We live in an age, where DRM is increasing, not getting less.
In fact, as long as I have known it to exist, it has always been that way with DRM.

Occasionally you have a business that will buck the trend somewhat ... like Apple did with iTunes music files a good while back.
And then you get a store like GOG, which is quite unique really, with its nearest competitor, ZOOM Platform, being far behind at the moment.

So what does it take to provide your product DRM-Free?

Perhaps the biggest requirement, is a philosophical nature.
Next after that would be courage.
Then perhaps a good grasp on reality.
You also need to not care about the few who will take advantage, and just remain focused on those who do the right thing.
Then there are things like financial backing and support, to help encourage you to take a leap of faith.
You also need to be willing to buck the usual status quo.

All that is made tougher in some ways, by the Valve model of Steam for example.
That works and is a great success, as the numbers clearly prove.
So why buck that?

At the end of the day, DEVs want to be artistic and want to make money ... money to live off, and even enough profit to pursue further endeavors. Publisher however, are rarely about artistic endeavor, and are more aligned with making profit.

I suspect, that DRM-Free has more appeal to DEVs than PUBs. Publishers of course, are risk averse.

And for most game developers and publishers especially, DRM-Free is seen as a risk.

Personally, I see what GOG has achieved or even starting up in the first place, considering the opposition and people's fears, is quite remarkable. And here we are, 12+ years later. Would ZOOM Platform even exist without GOG as a model? Would many more high caliber games on Itch.io and other DRM-Free sellers have DRM?

As many of you are no doubt smart enough to know, if games weren't available DRM-Free, many of us would either be buying less or be forced to tolerate DRM in our purchases. The gaming industry would hardly be effected by those of us who would buy less.

Define “many people”, as I reckon there is virtually no one left who knows what drm free offline installers even are now. Or just treat it as a nice option from their data capture (sorry called client isn’t it?) tool.

GOGs appeal was originally drm free, but mostly old games being run a new systems. It appealed to nostalgia.

What it is now however is quite the opposite of what it started as. Nothing is low enough not make a few bucks off. Microtransactions check, online only check, twitch fb Twitter only getting there, all data sent to China check. Actually, apart from physically adding denuvo to all games, I don’t see what else they can do on the downward spiral.

You are better off buying cheaply on other stores, steam for example and then apply a crack over it if needed. You know what your getting, it’s cheaper, and you know your money isn’t going to prop up the developers of cyberpunk.
DRM free died a long time back, as did ownership in total.

In terms of what does it take, nothing, drm is in addition to the game, so is extra effort.

The main problem with answering this question is that there are so many different definitions of what is DRM used by users this thread will just turn into a circular argument by the same people who end up not agreeing on anything leaving the thread a confusing mess.

If I can take its installer to an air-gapped computer (such as one at my cottage retreat that has no Internet at all) on a flash drive to install it and get 100% of the experience, it's DRM free. Any 'net connection requirement beyond the initial purchase and download (not install; that's a later step) to get 100% of the play experience constitutes DRM.

Note, I'm theoretically OK with "point of download" watermarking ("product keys" being one form of watermarking), so long as there's no Internet connection required to use/activate/verify them, since they can be downloaded/saved at the same time as the download (again, pre-install). They can be used to trace pirates/leaky points, but not as revocation unless there's an update that you download and install that rejects it (at which point you still have your fallback -- and hopefully your refund since updates are part of the purchase package).

My first post did not define what DRM-Free is, quite deliberately.

I know what DRM-Free means to me, and if others differ then they have to factor that in, but I don't consider it relevant, and they would just be side-tracking the conversation ... going off-topic really.

It's all about context.

If the game is DRM-Free for single player mode, then for most people it is DRM-Free.
If the multiplayer mode isn't DRM-Free, then that does effect some players, no doubt about it.
If the game is DRM-Free for both single player and multiplayer, then it is totally DRM-Free.

But for the purposes of this topic, so long as the single player aspect is DRM-Free, then what I am saying and questioning is relevant. For myself, I am not going to get into the specifics of what constitutes partly DRM-Free or fully, other than what I said above (loose definition).

So to put it in a nutshell, if a game is at least partially DRM-Free (single player portion), then I am calling it DRM-Free for the purposes of this conversation.

If some here want to get into the specifics of DRM-Free, then please discuss it elsewhere ... plenty of topics (threads) out there already doing so. That is not what this thread is about. Please don't derail it.

You reckon. Many here would beg to differ. Well, many nostalgic games had DRM. What else you are saying, is not really pertinent to this conversation I started. I'm not discussing the state of the file as such, but rather the providing of it DRM-Free. Should be pretty obvious, that any DRM is an addition to the game.

So I am discussing what it takes to NOT add DRM to a game, from the perspective of the provider. We know they don't have to, at least from our perspective ... some of us.

To re-frame things a bit for some of what I discuss.

Put yourself in the shoes of a Developer and or Publisher.

How do they see DRM-Free?
How many embrace it?
How many only partially embrace it (single player only)?

As we know, a good number of them don't believe in DRM-Free and so don't support it ... or if they do, only on their terms.

For the rest, I guess it is an ongoing discussion amongst themselves, and might vary game to game, depending on how much money is at stake. It could also be based on a try it and see approach.

How many just go with DRM, because that is how the big end of town do things, and if it ain't broke, why change it?

For some, not even considering DRM-Free might just keep things simple for them.

I imagine some go DRM-Free, when profits have not been what they wanted or they can see an extra buck or two in it, and their game is old news now.

Then there may be some who go DRM-Free after discovering their game has been hacked, and is widely available in a cracked state.

You guys should take a look at the Diablo forum. DRM is the least problem, with problems like Diablo devs.