Final Fantasy XII is out and people still swear any given version before it is the best and play that. Masters of Orion 3 has been out for ages and I won't touch that crap with a 30 foot pole, but I spend hours playing Masters of Orion 2. Your arguementdoes not hold up.

The real purpose of DRM is to limit the customers.
Pirates aren't affected.

Because, if I magically don't have wifi or internet in some area, and I have to install spore, how will I be able to play it without checking in with EA? It's my copy, let me do whatever the heck I want to with it.

My problem with copyright protection is that it comes back to bite you (the customer) in the ass long after the game's worthless. Remember all those damn keycodes games like Starcraft and C&C came with? Wasn't it fun when you wanted to go back and play the game 5 years later but had tossed/lost the case or insert? Now you've got a completely legit copy of the game but can't play it yet at the same time the game is now worthless so the copyright protection isn't really doing them any good.

With DRM it gets even worse, sometimes it's NICE to uninstall game when you want to free up some hard drive space, some of us upgrade computers every couple years or have hard drives fail or would like to play the game on both our home PC and laptops without buying multiple copies of a game. If DRM with 3 installs was used on Star Craft I'd be on my 3rd copy by now.

I'd be much more in favor of DRM if they put a time limit on it, limit 3 installs for the first 2 years then drop the install cap when no one is really buying it anymore.

I've never had a problem with CD keys or requiring the CD to be in the computer while playing. Tho CD keys are pretty annoying if I lose the case and want to install on a new computer or something. But this kind of DRM puts an excessive burden on me that outweighs the benefits of playing the game when my other options are of similar quality for far less hassle.

Meanwhile the people who share their CDs and download no-disc cracks aren't going to magically switch to buying the games, they're just gonna download the whole game from the start. And the people who were already downloading full games with generated CD keys and no-disc cracks will keep doing so since this does nothing to stop them.

Thanks man. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my evening, and I think MoO 2 is just what the doctor ordered.

Horrendously sarcastic analogy is bang on. Althought if you apply logic to it, it simply doesn't work. it would work if you could auto "refill" the container for free (replay) so long as you don't lose the container and need to get another one (reinstall)... Bah why am I bothering to apply logic to this, your post is fail.

This is the real issue.  I bought the car, or movie, or book.  I am allowed to let anyone I want borrow it if I want.  I can also sell them if I want.  This DRM is designed to stop that.  Even if it doesn't cause me any practical problems, it is wrong on principal alone.  I don't care if I never reinstall more than three times, I should be able to if I want.

SecureROM is a whole other issue, and a load of bullcrap I don't want on my computer.

You guys all make valid points, but you can't just ignore the piracy issue. From a company's standpoint, should you just completely open up your game to pirates?

I know the Sins of a Solar Empire people did it, and their game sold well I believe.

I'm not saying developers should do the same, but it could work...is this what you all think they should do? This kind of DRM is crap, but shouldn't there be some protection? This is not like using a car 3 times or a book 3 times...you can't download a car off the internet like so many people download games these days.

Yeah. If there is going to be some really harsh piracy requirements for real customers, it should at least absolutely prevent piracy, so those customers don't feel like suckers for buying a gimped version of a game others got for free, while they gleefully laughed and called the people who actually bought the game, idiots.