Tridus, your argument that games should not require validation is that Pirate games are more reliable than this. The point of validation is to prevent pirating. It seems to me you'd prefer to obtain pirate versions yourself so why should developers give a shit about your opinion when you don't support them whatsoever. Does ANYONE really believe gamers who say "we'll pirate games if you take measures to ensure we pay for them, but trust us, we'll pay for them if you remove those same validation measures."
Except for the minor detail that validation doesn't prevent piracy. At all. It's been a miserable failure over and over and over again for over a decade. At this point even claiming that it's intended to do that is a joke.
It also seems to me that you don't have a clue what you're talking about when you assume what I prefer to do. I wouldn't mind the validation servers for DA going down if I had a pirate version since it wouldn't affect me. Got any other totally inaccurate wild guesses you care to throw in here?
That's bullshit. Without anti-piracy there will be rampant thievery and software developers will go bankrupt, and servers get choked up by phoneys. Who then would enter an industry that's non-profitable because of piracy. No one. Get with the times, developers need to make money, they make huge investment just like in any other industry and deserve a return.Without games developers making money, there's no more games.
I know more people who have stopped buying games because various DRM schemes caused games they bought to not work for them then I know people who intend to pirate games and have ever been thwarted by DRM. Hell, remember when Ubisoft had to fix their broken DRM scheme by releasing a pirate created crack as an official patch?
Yep, quality product they've got there. Anytime the pirated version works better then the retail one, the company is doing it wrong. If they want to piss off their paying customers by breaking stuff in a failed bid to stop piracy, why should I care if they go out of business? They clearly don't care about their customers.
Oh, and authentication servers going down have never disrupted my life or disabled me from being entertained, just find something else to do for a while, the game will be available again soon! (get a girfriend and get busy or maybe get a job heh?). I'm sure developers dedicate enough resources to servers to cater for the number of games they sell, not all the pirated ones - so this is probably why servers end up crashing.
Ah yes, the famed ad hominem red herring. "Pfft, only people with no lives care if what they bought doesn't work!" My wife and my full time job both say hello. You're not very good at making stuff up.
Nice try, but no. When I buy a product, I expect it to work when I want to use it. If a company can't deliver that, they won't get my business. Fortunately a lot of companies have come to understand that.
When you go to a supermarket (and many other retailers INCLUDING retail games stores) you'll see those Elecronic alarm gates at the exits. They alarm wehen you pocket something and try to walk out without paying, then the retailler grabs you and calls the cops. You're charged with theft and your life generally becomes shit for a while.....
If you have any friends at the store, ask them how well those actually work. What happens more often is they go off when someone is walking INTO the store, because the system picked up something in something they already bought elsewhere or just a false alarm (if I bring my laptop home, the carrying bag has been known to set the alarm off). I've seen a lot of employees who just ignore the thing entirely because it's about as reliable as a car alarm in a parking lot.
Pirating a game is the same as walking out of a retail store with your pockets full, or sneaking into a movie without paying. No sympathy for you.
That's nice, who here is pirating games? Impressive how you got to there from a complaint about the retail version being broken for no good reason in a failed attempt to stop pirates. It's good to know that you have no sympathy for actual customers who get screwed over though.