A publisher implements whatever means necessary to reduce the frequency of piracy and the general response seems to be one of disbelief at the measures taken? Unbelievable.

Nobody is actually denying that piracy has had a tremendous negative effect on the PC gaming industry, are they?

If anyone wants to play (buy) this on PC, they will anyway. Is it inconvenient? Yes. But to say that because it implements a redundant anti-piracy measure that "now I'm definitely going to pirate the game once someone figures it out for me" is just plain immature.

You want to use a version of the game that doesn't require re-authentification (cracked) because it's not an inconvenience? By all means, do so, but do it AFTER you've bought a legit copy. Otherwise, the inconvenience is not a reason, it's just an excuse to steal and use an IP without paying for it.

That's a little on the extreme side, every 10 days?

They take extreme measures, because look at this, already half this thread is going to pirate the game BECAUSE of the anti-piracy measures they take. It's your fault, pirates, for this and you shouldn't whine one second.

I don't want this, but I don't really care either...as long as it's essentially automatic and my internet doesn't decide to die for a half year at a time, I'm good.

Gaming industry could take a lesson or 2 or 3 from Stardock. Their games are completely DRM free yet sells really well. (Yes, the games has zero protection.)

Reason? Quality games.

Seems people are so used to being treated like a criminal, they expect DRM.
It's been proven time and again. No form of piracy protection is going to work. All could be cracks. How soon depends on how high profile the title is.

Well... That brings up an interesting thought. The whole 'loss of net access for months at a time" thought.

While it seems excessive to basically require net access to play this single player game, how many gaming PCs (decent enough set up to play current games) are not connected to a network? Low single digit percentages? It seems like a given that if you're a PC gamer who plays current releases, you have net access 24/7.

I suppose the only real issue is whether you'll still be able to retro game this title many years down the line or if it will be a case of "nobody can play this game anymore because it requires publisher server access in order to play and none of those servers are active anymore."

If that's the case, the only copies that will still be played are JUST the cracked copies. That would be ironic.

So if they didnt implement these rediculous anti-piracy methods, Mass Effect will sell more? 

Mass Effect was a game I had interest in but I'm gonna pass.  Internet connection req'd is 'OKAY' I guess but check every 10 days is downright stupid and annoying.  They're only hurting their reputation and pissing legit customers with this kind of BS methods.  Looks like EA didn't learn from the mistakes of Bioshock PC.

Naz, you know I respect you, so when I say this, know that I've thought it through very well.

I believe things like this, are a major reason PC gaming is in decline, and I predict that it will stay in decline until it is nearly obsolete.

I love PC gaming, however, the only games I can see reaching mainstream success and being worth the usually high cost of graphic intensive production are MMORPG's, and there really is only one game in that genre at this point.

1. Pirating

2. System requirements

3. Annoying things like this

Online games like WoW basically don't have any of those problems. You need an account to play WoW, the game is free basically, but you have to buy an account and a gamecode to initially activate it.

WoW can be played on virtually any computer.

Wow authenticates everytime you log on, and it's not a hastle.

Single player games are just meat on the spit for opportunistic hackers to crack and download on IRC. I mean, I can pull any game I want, for free, off IRC right now, but I won't because I have morals. Nobody else does that I know, and I know a lot of people.

Crytek, the first name is the epic CPU-centric FPS, dropping PC exclusivity due to piracy and poor game sales of Crysis, that's major. Epic games, and many others.

Also, my computer is pretty good, but it couldn't play Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, or Crysis. I just built it about 3 years ago and I don't have the kind of money I'd need to upgrade it. 

Even me, the target audience for computer gaming, find it hard to play games on the PC anymore. The PC will certainly never catch the casual market with hardcore games like Crysis. 

That group forming up trying to save and revive PC gaming is the last glimmer of light in the twilight of a fading empire.

Can Spore bring the casuals back to the valley, and with them the light of hope?

Can Foldor continue to wax poetic about the PC gaming industry?

Only time will tell.

What say you? 

Also, last week I bought an Xbox 360, to play Mass Effect, Bioshock, Gears of War, and I also bought and played GTAIV on my 360 instead of my PS3.

It was because a mod linked me some stuff about the Falcon chips, and I got kinda excited and went overboard.

First game I bought was GTA, just so I'd have something to play, and reviewed it here.

Then I bought a triple pack of Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Gears of War off of Ebay for 60 bucks total(Yeah, I'm awesome).

So, it was definately cheaper and easier than upgrading my computer to play the superior ports, and now I own all 3 machines, and the Wii is still my favorite. Go figure, lol.

My gamertag is Zenfoldor, lol. 

 What? I'm looking at my copy of Bioshock right now, and it says 2K, a division of Take-Two. However, I hope there is enough backlash that EA will just back off with this bulls***. It's probably true that hackers can bypass this measure eventually leaving only legitimate customers affected, which some will turn to piracy. Nice job.

Jeeesus, so many broken hearts here. Guys, you only need to have an internet connection on your PC every 10 days, and pretty much any PC has internet nowadays, so stop wining.

Both security methods might be a little troubling for some true owners, but it sure as hell is going to be terrible for pirates. If this will be able to delay the pirated version for a couple of weeks after the release of Mass Effect, then it's a good thing.

But it doesn't affect SPORE much since you actually need to connect to the internet to get all the user made goodies.