Well, if the locks jab rusty spikes into your knuckles every time you fumble the key I think that might feed into the review a bit. I'm being over the top, there is a point where DRM becomes annoying enough for it to affect the enjoyment of the product (e.g. crashes to desktop once an hour every time your net connection blips), but in general I was under the impression DA2 used the same stuff that EA has been using for some time, so I was surprised to learn people seemed up in arms about the DRM (suddenly, rather than "I boycotted EA years ago over that DRM business").

I suppose you're right, most people wouldn't know a serial key check from a rootkit. Of course the poor actions of companies are partially to blame, before Sony no one who didn't know better would have thought a music CD could give you a hidden rootkit, now everyone is terrified that anything could do it. I think it's fair if you give something a low score that you're honest why, if it's the DRM that ruined it, fair enough. There's no reason you should complain about the graphics if DRM was your real issue, though, so I'm with you on that one.

I've honestly never had a functional problem with DRM. Even Ubisoft's horrible DRM worked just fine for me. Never been locked out of a game, never had a technical issue, nothing.

My only problem with DRM is the longevity of the product, i.e. it working when the publisher dies.

Not to mention not being possible to lend out/sell a game. Or forgetting your account details and spending two hours trying to remember them (happened to me and Battlefield 2).

I don't think anyone has posted this yet, but this is the G4TV review which gave it a 3/5.
http://www.g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/64227/dragon-age-ii/review/

That's what I'm trying to say. "I bought the game legally from a licensed merchant, so I know my key is good. I'll have no problem with the authentication process." >AFTER> "That was a lot less painful than complainants made it out to be. Probably because I purchased my copy legitimately."

A lot of people have had problems with legit copies of games. Saying they don't based on your experience is anecdotal and a logical fallacy. I'm not saying even the majority of folks will have problems with DRM, but it's not really sane to discount the ones that do just because it's never been an issue for you. After all, one has to believe the DRM has been successfully removed from at least a large portion of the cracked copies out there. Well, one doesn't have to believe that, actually, I think think it's the most logical assumption until evidence to the contrary arises.

Therefore are pirated copies good. You can redownload your purchased copy whenever you want from "illegal" but legitimate sources, when you purchased your game whenever you want. Or you have to wait 10 years for a rerelease on gog.com. I have no problems with downloading already purchased games from not so official sources. And no sane person should also. And there is no law against it, because you bought a user license for your product, so you are a legitimate user. The source of your copy is irrelevant.

Have a nice day.

I don't think it's as obvious that companies would win as you seem to think it is. While there are many court cases where EULAs hold up there are also many where they don't.

And, to be more pragmatic, no one is going to sue you for downloading a game you bought. Not only might they lose, not only would they be harassing paying customers, but it would also be a PR nightmare.

It would be, and no one may be this big of buttheads, but the music industry has proven to be as has the porn industry (note, a couple of years ago, no one could fathom getting sued for downloading porn). They might not even have a chance in hell of winning, your ultimate victory may be a forgone conclusion... but if that costs you 2 years and 25,000 USD that's somewhat of a hollow victory. Attorney's fees are only awarded in the US in egregious cases, for the most part, where the defendants can show the action should have never been brought. That is a high bar, much higher than you need to purely "win".

That's why I said you can lose, even while winning.

I'm pretty sure the people being sued are those downloading GBs of stuff all day long and making it available to others through a website or something like that. I could be wrong, but every time I read about lawsuits over MP3s and movies it's against people who download movies and then sell them or who download songs and then host them, or whatever.

In any case one thing I will say is that cracking a game you bought and torrenting an entire game are different things 90% of the time. Usually as a legitimate owner all you need to do is download a fixed exe to get your game running DRM free. There are exceptions like Steamworks games, which need new installers, but for the most part it's not like I'm downloading every PC game that comes out through a torrent and seeding those files for other people.

There's also the fact that I am only going to crack the DRM for a game if it ever gives me problems. Unlike disc checks there is really no incentive to crack games now-a-days as long as the DRM works, which like I said above it always has for me. I have only downloaded one game off a torrent in my life, Call of Duty: Black Ops, because a patch broke the game and Steam did not allow me to revert to a previous version. That's more a failing of Steam as a platform than it is DRM too, if you think about it.

Now if Steam ever goes down and doesn't patch out the activation requirement there will be a flood of people turning to torrents to get the games working again, and that includes me, but by the time that happens those games will be so old no one will care. That's pretty much why I consider DRM irrelevant... for right now it works, and it doesn't prevent the longevity of my software because there will always be a way to get the games running thanks to the community and that far in the future no one will care about cracking those games.

The only flaw I see with this is that someday the US government might curtail my free and unrestricted access to the internet, but hopefully that never happens.

You're really, really wrong about that.

A current copyright troll case: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/mar/10/righthaven-accuses-defendant-running-lawyer-fees-c/ Note this is the troll complaining about not being able to drop the case when it's clear that 1) they'll lose and possibly owe legal fees (their actions truly were baseless in this case) and 2) a bad precedent will be set for all their other cases.

Jammie Thomas was sued for 23 songs, not GBs and GBs of stuff. The jury awards against her have run from the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. You read that right, millions of dollars for sharing 23 songs.

Cecilia Gonzalez was successfully sued for downloading songs she already owned on CD. She owed over 22,000 dollars in damages, about what she makes in a year.

John Paladuk was sued for filesharing in Michigan even though he didn't reside in that state, in fact he lived over 1000 miles away.

One accused filesharer was sued for an additional two years after she had provided all her computers for analysis and the RIAA turned up zero evidence of filesharing on any of her hardware. They basically drug her through hell because she stood up to them and made them look dumb. I'm sorry, I do no recall her name.

Oh and then there's this little gem: http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studio-goes-after-self-proclaimed-pirate-his-unicorn-and-leprechaun-110310/

OrcishGamer, Do keep in mind that that the RIAA have been trying to get money out of Jammie Thomas for almost 6 years, and they haven't received a cent from her.

IE: Jammie Thomas was to be the RIAA's precedent setting case, and it's been drawn out for over 5 years because other than their massive amounts of money to keep the case running, they really have very little legal ground to stand on. One of the judges went so far as to call the RIAA's requested damages 'monstrous and shocking'.

I understand that your point was to show that you dont have to share thousands of songs/games/movies to get sued, and you're right, but you cant make it sound like these things happen all the time, nor can you pretend that any of these were open and shut cases or even finished yet after years of debate.

I wasn't trying to show that. Probably a lot of people who get letters really were torrenting crap. My only point was to not be so sure you were legally safe by downloading cracks/pirated versions of games you bought and that people who get sued weren't necessarily sharing GBs of stuff (or even anything at all in some cases).

Also, Jammie Tomas hasn't paid anything because she keeps appealing, something she would not be able to do without essentially free (to her) legal representation. Without that she would have been ruined years ago.

Again though, I don't download games off torrents or anything else. I'm saying that will be an option one day if the games are rendered unplayable due to DRM, and if that is the case it 99% likely means the company is gone, which means there will be no one to sue you.

I liked your post Orcish, it's eye-opening and makes me happy I haven't downloaded an MP3 illegally since 1999 or so, but it's not really relevant to my DRM stance.