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Adding my own comments:
The big companies wnat their product to reach a larger categorie, but they always forget that the larger categories are what you call computer illiterates. They won't know if their PC meets the sysreq of the game that they've just bought due to some hype or aggressive marketing campaign. The hardcore gamer will always have their systems uptodate, will know where to look for their fixes, how to avoid sites that would give trouble to your PC and such. The casual gamer it's the one that considers Solitaire fun. Or games like the one published by companies like Big Fish Games, Reflexive Arcade and such. But those companies are very aware of the people who will buy their games. Companies that are selling casual games are aware that their customer are not computer geniuses or hardcore games. So their games are nice looking, working even on very old computers and not too hard to play.
Big companies are always talking about games reaching many people, but in the end they fail because they don't understand the casual gamer that they are trying to reach.
If you want to go on the casual games market, than you won't make multimillion budget title who is heavy on the system requirements. The casual gamer doesn't have the latest PC. Hell, you are lucky if he has a recent entry level model from a company like Dell or Gateway. So the big companies are failing to understand the very market that they are trying to reach. So their sales are taking a dump, and they think: it must be the goddamn pirates: let's enforce the copy protection. Well, no: treating your paying customers as potential criminals and making their life hard does not bring more sales indeed. And while I can agree with one activation and a later patch(after let's say two years, when the game gets old and the need for such measures it's gone) who would disable the activation, I can't agree with an online activation, staying online while playing single player games and having a recheck at avery 10 days. IF, I as a hardcore gamer and a pretty tolerant person I can accept a thing like online activation, I can't accept a combination like the one that EA wants to impose. If I've wanted a game that would require for me to stay online, I would play an MMO. End of story. Those being said, with regret I say, that I'll wait a few years until I'll buy games like Spore or Mass Effect. As any new protection, this one will have quite a few problems and sincerely I've had enough of playing the guinea pig for the gaming companies who are more concerned of implementing some new form of protection instead of repairing the bugs from thier games.
Now, that's my long post.
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