As you can see in the kickstarter comment Darth_Trethon linked to above, Larian does not consider Steam to be DRM inherently. It is not a question of considering things, but miss-communication; what some people asked/assumed was not exactly what Larian answered.
It's on them, they should be clear on what they're talking about or avoid throwing around terms they don't understand. Frankly, I'm quite tired of the clueless dev routine when it comes to some people's aversion to Steam.
