Starbird said:
What would happen if we did away with DRM completely?
Why, nothing. Nothing at all [http://youtu.be/PQM2QdWkjQI?t=7s]. All DRM does is slow down the pirate groups by a day or two (sometimes not even that), piss off the legitimate consumer and get in the way of said consumer enjoying their product. It does absolutely nothing to stop piracy at all. Seriously, I've heard of games with DRM being cracked the very same day of release, which goes to show you how effective it is.
Starbird said:
Would everyone just pirate everything?
Of course not. The vast majority of gamers buy their games perfectly legally, and I'd be willing to bet that a large portion of those that
do pirate them, then go on to buy them anyway. Sometimes, as you've mentioned in the OP, it's the only way to ascertain if a game is worth buying or not, because the dev hasn't supplied a demo for it. If you're going to go on to buy the game, then no-one is losing out.
Yes, there will always be those that pirate. That's something you can't get away from and it's the cost of doing business. But the whole argument over piracy is blown out of proportion by the corporations rabbling on about it. I'd wager there's a bit of a Streisand effect going on, too, insofar as the devs and publishers banging on about it causes more people to look into piracy when they wouldn't have before.
Starbird said:
Would people still buy games?
Well, duh. Of course. Someone has to buy all those games that are being uploaded for pirates.
Nah, in all seriousness: Yes, people would still buy games. Like I said above, the vast majority of gamers buy their games, they don't pirate them.
Starbird said:
What could companies do to make people want to buy their games without DRM?
If companies start selling games without DRM, people will buy them. Hell, people buy them with DRM anyway, so it's obviously not a deal breaker that much. The bigger issue is all the price gouging, cutting content to sell as DLC and shitty "pay top dollar for this subscription and more top dollar for these 3 map map-packs" practices.
EDIT: Oh, and releasing half-finished, buggy pieces of crap software onto the market. That too.