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To younger gamers Steam & Co have become more or less synonymous with 'PC gaming'.
And given that Steam is like a sub-culture in itself, I'm not surprised that kids are so clueless.

In my experience most older gamers are well aware of what DRM-free means in practicality, but::
a) don't really care
b) still prefer the benefits of Steam, like having all the games in one place with no need for extensive storage
c) are not interested in playing 'old games'...which is itself a common misconception

Our gaming media, as well as most youtube gamers, are detrimental to the DRM-free cause, as they always promote buying the games from Steam and never promote buying the games DRM-free directly from the developers or publishers when both options are available !.
And they certainly don't promote buying games from GOG, ShinyLoot and other such places....not often anyway.

Even "PC Masterrace" spokespersons like TotalBiscuit are promoting Steam as the ideal platform for the future of gaming. Maybe I expect too much from the heralds of PC Elitism, but I would certainly think 'independence' would be one of the ideological pillars...at least more important than 'haha, this games looks prettier on my PC'.
I find it bizarre that, in their battle against console gaming, they see Steam as the fortress of PC gaming.

In my opinion you need to educate people in these ways:
* our gaming media and youtube gamers need to inform their audience when a game is also available DRM-free
...and not just promote the Steam version
* we need to educate people that DRM-free does not automatically mean "old games" because many - if not most - indie games are also available DRM-free either through places like GOG or the game's own website

So I think our media and youtubers can do much to explain and support the DRM-free concept.
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Grargar: 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.
For some games getting patches is kind of equivalent to make the game playable though. And they did not need to put the patches behind a DRM wall. Nothing is lost when letting them free.

Or to say it in other words: The pirated version will have patches included ready for download without any account, so why not the official version too.
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R8V9F5A2: ...Even "PC Masterrace" spokespersons like TotalBiscuit are promoting Steam as the ideal platform for the future of gaming. ...
Yeah, that is really not understandable. Either these guys are quite naive about the future of gaming or they are paid to say that. If you look what has changed in PC gaming since 2005 then I fail to see the big advantage of zero click updates instead of one click updates. Assuming that without it PC gaming would have died (or Steam would be the savior of PC gaming) is mostly unjustified.

I'm a happy PC gamer for many years and never needed Steam for it even a single second, so maybe I'm biased (but in the other direction) here.
Post edited May 07, 2015 by Trilarion
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paladin181: I don't really feel like there is a DRM on delivery. That's like claiming that buying an item in the store is DRM, which is false. Some people would call anything not free as using DRM. Is your bread DRM-ed?
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hummer010: There is definitely DRM on delivery. You have to enter your user name and password to access your account. Games purchased are tied to your account. It's not s big deal, and really it has to be there. The only other alternative would for GOG allow all their files to be downloaded anonymously, and rely on an honor system that we would only download what we've paid for. How well do you think that would work out?

Like I say, the only truly DRM free software is open source.
You could buy games without an account and then get a non public link to a download page. Its no problem to share that link at all though and sure it is no problem to share the downloaded game with someone else through another service but that at least doesn't use gogs resources.
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Darkcloud.282: ... get a non public link to a download page. Its no problem to share that link at all though ...
Hmm, if you start sharing a non public link it should become public very soon. Could as well have it public right from the beginning.
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Darkcloud.282: ... get a non public link to a download page. Its no problem to share that link at all though ...
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Trilarion: Hmm, if you start sharing a non public link it should become public very soon. Could as well have it public right from the beginning.
Well you could also share your account (with certain risks) or again just share the exe of the game and if it is an unique link you could block access to it completely if to many different ips access it at roughly the same time.