I agree with this in theory but I've never seen it suggested, not even once, that DRM schemes do anything whatsoever to curb piracy in the long (or even short) term. That reasoning is good as a theory, but practically speaking it is horse poop.

I believe the real purpose of progressively more strict DRM is to get us closer and closer to every publisher's utopia of eliminating the sales of used games, while keeping games at $/€ 50 or above.

They know digital distribution is going to take over, and they want people to get as used as possible to not being able to gain value by reselling games, while still paying the same price as now.

It's not for pirates. It's an attempt at controlling our views of what we buy.

There, I said it.

Is there a limit on how much you can do this? Because I think it'd be much more efective to just buy games and make them lose actual money for shit like this. Far more effective than piracy, if they see millions in dollars actually wasted then it'd catch their attention even more.

@twestern

Of course that publishers have to protect their property. But going from having a market standard of where you buy a license that doesn't expire to a situation where you impose limits on the buyer will bring on total frustration. By doing this whole mess with securerom etc 2k is basically asking to have their game ignored.

And while it may seem okay to you since you don't recall reinstalling a single game more than 5 times, that is only you. 15 times is quite bit but when some devs are rumored to decrease this to as low as 3 installs...well the customers have a right to be angry. I don't know about you, but i don't keep receipts from stores that are older than 2 months max, so what happens when after a year from purchase i can't install my game and can't prove that i bought it legally? You're a dev so do tell.

I wonder if any of them have considered that the explosion in piracy may simply be the market's reaction to forced restriction.

I mean, I don't know, but it's something to consider.

Well. EA considered it and went back on their DRM schemes for the PC. You'd think others would learn as well.

I'd imagine if you did it to much they could take you to court and try and prove that you weren't acting "in good faith."  IE: kept buying the same game when you'd already read the EULA.

Now if a few thousand gamers "arbitrarily" decided to do it, with several games each, and then this spread...

It'd be a strong message, but gamers are like voters.  Together they're strong, but they never act together and put up with the crappy options they have to deal with rather then push for better options.

Also, like I said... I may be mistaken on that law, but I could of swore that's the only way EULA are legal.  Otherwise they'd be illegal because you've concluded a contract paid money have no recourse to get that money back and have to agree with hidden terms.

I'm just wondering about that because there were many people who didn't get refunds on their MW2 until they called the fair trade bureau for false advertisement because of the dedicated server stuff. However no one was able to return games that they opened and didn't agree with the EULA.