Just read an article about EA's Battlefield Bad Company 2.
This whole online DRM nonsense was made big by EA with their Spore release. (Actually online activations were extremely popular with high end application software way before EA's Spore).
Now everyone seems to be jumping on the "online" DRM methods.
I think EA is learned their lesson when Spore became the biggest pirated video game in history. (I dont know if it still holds that title).
At any rate, I like what EA is doing with the Battlefield Bad Company 2 release. (It actually mirrors the SimBin Racing games model).
If you buy a retail copy and have the DVD in the drive when you start the game, you dont have to activate or go online in order to play the single player game. It is a total offline experience.
If dont have the DVD in the drive, you can activate the game online and then play it without needing the disk in the drive. You can do this on up to 10 machines. Deactivations are possible by uninstalling the game.
To play online, you will need to activate it online (as above).
Games by SimBin (RACE07, GTR Evolution, Race On) are similar because during install you can select an offline version or a online version. The offline requires the DVD everytime you play (steam is not installed). The online version installs steam and has to be activated but allows online multiplayer.
I like these 2 methods because it gives the "customer" a choice and we are not bound by what the developer decides to do in the future.
I was kind of pushed away from EA when they started doing the online activation methods but I am glad they are moving in this direction. I almost passed up on Battlefield Bad Company 2 but now I guess EA is going to get my money now instead of Ubisoft.
Shame I would have prefered to get SH5 instead of Battlefield but I am going to give my money to a developer who actually listens to their customers.
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