No, you still misunderstood the meaning and context. Actually it would be "All that matters, when defining DRM, is whether...".

Apparently you haven't been reading, or at least understanding, my messages at all. I wasn't telling anyone what they should (only) care about, or that Steam is just as good as GOG for everyone.

I was just correcting the usage of the term "DRM". Some still seem to label everything they don't like as "DRM".

I prefer GOG over Steam e.g. because it lets me download my games with any web browser... but it still has nothing to do with DRM. It is just my preference, and feels more convenient for me. I don't need to incorrectly call it "DRM" just to make a point that I prefer it over what Steam offers.

Lack of control... for what? Usage of the game? Downloading of the game? Payment options when you purchase the game?

My point is that DRM relates only to the usage of the game (which basically means installing or copying the game to the target machine, and playing it there). DRM has nothing to do with how you are able to initially transfer the game from the store to your computer after purchase, or the purchase process itself (lack of control and flexibility in different payment options etc.).

I find it peculiar that you consider the transfer of the game from the store to your home (computer) as part of DRM, but not the payment process, e.g. if you don't have total control of different payment options etc. Neither of them are a feature (or lack of control) in the game itself, but only in the service which you use for purchasing and transferring that game to yourself.

I mostly agree on those issues, which is also why I prefer GOG (because GOG supports DRM-free games officially, and offers more download options for the games than Steam, also third-party options like gogrepo.py).

But it still doesn't change the fact that there are some/many games on Steam which are fully DRM-free. Not DRM-lite, not "of sorts", but patriotic, American-made, fully DRM-free games.

I'm not sure what were debating them at this point because I only use Steam to download demos that I don't want cluttering up my GOG account.

The biggest negative for Itch though isn't the lack of installers, it is that there is no Itch integration with GOG Galaxy. This means that if you do something like buy a massive bundle with literally hundreds of games in it for $5 off Itch (which I did), all those games are going to have to be added to GOG Galaxy manually one by one. Some of the games like FRAMED Collection had an installer but the vast majority including VVVVV, Baba is You, and Milkmaid of the Milkyway did not. However at the price I was getting them, I could live without an installer program.

mrkgnao I like the way you dont limit yourself and let your curiosity/needs explore options and adapt. I certainly will dive to SteamCMD one of this days when I clear some more urgent items on my vgaming-related list... As usual, thanks for sharing this valuable info. +1!

I wasn’t really debating with you. Just saying the way gog games are installed also play a factor in why I purchase my games here.

Depends who you are talking to. For me, the client isn't a strong factor (as long as you can circumvent it, I don't want to install bulkware on my machine).

Its a matter of official support and trust. With regard to continuous drm-free support, I just trust GOG (where it is the de facto standard, as imperfect as the support for it may be at times) more than Steam (where it is an unannounced outlier occurrence).

I don't think its an unreasonable stance to take.

Its the game shopping equivalent of relying on officially documented functionality of some piece of software you are using vs relying on some quirk that may be patched at any time without notice.

Sure, even official functionality can be deprecated later on, but you can have reasonable expectations of a smoother transition (a grace period or at least an official warning prior to updating).

I was referring specifically to people who state that the steam client is mandatory for downloading and installing steam games.

It's a very reasonable stance and I can completely relate to it. For 11 years I bought zero games outside GOG (and my GOG library has 1850+ items), for more or less the same reason. But during these 11 years, GOG has steadily eroded any trust I had in it and now I have none left.

I don't have any trust in steam either, none at all, but:
1) its DRM-free selection is larger than GOG's (even though I can't prove it)
2) with bundles, I can buy about 5-10 steam games for the price of 1 GOG game, so even if a few of them end up not being DRM-free, I'm still better off
3) the likelihood of steam users ever being treated as second-class citizens who have to beg developers and publishers to keep games updated vis-a-vis other stores is rather small
4) its client is no less optional than GOG's for DRM-free games (in fact, I'd say it's more optional, because on GOG some games are more up-to-date in galaxy than offline, and have been so for months and years, whereas on steam, since they don't have a double system, this cannot occur)
5) and, finally, a nice touch: I can delete games from my steam library

For me, GOG has only one advantage left over steam, and that is its forum.

GOG and Steam are the platforms I own the most games on and that's simply because it's a lot easier for me to buy games on Steam than it is on GOG due to me not owning a credit card. It'd be nice if Steam would add a DRM-free option in a way, as it'd encourage more devs to go DRM-free in general, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.. besides, it'd be rough on GOG because of how GOG is the number one option for DRM-free gaming... and given the fact that I love CD Projekt a LOT more than Valve (it's literally no contest), I'd rather just stick with GOG being the number one DRM-free option.

That's not to say that GOG doesn't have room for improvement, though, because it definitely does. It's just that I respect CD Projekt as a company a lot more than I do Valve, Epic or any of the other major distributors.

I already use steam and epic and humble bundle and indiegala and origin and uplay (yes there are drm-free games there too... really old but still drm-free) and amazon games for drm-free games. And I use them also for free games with microsoft store too (if a game is free I don't care about drm, if it's not denuvo like).
I don't think there is any reason to worry about updates for games that are already old (I just make a working backup) or for the lack of the installer (if I want an installer there is innosetup (for example)).
The real and only problem is that I cannot be sure if some games are really drm-free, that's why I usually prefer gog and also because I like to use my browser to download games.
I don't really like to start a client... I do it to download a game but I don't want to do that the next time I start that game... And if I can avoid the first time with a simple browser that's even better.
I even tried gog galaxy but everytime I installed a game and wanted to just try it run the first time... gog galaxy started instead before of the game. I hated it so much that I uninstalled gog galaxy.

No, I only use Steam when I absolutely have to. Games that weren't popular enough to make it over here, niche stuff from Japan (no not porn VNs,) things like that.

Anything that releases on GOG I immediately buy and remove from my Steam library. Speaking of, give us Fallout 4 already, Bethesda, it's six years old at this point!

If that is what you understood me to mean, then you misunderstood me.
I only stated that the Steam Client itself has DRM, and that is in play when downloading and installing a game from Steam.

DRM-Free Lite means no installer, means no possibility of a patch file to update. And basically it means having to reinstate your game folder into the accepted Steam structure to update or add a DLC etc. There is no complete independence. I guess if you never need to get an update or DLC and are prepared to create your own installer and there are no required dependencies outside the game folder, then maybe you can call it fully DRM-Free. That's my personal view anyway.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the Steam Client and SteamCMD are two totally different programs. Yes they are two different executables, but all the essentials are exactly the same from what I can determine. Just because no GUI is present in SteamCMD, doesn't mean it is a totally different program.

Galaxy and gogrepo.py are completely different programs, developed by very different entities. I imagine that SteamCMD and the Steam Client are developed by the exact same team, using most of the exact same code ... or close enough, so that it might as well be.

I had some spare moments today, and so made some useful improvements and a proper GUI, and also uploaded a screenshot.

Having lots DRM free shovel ware on steam is not impressive at all. I look through the list people made of DRM free game's. Your logic for leaving GOG, almost comes little fan boyish for steam. Why not just use both platforms?

Depending on what you (or I) define as shovelware, even if you ignore all these games (as I do), steam still has a larger DRM-free/client-free selection, I believe.

As for buying from both, you make a fair point. I might just do that at some point, for games that happen to be DRM-free/client-free on GOG and not on steam. For now, though, there are literally hundreds of DRM-free/client-free games on steam that I would like to play and are not available on GOG. When I exhaust these, I might peek again at GOG's catalogue.

I really do wish gog would improve this website. It's rather antiquated.