Speaking at someone who has never created an account or purchased from Steam or other online DRM stores (GamersGate, Epic, Direct2Drive, etc) there are two main issues that - in my view - merit a total boycott:

* Degradation of Consumer Rights

The combination of constant authentication (on game start with most of Steam's content) and having an entire games collection tied to a single account gives a store like Steam the ability to effectively blackmail its customers. Now Steam no longer seem to be disabling accounts over a single purchase problem, but their ability to do so still means that unfair or disproportionate action can be taken in response to legitimate consumer complaints. And they can change T&Cs and enforce those changes - for example to impose a monthly fee on all Steam accounts.

* Client Security Issues

Any client with the ability to install and update software on your system has the potential to be hijacked to install malware - this applies to GOG Galaxy too. However Steam's client appears to have the highest number of vulnerabilities - and also due to the size of its client base presents the most attractive target to attackers.

There's more in this 2014 post but the best argument against Steam (and similar services) is that you are only, in effect, renting games - your ability to play them will stop at some point in the future (a relevant recent issue is Ubisoft's upcoming server closure which will disable some DLC and MP games).

re: porn

if you don't like it, don't buy porn. it won't affect you in tangible any way, it's not like gog has begun aggressively pushing DRM or introducing their own steam workshop solution made only for gog users. porn is not a hill worth dying on, we humans are horny fucks and we've been making condoms out of leather in the ancient times.

I am not boycotting it, I buy them games that are very important for me and wasn;t released on the gog, like Crusader Kings 2 - but gog has priority.

Have probably answered here before since it's an ancient thread, but yes, I don't own any games on shteam and never will.

Necroed but still, I never posted here so why not.

Since I started buying here (longer than registration date of this account), GOG became my absolute priority choice when it comes to me buying games. Some games I purchased here several times, mostly to show my support to developers (And what's a better way to vote than doing it with my wallet, eh?). I even consider "games that treat GOG customers as second class citizens" to still be worth more here than Steam versions of those. There are many advantages DRM-Free has over DRMed versions, but the ability to play games without any internet connection whatsoever is the biggest advantage of GOG for me.

That being said, I still spend enough on Steam for them to most likely consider me a regular customer so not really much of a boycott on my account.

I rarely buy outside of those two storefronts. I always wanted to start purchasing directly from developers to show my support whenever possible, though in all honesty such purchase on my account is yet to happen.

Edit. I also consider soundtracks being included with games to be a big advantage here since I listen to those constantly. Unfortunately publishers started to either put a price tag on those, or stopped including them altogether which is truly sad.

I do. Never made an account. Use this avatar since 2013.

DRM = treating honest people like criminals, while the criminals can just bypass it in a heartbeat

Not a 100% boycott, but I mostly ignore them.

100% Boycott, since ever.

why would i ?

100% true.

It's been ages since I even last accessed my steam account.

Not so much an intentional boycott, but more like I just never shop there anyway.

Honestly, I don't need to spend the money on the so many games that are not available here or Zoom.

Thanks to California’s AB 2426, Valve now makes it clear that customers pay for a license that can be revoked at any time without any explanation. I’m currently making most of my Steam games DRM-free, so I thought I’d give you some pointers on how you can do that yourself.

Some Steam games use SteamStub DRM, older games use CEG (Custom Executable Generation) DRM, and the rest of the games might use both protection layers combined. There is at least one well-known program that can remove different versions of SteamStub DRM from an executable, and it’s available on GitHub. When it comes to CEG DRM, you can get around it using a Steam emulator, which is a modified version of the original dynamic library that emulates Steam online features on a local network. Luckily, this tool is available on GitLab along with its source code, and at least one fork of the emulator is being actively developed on GitHub. That’s all I can say without getting flagged.

I’m halfway through my Steam library, and right now I’m dealing with Grand Theft Auto III. It comes with SteamStub DRM, and after removing the protection layer from an executable, the game runs offline without relying on Steam spyware. The next title in my library is the original Half-Life. This one doesn’t use SteamStub DRM, but it does use CEG DRM. After generating a list of Steam interfaces and replacing the original steam_api.dll with the right one, I can finally play Half-Life without ever touching the official Steam client.

P.S. I’ve been boycotting Steam since the fall of 2017, and I don’t regret it. People should buy games, not licenses.

In my country (France), this is illegal.
I suspect it is the case in other countries too, especially in the European Union.

Don’t share the files on the Internet, and never store anything on your hard drive without two hundred layers of encryption.

Well hello ancient thread I've never seen before!
Just because you don't share the files you're talking about online, doesn't make what you're talking about legal. Infringement without monetary gain is still illegal in most jurisdictions. You agreed to the license agreement when you registered with Steam; if you didn't like its terms then you shouldn't have accepted them.

On the original topic of the thread, since I've never seen it before... I do not and will never buy from Steam, for reasons I've made abundantly clear elsewhere on the forums. I believe in owning the things I purchase, and that's not how Steam works, so no matter how much I would love to play certain Steam-exclusive games, I never will unless they come to GOG or some other DRM-free service that allows me to download installers and play offline. For that matter, I refuse to purchase ANY game that has an always-online requirement, regardless of whatever the other terms of the purchase are.