you can continue to do that but then you cant play online.

If you install the patch to play online then you cant play offline without being online, and you cant play online online if you dont install the patch online.

are you playing it on the ps3? it's just the next gen versions which have been patched like this. Also have you applied the new patch? while you don't the game will not be affected by it but ofc you can't go online and play it.

This is appaling behaviour from a company and I would be honest, I doubt gameshops would take back copies of the game which have been opened and played, especially if there is any form of in box codes for team kits and such like there is now with most new games for the first time user to enjoy. I know if I was still working in the store where I was before our policy would be to take it up with Take2 since the game still works, It's horrible I know but a lot of mom and pop gaming stores wont want to be left with unwanted games because of a publisher decision.

Wow, I am glad I waited to get the game as I will be skipping it to not support this...Also, how is it legal to patch something like that in after the fact, without also offering users an "opt out" by returning the game to your location of purchase???  What happens to the people who don't have or have limited internet?

No probably not thankfully. The last bastion of true honest no-nonsense gaming .

It's 100% legal for them to change the terms at any point and if you dont want to agree to the new terms your option isn't to Opt out by getting your money back, you just have to keep the game unpatched and never go online with it. Same really as if you decline the terms of say Xbox live but still want to use the 360, you perfectly can, just doesn't mean you can get your money back for the system.

That doesn't mean it isn't absolutely terrible behavior and I really doubt people will forget this so soon when it comes to the next 2k rated game they see on shelves, people will be hopefully a lot slower to buy it in the first weeks/months to wait to see if similar fucking around is pulled by them. Patching this in just 2 weeks after launch should imo get them the same amount of PR hell that capcom got for their Disk Locked Content in Street fighter X Tekken.

In 2K13 you couldn't play in career mode without being online, so this isn't all that much different. It's a bit sucky that you can't play casual games without being online.

But is it actually DRM? Does it prevent people who buy 2K14 used from being able to play? Always online =/= DRM. In fact DRM doesn't require always online, all it requires is to register the disc to the machine online when first installed, and from then on that disc can't be used to install the game on any other machine.

This kinda sounds like it should be illegal, idk though not a lawyer.

Yep its happening. All that whining was for nothing. Publishers will just enforce their own DRM. Destiny has it, Titanfall is online only and I'm sure many more games are coming with it.

if it's in an always online game that's perfectly acceptable, if there was a message on the box of the next warcraft expansion which said "always online required" no one would bat an eyelid, but if the next incarnation of a 3d mario game launched and then 2 weeks later they patched it so if you ever had a net disconnect your game would end... that would be bullshit, that's exactly what this is. DRM added after the sales happened to fuck over legit customers so they can squeeze more out of them via microtransactions... it's only hurting their own customers too, how do they not figure this is bad for them.

Glad you equate consumer backlash with "whining". Seriously, the best thing to do is either boycott or if you have already purchase the product make yourself vocal enough to be heard by the company in question.

I hope this shitty practice gets stamped out like the parasite that it is.