The only thing that is going to answer any of the questions raised in this and other similar threads is...
Time.
It seems to me that if their intention is to limit the piracy of the game and to effectively force people to purchase the game in order to be able to play it, that would suggest that they will have to compare 'like for like' sales figures and that could take 12 months for them to have enough data for them to make a reasonable comparison. The only comparision they will be able to make is...are the sales figures the same or close enough to be viable. If they are, then in their minds, the system has worked, if the number of units sold has drastically reduced then the system could be considered a failure.
I do not know what the costs of continuously running their servers are, but if the system is proved to be effective then it could leave the door open for them to remove the DRM on a particular title after a period of a year or when a new title is due out and the 'load' on their servers will remain approximately the same and the sale of the new game will meet their running costs and they will have prevented the piracy of the original title for a period of 12 months.
Maverick
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