Not directed at anyone except pirates: You are the reason we have to deal with this crap. This is such utter misinformed horsecrap. Copy protection DOES NOT STOP PIRACY! Most games are online for download on or before release date. The software companies are not stupid. They know this. In fact someone I know who works for a well known software company has said that these days it's more and more about control (just what else will this Securom check be doing?) and also that stores like WalMart prefer product with copy protection. In fact you should THANK the pirates actually, since if you ever encounter a game, as I have on many occasions, that WILL NOT RUN due to the copy protection not liking your system (Neverwinter Nights for example), you can thank PIRATES for enabling you to actually run the software you've paid for. After all, you won't be able to return it for a refund as you've opened it and could copied this COPY PROTECTED PRODUCT.If pirates were REALLY to blame, Gal Civ II wouldn't have sold a zillion copies. In my experience, Gal Civ II is one of the most pirated games I've ever seen. I see it pop up all over the place. And yet it still sold by the bucket load. I am so sick of this overly simplistic antipiracy nonsense. There is far more too it than just "GRRR! PIRATES!"Be nice if Valve could get Spore on Steam. About the only games I buy anymore are electronically purchased. I don't pirate the games that you only get in the stores. I simply don't bother with them. The key to beating piracy is just make it less hassle to BUY the games. With Steam it's now EASIER to BUY a game than pirate it. You have to download anyway, but you don't have to muck about with cracks etc... I've bought a lot of games on Steam that I simply wouldn't have bought had it been on disk only, because I prefer not to have drivers secretly installed system.But yeah, far easier to blame the pirates than criticize the blinkered thinking of an entire industry.Pay for your damn games. You filthy pirate. You act like piracy isn't wrong. Its stealing. You are a theif if you download a game for free that a programmer slaved to produce hour after hour to make. Its no different than stealing someone's lunch, stealing someone's wallet, etc. Also, has it dawned on you that galcivs sold a ton of games because its good? Not because it had minimal to no anti piracy in it? "OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Spore is awesome BUT I WILL NOT BUY THIS GAME BECAUSE HEAVEN FORBID I HAVE TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET EVERY 10 DAYS!!!! Never mind the fact that you would almost certainly want to connect to the internet anyway to download the inevitable patches for it. Fine don't buy it. Your loss.

And whats your basis for assumming this? The company?here are some of your answer.alot of game company really don't fixed their games after they release it by thinking it's over and done with.some game developers don't have the money to do it and their not paid to do it unlike stardock, so why should they do it? even if they did get a patch for it, it would be the usually patch" help pervent crush, help stablize the game, fix some critical bugs and problems otherwish their customer will kick their "ass" these patch shouldn't even be needed if they didn't send out unfinished games.I buys a lot of games and I really mean A Lots. Most of the games I got their patch won't even appear for months when they was release. the game's sever is a problems causing games not able for online play.
You are enjoying for free what programmers and others have slaved over for months, maybe years. You are offering no compensation for their efforts. How is this different from me taking milk from the cow farmer who worked months to get the cows fat so they can produce milk? Please provide detailed, reasoned arguments why piracy in any form is perfectly ok and how it is different from stealing..I honors those programmers that slaves over months working on their games and really put alot of efforts on them like those here in SD, but why should we honor those game companys trying rip off our money by selling unfinished game with tons of bugs or sells part of their new games and than sell the other parts as expensions? to make things worst they keep adding junk programs to run in the background, prevent other software to run normally, causing internet and computer speed to go down. (I don't want to feel like I'm in house arrest just from buying a game) blame on piracy? lol they need a life. who would someone spend $40-$60 dollars on a lowly rated unfinish games with junks and than get soo mad and couldn't even get a refund because the box is open? now days more people can afford internet and can simply check the game's rating on game websit like gamespot.
And did you not read the post from frogboy saying in the end, those that do something will win out? Oh, but frogboy is an idiot who doesn't know what he is talking about, apparently. I mean what should these companies do? Nothing while there games are being stolen? You guys are mad at the companies, when you should be MAD at the pathetic theives out there who can't pay a tank's worth of gas for a game.Of course some of you guys think putting lots of copy right protection on a game isn't nearly as bad as pirating games.Thats the way are society is. The criminals have more rights and freedoms than the righteous.you make it sound like it's all black and white.do those companies feel sad for their customers when they wasted $50 hard earn cash on their poorly rated, full of bugs, and unfinished games? if they do feel sad about it, shouldn't they at least do somethings about it and make their customers happy instead of making them runnning away. Customers are more important than those scapegoat piracy they been chasing and blaming. The companies treds are becoming more and more apparent evey year it's not suprising to see they are losing sell because they keep scaring their customers away after using those lame excrise over and over again than keep selling unfinish and partial games and never or don't do much to enhance it.Oh before I forgotto all those who pirated games and software please buy them after you finished testing them out and found out you like it. Hackers put virus in cracks and keygens and normally your updated virus scanner not able to pick them up, than you end up paying more lol. hackers don't normally do their service for free, there usually a string or two attach. hacker won't call themselves hackers if they aren't smart unless their wanna be hackers