They're all priced higher than what I perceive they should be, but then I generally believe that games are also priced at precisely what they are valued at by the market also (capitalism), and that any divergence is merely explained away by variance of value perception to the individual versus the market as a whole. Time is the factor that can correct for this divergence in theory, and usually does in many cases. In other cases companies can and do set absolute minimum prices on some games where they seem content to maintain their minimum price even if nobody buys it - because they're financially successful enough to be able to do that and not care. :)

I haven't personally tested that with every id game as I don't own them all so what you suggest may be true. If I did own them or wanted to know for certain for a given game though I would investigate the "List of DRM-free games on Steam" wiki, as well as the GOG thread here covering how to run various Steam games offline and/or without the Steam client before drawing any solid conclusions myself. In some cases, games may require using some open source or proprietary 3rd party tools perhaps, which one may or may not consider acceptable in terms of qualifying to call them DRM-free per se. That judgment is ultimately up to the individual of course in lieu of any global industry standardized definition of what that term actually means. :)

Having said that, I just did a quick look on the List of DRM-free games on Steam wiki and Quake, Quake II, and Quake III Arena (all available on GOG) are all listed on the Steam DRM-free wiki using the recommended solutions provided there. The individual gamer out there would need to decide for themselves whether they consider those solutions to meet their own definition or not. I'm comfortable with the recommendations provided there personally, and would in fact likely want to take it a step further by using one or more of the billion other forks of id's source code to play the games. Purists that want to play the original games in their closest to original form as possible using no 3rd party solutions may rightfully feel differently about this as would be their right to do so however.

So IMHO, my claim isn't inherently untrue, but rather it is in the eye of the beholder. If we look at Quake IV, Rage, the newer Wolfenstein games and the new DOOM game however then yeah, sadly there are no viable ways for any of those to be played in a way one could reasonably consider to be DRM-free or even reasonable-restriction-free. All the DOOM3/Quake3 era games and older appear to have simple solutions to play them without needing Steam however once they have been downloaded/installed. That works for me, although not remotely as nice as a snazzy GOG Innosetup solution. :)

Yes they will...from my good old CD versions :p

That's not technically correct, as they will likely, still require the client for the multi-player.

I don't have Quake on Steam, so I'm talking in general here.
If a Steam game has no Steam DRM, single player will run without the client, unless the specific game has a precheck of it's own (I know of none that do).

It's simple to see if the Steam DRM exists, in a pure SPG, you have a very specific file, where the games Exe file is.
32-bit=steam_api.dll
64-bit=steam_api64.dll

MPG will likely, need the API, whether or not, but the SPG part should work fine, without Steam.

Same thing on GOG, with Galaxy
All the games I have on GOG, with multi-player modules, that require Galaxy (I won't use it), still run fine for the single player part, and I don't care about crappy, bolt-on, multi-player modules.

If the games an MPG, it better have it's client built in, and not use a store client, or I won't even play it, I hate store clients (All of them).

I have the games on Steam and I have personally tested them. All the three Quake games would refuse to run without the Steam client. I don't consider this in any shape or form as DRM-Free.

Secondly, using third-party solutions to avoid using the Steam client doesn't make a game suddenly DRM-Free. Imagine releasing a game here that would demand the usage of the Galaxy client, unless you used a third-party solution. People would be rightly pissed off with that.

Thirdly, just because a lot (or few, don't really know the numbers) of people are using source ports, that doesn't mean that everyone does. Whether they are purists, don't trust (or don't want to bother with) source ports, those people are either given the choice of using the source port or walk off the plank.

Finally, the list you are bringing up is unofficial and user-maintained (in fact, I was the one who recommended the games be added there). Things could change at any moment thanks to an update that would render the game impossible to run without the Steam client.

All right, I misunderstood your statement, my bad. That was not the reason for me not noticing those games though (having the bundle named the "Id Collection" would not have helped in my case).

Like I said, you're entirely within your right to feel that way and there's nothing wrong with that if it does not do what you expect. Not everyone has the same needs or requirements however, and some may find it perfectly ok for themselves to take additional steps to get a working game. Whether or not that qualifies for putting a certain label like "DRM-free" on it is again in the eye of the beholder, but not worthy of debate since there is no universal ISO standard definition of what that term means so it is genuinely subjective in the most purest sense.

I more or less agree with your 3rd and 4th points overall. Throughout my post I tried to make clear that it is an individual subjective opinion, and not a one-size-fits all view and I have not tried to imply anywhere that everyone does nor should feel the same - quite the opposite. I merely point out that people do have differences in their views on these ideas which are neither right nor wrong in absolute terms, but are right or wrong in the eyes of the individual for their own purposes.

The 4th point is perhaps the most important in terms of DRM however, especially on Steam. I don't know of any cases off the top of my head where that has occurred however I have heard of it happening where a game was DRM-free or DRM-light and later became encumbered although I have no personal examples. To be fair though too, the opposite has been true where DRM-encumbered Steam games have went on to later have the DRM patched out as well, or to which it can be disabled via a command-line switch or other official mechanism. Some of those cases are documented on the other big list - The Big List of 3rd Party DRM on Steam.

Having said all that though, when it comes to DRM in games I wont knowingly buy any games that contain what I personally consider anti-consumer DRM. That is of course a highly subjective opinion as to what that means also, but I roughly use the last URL link above as my general guideline for that WRT Steam. Essentially if a game is on that list, it may be on my Steam wishlist, but wont ever purposefully go into my shopping cart so long as it remains on that list. I've only made 1 or 2 mistakes over time by not paying full attention. :)

Overall though, considering there are like 13,000+ games on Steam, the list of draconian DRM games there is rather small overall even if many games have non-draconian DRM on them. Where one draws the line on that is really an individual thing though.

Hm...there's no discount on the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games at all right now, bundle or no bundle. Interesting tidbit or mere coincidence? You decide. ;)