The gawd-almighty merged DRM in Silent Hunter V thread

[sabretwo]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

You know, exactly. It's a damn shame that instead of trying to stop piracy, or at least lay the blame for the need of copy protection on pirates, so many people rally against the game company.

True, the pirates may have created the situation. But UBI chose to go overboard in their solution.

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I also wish I did not need to password protect my online bank account, but if I don't some scumbag will steal my $$.

True, but your bank doesn't require you to come in during office hours every time you need to make a withdrawl and do a live biometric scan. You do have the convenience of using your ATM card and pin.

It's all an issue of balance. There are many ways to address the piracy issue without getting draconian with your customers. (Steam, raise prices to compensate for loss, incentivize legitimate purchase, etc.)

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Between me and you, I would prefer the game comes with Steam only, or at the most, online to activate and then it looks for an online connection to verify.

This is the part that vexes me. To my knowledge, Steam works. Having the game phone home once in a blue moon to verify legitimacy, I have no problem with that. I think most of us here would be okay with that. It's the constant connection business that is the deal breaker for a lot of us. Even folks with the crappiest Internet can play Steam games.

The pirates may have provoked all this, but UBI made the conscious choice to shut us out when there were many other less exclusive options out there.

Neal, frame it up however you like, but at the end of the day, the choice to make constant connection a requirement falls squarely on UBI. They went way too far.

Don't use a bomb to put out a fire in your living room.