If I had a better computer to play modern games I might tolerate Steam. But as it stands I only buy console games and whatever comes up on GOG (183 games in my library btw).

I have not bought a steam game since the release of Red Orchestra Ostfront back in 2006

This is how I feel about DRM:

If I bought it legit, then fuck you

and if I pirated it then I don't care

I don't "boycott", I just put Steam-exclusive games I want on a list and wait till they come to GOG. If I become reasonably sure that a game will never come to GOG (through information from the devs or whatever) then I but it on Steam. My list of games on my backlog to play is so big that I don't mind waiting.

I don't have an account with Steam and won't be getting one. I don't mind clients where they make sense (f2p or online only games like Hearthstone), and I know some of Steam's library has limited DRM but at this point and with how dominant the platform is I really can't support the ecosystem in good conscience.

Never bought a Valve game, never installed Steam on any computer I've ever used, and give absolutely zero ducks about Steam. Am I as Steam-free as one can possibly be?

At one point in my life I started using GamersGate.

Wasn't great, but I found lots of games.
I stopped buying when I couldn't find a single game that didn't need steam to play.

At that point, on their facebook page, I written what I thought about them and steam.

Nope, not going to install Steam. When I buy a game I want to actually own it, period.

Though my dislike of game clients was initially fueled by the fact that I had to stop playing Galactic Civilizations 2 when Stardock decided to switch to only making its updates available through its Impulse client. I dutifully gave it a shot... and the client adamantly refused to work correctly on my computer. So now I have a great game where I either can't play it, or I have to go back to the original version with fewer options and more bugs. This from a company that always promised "No DRM!" That basically put me off clients completely from then on out.

Does make Humble Bundle annoying sometimes, though. "Oh hey, this game looks interesting, and it's pretty cheap! *mouseover title image, see it's Steam-only* Sigh... never mind..."

i'm not sure i can call it a boycott. i never spent a cent there.

i once thought of installing it just for some free stuff, but after spending a hell lot of time removing DRM from a pre-installed anti-virus, and all its residue files, i just didn't want anymore time-wasting bullshit.

free stuff doesn't mean my personal time is free. steam should PAY ME to use their shitty client.

If you can't legally sell one of the games in your GOG account, or gift one, or loan one, or modify one and redistribute it, etc, do you really own them? It seems to me that even at GOG all you own is a licence to use them under certain conditions.

You know, you don't actually "own" the games that you are buying. Unless you bought the ownership rights, you simply don't own that product. You own the rights to use it, in that specific form that you bought and that's about it, does not matter if we're talking about Steam or GOG, it's the same thing. You can't sell the game, you can't redistribute it, you can't even change the content of it, so you don't own anything.

Steam DRM might be annoying if you are not constantly connected to internet. It's just an requirement as the requirement of having Windows installed for some games. But it's not all dark. Steam client offers some advantages too. Ladder/achievement system for some games, cloud, possibility to share your library, VAC for multiplayer Valve games. I never felt the need to "boycott" Steam. It does what it does, i'm fine with it. I'm basically using GOG the same way as i'm using Steam. I keep Galaxy client always open, i download and launch games from there, i don't save my DRM-free games, i practically don't see how one system is different than another.

I tend not to buy from VALVe these days. I do still do it sometimes if a game is much cheaper there or is incomplete here. I prefer to get the games on GoG if possible, I love DRM free. But I'm not going to sacrifice a whole ton because GoG doesn't have the clout to get complete editions or Day one releases (I nearly never buy day one games either simply because bugs and the like). Most new release games are absolute crap anyhow, The Witcher 3 was the last one I preordered and the last one really worth buying (I may checkout Fallout 4 when the prices drop, but lack of skills really is putting me off the idea of it... They finally streamlined their games so much that there's no skills, though they kept stats in this one).

I don't avoid Steam entirely, because they have the games I want at the price I want a lot of the time. But if I can find a comparable deal here or the game uses a secondary DRM client or more, then it's not worth bothering with on Steam.

You know, the extremely common colloquial meaning of "own" refers to "I can now install and play it whenever I like without the company coming along and denying me access to my game", ergo it should be obvious nobody here is actually such a massive drooling moron they actually think paying $5 gives them full rights over the game.

If there's two ways to interpret something, where one is "this person is a massive idiot" and the other is "this person is of normal intelligence", do please pick the latter interpretation to start off with.

I don't know... when someone start saying "owning games" or, god forbid, "renting".... then I tend to go for the former interpretation straight off the bat.

I forgot to mention, but some Steam games are DRM-free.
http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

So you can install them and play without the client.

I think this is a little paranoid. Steam does not deny you access more than GOG does. I keep my games on GOG library, i don't download them all and put them on an HDD or something like that and i think i'm not the only one. So, you need GOG website to be functional in order to download your games as much as you need Steam client to be functional.

Now don't get me wrong, i prefer GOG games myself, but mostly because they are patched better. I'm not gonna be hypocrite and choosing not to play some games that i want to play just because GOG does not provide them. This is like those people that refuse to get their kids vaccinated because big companies are earning a lot of money.

GOG can coexist with Steam, there is no need to "boycott" one or another. Not that few people not using a service would matter too much... If you refuse to use Steam because of the client of because you can't be online when you want to play specific games, that's fine, but if you refuse just as an ideology, while you hope that some games from Steam, that you want to play will appear on GOG as free-DRM games, it's pretty hypocritical.

That says more about your grasp of the jargon than it does theirs.

Anyone with basic knowledge of the whole DRM debate would be quite familiar with the whole concept of "owning" meaning "I can install this game as many times as I want on my computer(s) with no limits" and "renting" meaning "Any time the company wants they can revoke my ability to install and play my game".

I'm really kind of astonished and dismayed that there are actually multiple people who are GOG members posting on a topic about Steam's DRM who not only are unfamiliar with the basic history and jargon, but actually think it's the people who are familiar that are the ignorant ones.

Mindblast: I admit I didn't read the rest of the thread in-depth. Has anyone else been subjected to this sort of pedantic condescension for stating extremely common and normal sentiments, or was I just singled out simply because you were in that mood?

nah, the one with grasp on the jargon knows the difference between access and ownership. "Owning" is propaganda speech, and do not belong in any rational debate on the subject.