Well, online authentication and some indispensible online content necessary to play the game are the trend of the future. It is good. It is the end of piracy. In fact, the pirates would be Ubi's good friend, distributing the drink coasters so people could access the Ubi site and be sold the rights to play game!
I think there is a problem with that model in that only Ubi would gain any income from the sale of games. Selling your used copy would be impossible. That's a legitimate place for government to get involved, requiring game companies to prominently label store copies of Steam and similar games that they cannot be resold. Alternatively, they could require that all drink coasters be resellable. Registration numbers of games that must be played online or while connected online are stupid anyway. Why not reduce your cost of distribution and let people make all the copies they want. The disk would just be a gateway to the game.
Online authentication and game content truly hurts the pirates. Online authentication and game content truly helps the players. It is the very first anti-piracy scheme that can be said to do that.
Don't have a reliable online connection? Get one. You'll be sunk without one. You need it anyway. Grow up and join the 21st century. It's already ten years old.
Quote from me: "Mice don't belong on computers, they belong in medical laboratories." You think I might use a mouse today? You betcha. And you'll happily play online authentication and game content games in five years, wondering why it took so long to see the obvious! I'll see you guys then for all the apologies.
I use JSGME with wild abandon with the Steam version of L4D and there are no problems whatever. All this catastrophising is ridiculous.