I didnt say all games, I said games that require online activation.

But unfortunate that it is, the PC market is an ever growing one in terms of hardware, its inevitable that people will have to upgrade their systems.

And again people have to stop just lifting software from shelves without checking specifics first.

I own a PC store, and the amount of people who had to spend more money just to play a game their kid was desperatly wanting to play is huge. When they could have took the time (even if they are not PC savvy) to check things first.

Even the savvy PC users fail to even check specs for software and whats required to play.

What does anything you said have anything to do with what I said?

1. I said that most games are going to "online activation" which would prevent anyone who plays games on an offline computer not to be able to play almost any modern game. If I could afford it I would have a seperate computer for playing games and using the internet since all the overhead for having an internet connection slows down other things you are doing. I guess by the time I get out of college and can afford to do that there will be very few games available that I could play other then old games and indie games. With this by your reasoning I should either keep suffering through slow downs and unstable gameplay on a computer that has all the excess bagage that comes with having an internet conection or not even beable to play games at all (I could play indie games and older games with my internet based computer since they have lower requirements.)

There are probably other gamers like me that actually want to play there games at the highest settings without slowdowns and since I don't have to listen to you I will beable to since I can just download cracks for all those games I will be playing on my high end offline gaming pc since all of them will have online activation.

PS. Soon enough you will be looking at game boxes and every one of them will say "Internet Access Required" and then a group of hackers take down the DNS servers and noone will be buying games anymore.

You should read your other post, you did say people would let their machines rot, I just added to the point you made so yes I did have something to do with what you said.

And you do realise ISP's have their own DNS servers.

I liked this comment Tippex made hope anymod don't :eek: if my coment fi too offtopic and I backit up

But I think people that think that know everything is people that know nothing. You learn from everything know about everything but never will know all in the whole. Not even the dorks from the MIT know all

I started using pc on the MS dos 4 dr-dos 5 days the win 3.0 to Vista also Linux distros (I hate windows) I started maybe before several young guys on this forums. On those days and I still live in the middle nowhere anc could use pc when lots of people on my school neighborhood didn't have any know anyone have a laptop no matter how petigious is their school or or if not even work to fix pc on 1995-97 those were really expensive compared with desktops or towers 9 (maybe on those year usa or the european countries didn't this prob but in my middle of nowhere country was) and note I was not rich and I still aint to this date when using my first pc at home

I could like veteran now but others started decades before me and even are more than 18 years since I used my first pc I am still learning even from new users with less posts than me

I haven´t had any issues with object desktop, galciv2 or sins of a solar empire : / pretty straightforward, maybe you were just unlucky?

Oh and about before, i wouldn´t add Sierra to your list... It´s being dismantled.

Since passions seemed to be running high in this thread (including mine, apologies to anyone offended!) I thought it best to take a break. However there have been some interesting follow ups.

First, a thoughtful discussion at Twenty-Sided on Authorization Servers pointing out the problems inherent with online activation when the publisher goes offline. Another related discussion at Bit-Tech includes contact information for Bioware/EA (for those wishing to complain directly) and a mention of this Online Petition for removing DRM from Mass Effect and Spore.

Two more points about online activation are worth noting - the first is that it allows the publisher to change the rules. Instead of a periodic connection they could instead require you to run a separate "validation" program (think Windows Genuine Advantage) that scans your system for anything suspicious (this could include cracks, software without a recognised legitimate key or even certain security software). They could choose to relax or tighten the activation criteria (e.g. lock it to one IP address). They could charge users extra for further activations as Stardock do with resold software - see their Knowledgebase Article (site down at time of posting) and forum discussion thread. A publisher could even try to "monetise" activation of older games (with nothing to lose from sales boycotts) by tying them in with adware or other marketing. This isn't unique to games though - any activation system (e.g. ITunes, PlaysForSure) gives distributors a similar ability to unilaterally change the conditions of use and enforce them.

The second is that there is no reason to expect it to cut piracy (activation code is unlikely to be harder to remove than CD checks) so the only benefit is if legitimate users can be made to pay more. Stardock's policy on resold software is a good indicator here - if publishers can kill off (or at least profit from) second-hand sales, then that may justify this type of DRM in their eyes (from the balance sheet perspective, a legal second-hand buyer is no different from a pirate). However it also could prepare the way for the Holy Grail of many software publishers - games rental. No longer would you be able to buy a game, but would have to pay a monthly fee regardless of whether the publisher did anything to earn it. While some might argue that this would allow for continued support and updates, an equally likely scenario is of older games being treated as cash cows with users fed on hollow promises (Microsoft's Software Assurance program being one such example).There have been a number of "activation problem" threads on Stardock's own forums so the process isn't (and can't really be expected to be) error free. In my case, it took three weeks (and four attempts by Stardock support) to get a working key for GalCiv2 (I downloaded the crack from GCW since to avoid any recurrence). Even if things work swimmingly to start with though, the main concern should be about the future - the company can change the rules as they please.

While Stardock's system may be lighter than most (check only on install, key can be retained for future use on the same machine) it is the lack of transparency that irritates me most. This requirement was not made clear when GalCiv2 was launched, no mention of it is made in the packaging or manual and no details have been given about what Stardock considers a "different machine". Would changing a processor, hard disk or network card require subsequent reactivation? Are a certain number of changes allowed in a specific time frame and if so, how many and when?

Microsoft have made such details available on Windows XP activation (a detailed description is given here) but it is ultimately self-defeating for publishers to expect legitimate customers to pay to deal with this while pirates continue to get away scot free.

Online activation before playing should be removed in an official patch a few months after the game's release. Also, online activation before/after installation should also be removed within a reasonable amount of time (read: way before the game and/or the publisher/developer becomes obsolete). (How you can remove a feature from the installer? Hmmm, how about a patch for the CD/DVD ISO that any customer can create himself or herself.)