Well, whatever it was the game is not working. Not that I care much, it was 2.5 euros and I heard later that it's plain crap.

*Rambly post ahead* I can sympathise and relate to pretty much everything you wrote in your post.

I recently had to crack KoTOR, because the Securom on it has suddenly decided to take issue with a few programs on my system. I wouldn't have minded so much, but it quite literally was working fine a week before.

As to your questions:
What do I believe? Any system that does or could potentially screw over legitimate paying customers is a poor system, and there is nothing ANYONE can say that can justify it. "To guard against piracy" is more often than not demonstrable bullshit, because whilst the idiot who slapped down £30 (~$50) for the game is having to put up with server down time or faulty disk checks, the pirates are too busy playing the game.

What have I experienced? Not a lot until recently. I passed on Half Life 2 because I didn't have an internet connection. And (self centred though this will sound) feeling that they were deliberately excluding me from their target audience really pissed me off.

However, I did buy StarCraft 2 on release. I'd read up as much as I could about BNet 2.0 and how it would work, and I was finally swayed by the promise of an off-line mode. What Blizzard failed to mention is that off-line won't always work (I've NEVER been able to get it to work in... what, nearly a year?), and even if it does, you need to reconnect once every 30 days. If I'd known that, I may well have passed.

But the problem is that during the first few weeks, either BNet smegged up, or my internet smegged up, leaving me with about 10 gigs of wasted HDD space. End result? I cracked the ever loving smeg out of it just so I could play the game I;d been waiting more than a decade for.

How has DRM affected my buying behaviour? Basically, it's saved me hundred of pounds. Off the top of my head, I've not bought or played:
Half Life 2
Portal
Mirror's Edge
Red Alert 3
Mass Effect
Any of the Dawn of War 2 games
Modern Warfare 2 (probably not a loss, but even so)
Aliens vs Predator (again, not much of a loss, but...)
Dead Space
Empire: Total War
Shogun 2: Total War

I even hold off on buying some games until I've done a few days of internet searching to check and double check what DRM (if any) a game uses. And often by that time I've either not go the money or I've lost interest. So for some games, even if they are 100% DRM free, they lose a sale thanks to the DRM on its peers.

Is there a monetary amount that would make me willing to overlook such things? No. Not money. But the game... The only reason I swallowed what I was aware of for StarCraft 2 is because I really wanted that game, in a very fanboy-esque way.

StarCraft is one of my all time favourite games, and over the years the merest HINT that StarCraft 2 was in the works was enough to get me going. I bought an XBox on the promise of StarCraft: Ghost (thanks for that, Blizzard ). When it was officially announced, I nerdgasmed so hard it was actually quite ridiculous. So under those terms, yes, I made an exception. And it may well be the last one I ever make.

Okay, I think I'm rambled out. Bah, I'm old and entitled to ramble, dammit
*grumbles*
:-)

Who told you that? Cary Elwes (star of The Princess Bride) plays the voice of The Bard, and there are some other big name voices in there too, like Tony Jay and Peter Stormare. It's fairly linear, yes, but it's funny as hell, and worth doing over at some points just to see what happens if you choose a different line of dialogue.

Ouch, I had a similar problem with xgenstudios I bought a copy of one of their games and found out after the purchase went through that they would only allow 3 installs and there was no method of deactivating if I wanted to reinstall my OS.

So, I installed a copy using Altiris SVS, which was then bought by Symantec making it a real challenge to get a new copy to play the game I had bought.

I put stores and developers that slip that sort of thing in without mentioning it on a black list and don't buy anything from them ever again.

I'm really tempted to just pirate the thing given that I can't reinstall a legally purchased copy.

Yea I agree, as much as I praise Blizzard, that part was rather stupid. Luckily so far I haven't run into problems, other than two disconnects while in-game (for which my router is to be blamed most likely, since I'm on wireless).

But I can understand why they wanted to implement this. Basically, all you have to do is to install the game and log in with your account to activate the offline mode, on your friend's system, and your friend will then be able to play the single player part without even purchasing the game.

I was making an assumption there and I wasn't sure If I was right. Just felt like given the DRM nature of GOG that people would have voiced options on them matter somewhat frequently. Though the recent Witcher2 thread did seam to have quite a bit of DRM discussion. There is a big problem with the concept right there. How are you going to convince the world to pay money for something you can get for free that doesn't even work as well as when you get it for free? It basically means the industry is stuck running on the morally upright, the fearful, and the suckers. The whole thing seems backwards when the people paying money are the ones getting the short end of the stick.

I will say movies I've learned to deal with, but music I've also sworn to be careful of. Mostly I download music from Amazon which is DRM free. Too bad one can't say the same for their books.

Speaking of books has anyone dealt with e-book DRM? Recently found out it is pretty nasty stuff and the book stores don't say much until they already have your money. For example I have a Nook and the DRM keys from B&N are linked to the Credit Card you purchase the book with. I found that out after a CC was canceled by my bank for security reasons. I removed the card from my B&n account and shredded the thing. I tried to find out what that means but nobody is answering my questions. Most other things all rely on Adobe Digital Editions which limits the number of devices you can have which includes OS upgrades on your computer.

I’m not one for boycotting things, if there is a game I like the look of I’ll get it. If something ends up fucking me over, well I deal with it as it comes. Although I tend to stick around longer and invest more money in the things I particularly like and wish to support.

That's probably because you don't really remember what it was like to buy a game and more or less own that copy. Doing with it as we pleased and pretty much ignoring the company after we had our company.

Once companies moved past CD Keys, everything got way out-of-hand.

Someone mentioned DRM, B&N and Nook. I guess DLing a Nook decrypter would solve your problem.

I've got one, Nook isn't too bad, you can get your ebooks from just about anywhere. Anywhere except Amazon that refuses to offer its books up in any other format. I ended up decrypting that one book and that was the last book I bought from them.

Publishers like O'reilly are awesome, not only do they provide the books in DRM free formats, but they even allow you to sell them second hand, provided you delete you're copy and don't download another one.

Of course, the people buying second hand copies don't get the perks of buying direct, but they realize that when they're buying.

Oh, given the system I understand it. It's more the fact that they failed to mention it at all before release that annoys me.

But hey ho.

I think the only DRM I am willing to deal with is the Steam platform, and only if the game doesn't include install limits and I don't anticipate having to use mods that alter the executable. I made the mistake of buying Oblivion on D2D and found that since they encrypt the exe I couldn't use OBSE which modifies the file. From then on I haven't used that service.

I like the fact that Steam is tied to an account, but I understand the fears people have about their account being locked in case of hacking or even Valve's mistake. It is a risk I am willing to take since I only buy games on sale anyway. I think Steam succeeds so well because it is less annoying than GFWL, and the method of copy protection isn't noticeable to people who are always online. I don't think Steam will be a near perfect system until they force anyone who wishes to sell games on their service to only require an initial activation and not add in any install limits or other extra forms of DRM

I really don't worry about DRM unless it's really intrusive.

I don't mind saying that DRM-free is a selling point to me. Or, perhaps more accurately, DRM is something I see as drastically reducing the value of the game in question. I'm not zealous about it though. I buy games purely based on whether or not I think I'll enjoy them. It's just that DRM can really hinder that enjoyment sometimes.

Disc checks have proven (for me) to be by far the worst offenders when it comes to causing compatibility issues. But I bet that won't be the case when activation servers start going offline for good.