My issue is Goldberg and steamless don't work for every game. So it's a gamble if you can play your game without steam, when applying them.

A bunch of my steam games are unplayable without steam.

I'm thankful for people putting in time making Goldberg and steamless. Just sad us gamers need to find a workaround for preserving are games.

Big reason I stop buying from steam years ago. Well that and most games not being DRM free.

FWIW, for me all the reasons are relevant. I find that monopolies are almost inevitably harmful. If Steam were DRM-free and had the same prices and selection as GOG, I would still buy on GOG since they're European and the underdog. I'd still buy on GOG even if the prices were a little higher.

But yes, being DRM-free is what brought me here. I wasn't buying any games between ~2004 and 2014 (when I discovered GOG). I can stop buying games again if it comes to that.

I'm obviously talking about GOG consumers. The reason people buy on GOG as opposed to Steam is either price or DRM-freedom (or both). For convenience and babysitting features, there's plenty of offers in the market. But only GOG offers exclusively DRM-free games.

This questions are still strange. I thought they just want to know how they could improve the store and such. Asking the question how important drm free is to me doesnt even make sense because thats the reason most of us are here

I find arguing by analogy unhelpful in general because discussion tends to get lost in the weeds of unpacking the analogy, usually the analogy turns out to not be a 1:1 analogy, and so on. There is an additional problem with this one, as a key aspect of DRM-free gaming is having control over the content whereas (for non-sociopaths and non-utilitarians) it's uncomfortable (to say the least) to view other human beings as a product or service to possess, so it feels odd to engage with such an analogy.

If you really must persist in your analogies, an arguably less gross way to put your analogy here would be to say that a person's first relationship was agreed upon to be monogamous (so the partner broke this term) whereas the person's newly chosen partner insists on a polygamous or other open relationship from the outset and the person agrees to this. I'm still not sure it tracks and wouldn't use it myself. But my modified version shows why it isn't hypocritical of the person in the analogy. Note: I am not meaning to imply polygamy is equivalent to "cheating", I am actively trying to change the terms in the analogy to ones that make more internal sense with each other.

Ultimately, what you continue to deny is that with the DRM discussion we are talking about a zero sum game where one side has to win and the other has to lose. At least that's how it plays out in practice. If you care about maximizing choice as much as you appear to claim, then it is readily apparent (and I have pointed this out multiple times with clear examples) that there are very few options for "DRM-free only" people and lots of options for DRM-agnostic or DRM-loving people, thus DRM should stay out of the DRM-free only spaces.

I would love an ideal world where everyone could have the option they want...stream, buy digital, buy a big box physical edition in a brick and mortar store, etc. However, we don't live in such a world where this would be possible. You have been gaming since Atari 2600 (according to your forum tagline) so it should be obvious how several options have left the market, never to return. DRM isn't going anywhere. Let us have our DRM-free in peace please.

Edit: typos/clarity

Ditto. Very few games were available to purchase during that window... Not coincidentally, that was also my peak "console years" (disk releases), since that's the closest you could come to consumer friendly at the time.

I will take the survey tomorrow, but just wondering didn't the the GOG "definition" of DRM free contain the phrase "all single player content of a game can be played offline"?

No. They used weasel wording to allow some DRM and still fit what GOG tries to call "DRM-free". It's been discussed a bit over here (and is linked to in the main post): https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_year_in_review_b66ba

By GOG's own wording in their so-called reaffirmation of DRM-free post, the Hitman 2016 release would not count as DRM now!

They decided to change it about the time Hitman GOTY came here.

Roger that, thank you Paladin181 and mqstout.

Seems the definition is hitting the ⊥.

Sounds like a normal survey question to me. It could be overthinking. I wouldn't stress about it, if I were you

And this is your chance to tell them that.
Don't interpret too much into it.

Wasn't the big issue with Hitman 2016 that it wouldn't even remember progress unless connected to an IOI account?

I'd call that an unambiguous violation of "1. The single-player mode has to be accessible offline." from GOG's statement.

Yes, and it locked missions, unlockable items that affect gameplay, challenges, and I think custom starting location. Hitman 2016 still counts as DRM and goes against GOG definition of DRM free..

Nothing says fully accessible. It only says "accessible". This is part of their carefully-selected weasel wording. The same omissions that they're using to say that the CP2077 and Witcher 3 stuff is not DRM, per GOG's own definitions. Notice the same unqualified "accessing" in part 3. All the developer has to say is "We designed it that way! The expected experience is accessible! The rest is optional!"

Hitman 2016 passed GOG's validation. I don't think they're so incompetent that they completely overlooked what did cause the uproar. I feel that someone in management at GOG legitimately believed it counted as DRM-free as released through their own now-self-believed twisted perversions of definitions.