[janh]

I find it an important extension of the OSP DRM issue introduced with SHV. And since SHV still suffers from DRM, I am happy that other people post useful information on this topic.

This is pretty much as expected and I agree that it will lead to a pay-per-play scheme for the major publishers games, giving them at least a more steady cash-flow, if not even an increased revenue per player per game. Whether it will affect contents positively I would question. Some companies have a history of listening well to their community, and implementing wishes and improvements -- without a pay-per-play concept. Other didn't listen without it, and what reason would there be that their valuing of customers would suddenly change?

This is really bad, but I am happy that my gaming interests are mostly niche-type areas and products such as detailed and realistic strategy and simulations. Those are luckily mostly supplied by small companies like Matrix, and to my experience such small but realism and detail-dedicated studios perform their developments much better than the bigger ones. They still rely on publishing bug-free quality on the release day, and providing the customer with the feeling to be personally valued.