Let's go to the core of the issue. Many legacy publishers are really backwards thinking and assume that DRM helps their sales (hint - it doesn't, it only hurts them). Some can be crooked (i.e. they know that DRM has no positive effect on piracy, but they use DRM for other purposes). Either way most of them are too stuck in this DRM limbo and are too afraid to start using common sense. GOG puts a lot of effort to convince them (unlike Steam who doesn't care to persuade any of these publishers).

Why such combination of stupidity and crookedness still thrives is really puzzling. Good read on the subject:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/50413-with-a-little-help-digital-lysenkoism.html

Luckily there is an increasing range of independent studios which aren't plagued by this retarded DRM mentality.

The achievements are a success, but the users in steam requested a valve that would put an achievements with punctuation and valve did not do so.i i am not a big fan of the achievements but Gog should put achievements with score because it would attract more players

Ah, very interesting but also disturbing. For this "Social DRM" nonsense, what happens if you get hacked and those e-books are distributed online?

As stated DRM can be more costly to publishers then they're worth; it has become common for AAA PC games at launch to have issues with activation or staying connected to the servers.

Oh but publishers said DRM is to fight piracy... and to fight used games, but they are forcing the honest customers to jump through more hoops, punishing them for buying legit copies.

Power corrupts...

unfortunally for a lot of people it is an incentive to play or to continue to play
anything for that virtual pat on the back

i have no idea what kind of achievements i got on steam or the ps3 and i dont really care either
but others do
...can you run that through a few more filters for me ?
cause it didnt make any sense

Let's assume some are really clueless Lysenkoists. Others however are clearly not, they are smart but they are crooked. DRM usage usually comes down to 3 things. Cluelessness (as above), covering one's incompetence, and controlling the market and technological progress.

First one is obvious (some are just stupid). If you persuade them enough, they might revert their attitude. Other two however are what you called "power corrupts" cases, and not that easily fixed.

With second one - imagine some release getting poor sales (because it's just bad). And execs which release it have to respond to their board or whoever. And they say - "see, sales are poor because of pirates! And we didn't sit idle, we put another DRM in it!". I.e. they know it's all idiocy, but they need to show doing something, otherwise they'll have to admit they released some junk which no one wants to buy.

Third one is the worst. It's when DRM is used to subvert standards, lock in manufacturers into something (video disks is a great example of such idiocy, when outdated technology is still in use only because of the corrupted media industry). Another example is using DRM in locking mobile devices into certain networks and so on. That's pure corruption in practice.

I don't think anyone really believes DRM is about piracy much any more. I think most of the people who want to look can see that it is about control, limiting or eliminating resales, and making sure that they can deactivate products they no longer want to support/have become obsolete in favor of a newer product to keep you spending. DRM allows all of this partially because of ridiculous copyright laws that protect rights holders rather than consumers and content creators. And it allows it because sheep don't care how bad things could be as long as its ok right now. I honestly don't feel like Valve or Steam is going away any time soon, and I have around 300 games on Steam. But it doesn't change the fact that they are anti-consumer, that they are set-up to close shop and deny you the ability to play any game you've subscribed to, and that they can remove any game from your shelf at any time, with NO REAL REASON REQUIRED because it's in their EULA and TOS. Meaning if you purchase a game on Steam today, and they decide to pull it tomorrow before you've ever downloaded it, you are out your money because they told you they could do it. In some countries there is protection against this. In the US, there is very very little and they know it. And sheep keep buying large volumes of games there. The damage may be to bad to be undone.

It's pretty easily undone. Stop supporting them. I'm not using Steam and not planning to, since they proliferate DRM. One can't really complain about this being a problem while supporting those who proliferate it.

You are right, DRM is not about piracy, it's about control. Some are just power hungry even if it causes them lost sales. Control urge to them is more than thirst for money.

And we are but drops in the bucket. Unfortunately too many people don't care about it. It's not easy to undo billions of $$$ worth of damage, and it likely won't be undone until something catastrophic happens, like VALVe closing their doors for some unknown (or Legal) reason, or some DRM blatantly controlling Hard drives more so than they already do. Hell, DRM is becoming MORE prominent, not less. Operating Systems are having it (which is why many of us here are using Linux for most of our daily needs), phones, even TVs have DRM built into them these days. It's only getting worse because people don't care; it doesn't affect the average user on a meaningful level on a daily basis. And until something huge happens that causes the masses to open their eyes, no amount of 200 or 400 people at a time boycotting VALVe will make any difference.

EDIT: Sales are higher than they've ever been for a lot of these games. They don't notice any loss in sales because the number of people who DON'T care is growing faster than the number of people that do care. It's not costing them sales when every game is selling in the 6-8 million range. And if it is, the loss is so insignificant that it's totally worth losing that little bit.

I agree with you. The third kind of Lysenkoists, as you put it, are the hardest to combat, especially those with a huge following who gladly 'throw money' in their direction on a regular basis.

One can't wait until something "meaningful" will happen. Counting on it is futile. Starting from beating it back here and now is an achievable goal. So avoid DRM personally voting with one's wallet, help others to avoid this as well. Some control freaks push this police state mentality on you? Push it back by rejecting them. IMHO DRM situation is improving, not degrading. And services like GOG help a lot to fix it.

Yes, that's one of the important reasons. And by doing it we push this thing back. TV is a dying phenomenon. At least current day type. Unfortunately most video services like Netflix are DRMed these days too (that's why I'm not using them either). GOG tried to break some ground there, but quickly stumbled over this idiocy. I hope they'll succeed, but film industry is one of the worst really.

Those games are...pretty terrible and shallow when you get down to it.

Ah yes, the idea of forcing to pay more $$$ if too many people are in the room, comes to mind.

Spec Ops was great game indeed. :) Thoroughly enjoyed it.

That's exactly my thought when it comes to unlocking game content. The answer I immediately get is something along the line of "if there was nothing to unlock I would not have the motivation to play the game". Is it just me or is that the stupidest thing to say? If you need a carrot on a stick to keep you playing the game, it is not good and you shouldn't be wasting your time to begin with.

Take FTL as a example: I'm not saying the game should give you a fully powered ship and just jump you to the last boss, that's boring, but why do I have only the boring ship (Kestrel) at hand? All the other ships have to be unlocked through random events that may or may not happen on a run. If FTL is an RPG the ships are the classes. No RPG will force you to play the game as a fighter before unlocking the mage or rogue class. And yes, I know that some ships are better than others, but so what? In AD&D the cleric class was overpowered as well, but you still didn't have to unlock the cleric in Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale.

Unreal Tournamet 2004 is a game with no unlockable content, and people are still playing it to this day. It has a single player campaign mode where you gradually unlock content and fight your way up in the tournament, but outside of that mode everything is unlocked by default.

Tell me, truthfully. Do you think that GoG (and DRM-Free as a whole) has affected Valve's business in any way? Do you think Steam has lost considerable sales and users because of GoG and DRM-Free?

Having a movement, something to believe in is good. But it's only good when someone is listening to you.