original 3DS version).

EDIT: Forgot to mention speaking of Inti Creates, some of their games like Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 1 & 2 have shitty anti-piracy measures that intentionally causes the game to crash after the first boss (which were thankfully defeated by a certain scene group), so SmartSteamEmu isn't going to to work with all Steam games. It's crap like this that irritates me with Inti Creates' PC ports since they're devoted to Steam's DRM and adamant about not putting out DRM-free games yet most people don't see this as a problem. It seems like the only exceptions are Mighty No. 9 (it's DRM-free on Steam and had DRM-free copies as backer rewards) and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (since it's on GOG) when it comes to PC games co-developed by Inti Creates.

Step one - we can have lots of fun

Step two - there's so much we can do

Step three - it's just you and me

Step four - I can give you more

Step five - Don't you know that the time has arrived!

The what?! I need to know how the poem ends goddammit!

here's the full version

This has delighted most (if not all) of my senses

But that's not all. The game is unavailable altogether, if you didn't happen to know. That's the point. Games are censored or banned in China all the time, that's nothing new, but in this case China's influence extends enough to disallow selling the game everywhere around the world.

What a nice false equivalence. In this case
A. The offending material has already been removed.
B. GOG could simply choose to not publish the game in its Chinese storefront.
GOG's decision isn't defending human lives, only their bottom line. And the public image of a dictatorship regime taking human lives, of course.

A more equivalent example would be sneaking Mohammad caricatures into a game, followed by Saudi Arabia demanding the game won't be sold anywhere in the world, ever. Which is essentially what's happening here.

Point being, GOG went to lengths and bounds to protect CCP's public image abroad by making the game unavailable altogether. And that's a worrying development. Maybe this time it's a game you had no interest playing, but what about the next one? We'll just roll over and let China decide what games we're allowed to buy and play?

Tell that to the original publisher, they'll be glad to hear it...

And what does that have to do with me? Or GOG's stance on this issue? GOG didn't remove the game out of solidarity for the poor publishers who previously got fucked over by China, they're doing the exact opposite in fact: taking CCP's side in this issue by punishing the developers again for ever daring to insult the great leader.

I must admit I am one of those who just don't understand why when it comes to wanting DRM-Free, that you don't download each game you buy as soon as possible.

If you buy a game with intent to play at some point, you are going to have to download it.

One of the major benefits of DRM-Free is to be independent. You are not independent if you haven't downloaded your games. So letting them build up is silly and only making it a more onerous task in the end, and a huge risk.

Stores close all the time, and a unique store like GOG is always under threat because many in the industry do not like or support it. I consider it a remarkable feat that they have lasted 12 years, honestly.

It takes a good while to fill a reasonable drive, which should be plenty of time to save up for the next one. If you have filled a drive, then you must have spent a bit of money, so must be able to afford a new drive, else you have your priorities screwed.

In reality, you should have at least two copies of every game, on separate drives, as a drive can die any time, and it takes such a damn long time to copy files. You have to stay ahead of the curve or you are doomed to fail ... potentially all that money down the drain.