We're not at all saying GoG is the same as Steam. What we (or at least I) have been saying is in response to so many people being confused about what DRM actually is and making proclamations like "Steam is DRM" ... no, Steam is a storefront, and in that capacity is no different than GoG. Where they differ is in their philosophy regarding what is and is not allowed on their stores. GoG requires DRM free (with perhaps exceptions made for multiplayer servers). Valve leaves that decision up to the developers/publishers.

The result is that Steam gets the lion's share of games because so many developers/publishers want DRM, even if it's efficacy is only an illusion. Developers/publishers that aren't afraid of the big bad Internet will often opt to go DRM free and sell on GoG and probably Steam as well.

DRM on delivery simply means that there is some check in place to say "yes, you're allowed to download this" or "no, you're not allowed to download this", it does not, in any way, imply that there is DRM on the game itself, once it's downloaded.

First, I don't wonder. Second, come on. This is not so difficult. You buy a game here and you are not allowed to resell it. That's just a fact and you will hardly find a place on earth where this is different. But then nobody will check if you actually try to sell it. Checking would be DRM. Steam has it, GOG doesn't. Now, this wasn't very difficult, was it?

I actually use that approach too and feel quite good. But then I have an unused 1TB hard disc in my computer and use it for GOG games and other stuff. I know that this is not a 100% safe but I guess that I have stored over 90% of my GOG games there without problems and still a lot of free space. 15-20GB for W3 should not be a problem at all for me.

So yes, for many of my games I downloaded them right after purchase (although not for all) and I think it's quite unlikely I need to ever do it again.

One more alternative. I could probably download the GOG installers also from torrents. After all they have no DRM, are all identical and I know I bought the games, so I could actually download them from any place with a clear conscience.

Or I could store them somewhere in a cloud. That way I would be protected against burning down houses. However still cloud storage is a bit expensive for that.

And, have you looked lately at the popular games on Steam, maybe the top 100 list or the games from the big publishers? They have all (or mostly - it's been a time since last I looked) DRM. So this exception is not really very big but okay, let's just restrict on those many, many, popular games on Steam that have DRM. Then:

If you start counting right after download, games on GOG never have DRM while many popular games on Steam (those with DRM) have DRM.

That I think is the core point here and that's what people here agree on and at least about this there should be no confusion.

I find that clause in both, the EULA that you typically agree when installing the game and in the GOG user agreement, section 3.3.

It might be that clause is illegal (I heard about this case too but it was surely not worldwide) and you might actually have the right to sell GOG games.

Nobody really seems to know for sure and nobody seems to be willing to try out, so we will probabyl continue to not know, I guess.

If it would be allowed to sell GOG games, probably you are right and GOG would have to introduce DRM which would be bad in turn. So maybe it's good that nobody knows this for sure.

The short answer is that the majority of the general population of which gamers are a subset of are not intellectual property lawyers but they certainly do have active thoughts and opinions about how they personally think particular legal issues work or should work, and so they express them in online forums.

It's ultimately rather moot though, unless there is an actual legal case in which they are personally involved. In that case, the legal system will correct any misunderstanding they may have about such legal terms as per the need of the case in question. Anything else is just fluff opinions that don't ultimately matter in the end (whether they're right or wrong or neither).

My thoughts are still circling around multiplayer games and DRM and I have not yet come to any good conclusion there. I would like to hear your opinion about the following:

If you play a multiplayer game from GOG and use the GOG Galaxy multiplayer matchmaking system and I would try to do it several times at the same time (me at my computer, a friend at his computer) but with the same GOG Galaxy credentials and the GOG Galaxy multiplayer matchmaking would inhibit more than one person at the same time to play a multiplayer match - would this be DRM?

Or in short: Is the GOG Galaxy multiplayer matchmaking which is surely tied to a GOG account, DRM or not?

Here is a question for you;
Was GOG DRM-Free before the introduction of the Galaxy client? If it was, then I don't see your scenario as DRM. Why I say so? It's because GOG is already carrying games that require serials for multiplayer. In some cases (like the Neverwinter Nights games), you can't even play LAN without the serials, and in some other cases (like Age of Wonders 3 and Two Worlds), you'll need to create an account before you can even play multiplayer.

So what happens if I use the serial a second time for the games on GOG that require seriels? Or what happens if you create several accounts with Age of Wonders 4 or Two Worlds? Is there any check?

I'm actually not sure if GOG was DRM free before. What would you say? Was is or not?

While I haven't created an account in any of those games, I think that a specific serial is bound to an account and, thus, you can't create a new account with the same serial. For other games that don't require an account (like Neverwinter Nights 2), you can't be using the same serial at the same time.

For me, it's good enough. The definition of DRM-Free seems to vary, though. Others consider the necessity for an account creation as DRM (unlike Humble Store which gives you the option to purchase and play games without an account). Others consider the prerequisite of owning the base game here before they can purchase a piece of DLC, also as DRM, and others consider the inability to resell their games as DRM. Where does one draw the line, though? Judas has said in the past that DRM-Free only guarantees the single-player part of the game (not sure if that's also GOG's stance in general), and that everything else is fair game.

It's the #DayAgainstDRM , so let's re-read some wise words about it :
Lockdown : The coming war against general purpose computing

An interesting read, and some food for thought. What kind of struck me while reading it was that even though legislation can be passed allowing or disallowing certain pieces of code from running on computers in a legal sense, there's not much in a physical sense that can prevent someone with the know-how from circumventing that. This is somewhat analogous to how the human body functions -- while there is legislation against killing someone else, there is no 100% way to stop the act from physically happening. So in some ways, we are not really in full control of what our own bodies are allowed and not allowed to do, just as we are not really in full control over what our computers are and not allowed to do in a legal sense. But with enough determination, we can still force our body/computer to do exactly what we want it to do, regardless of the law. But the analogy here is like imagining the government/big corporations telling us we are not legally allowed to use our bodies to recite/sing/memorize copyrighted works even in the privacy of our own homes unless we have explicit permission to do so, and they allow corporations to hire doctors to cut out part of our endocrine systems when we are born and the only way we can memorize and access these works in our brains is if we are given the right hormones from the company -- and that is sort of like what the current DRM measures are doing to media on our computers.

My personal opinion is that this is a bit arbitrary and overly restrictive. I would prefer if DRM could be defined a bit more consistently without obscure exceptions, even if in the end there are several possible definition. I think DRM should also have a meaning for multiplayer games.

I would rather say that multiplayer games have DRM but that the DRM is kind of inbuilt and more difficult to circumvent than in singleplayer games and therefore not that important. And this would not only be fighting over words but actually an attempt to keep definitions more consistent.

One maybe just has to say then that DRM in multiplayer games is not always bad.

I think we come to a fairer understanding of the matter if we do it like this instead of taking the shortcut proposed by Judas.

CDP is contributing to the confusion with their non-DRM security measure to prevent leaks

Yes. That shows that even CDP doesn't know (or care) any more what DRM is. A missing files that forces an offline buyer (store version) to make an online account to make the game playable IS DRM! It doesn't matter if this 'online activation' is some sort of code or some missing key file.
It is an intentional restriction of the functionality of the game already bought in the store and it forces the honest buyer to make an online account. - If they really want to maintain that 'it's not really DRM' facade, they at least have to make the missing file publicly available to anyone, via internet and via offline channels. Not only to those who are willing to register online.

Small correction; you don't have to create an account to make the game playable, but you have to make an account to get patches and the DLC packs. I still don't like it, though.

Except that it's the games-with-multiplayer-restricted-to-company-controlled-servers that have DRM.
There are plenty of games, even multiplayer-focused ones (Counter Strike : Source, Team Fortress 2) that allow you to create your own server. (Sure, they still generally have DRM for those company servers.)
There are even games (though those seem getting rarer nowadays) that never had company servers in the first place (or that used 3rd party servers like GameSpy for matchmaking).