You can write as many paragraphs as you like but it's all justification bull, frankly. The thing with games is that they are a WANT, not a need. There is no justification what-so-ever to steal/take/whatever a WANT, none. No demo? Confusing word of mouth? No money? Does. Not. Matter. There is no need, PC games are not essential, they are entertainment, you do not deserve them and are not owed them, there is NO justification for taking them without paying, period.
Are there people who download a game, play it an hour and then decide if they want to buy it, only playing it more if they do? Sure, I trust they exist. Probably 1% or less of the pirate population, but I trust they are out there somewhere. Is it more common people who use this excuse are playing the entire game at release, then saying it was worth nothing, or saying they will buy it someday? Yes, that is a lot more common, and it is theft. Both are theft really, but the first example is at least slightly less disgusting. Both leech to real thieves and both support the idea that these games are yours to do what you like with, not a product that needs to be paid for before you can take someone else's work on your own terms.
I know this post will mean nothing to you, I know you will keep doing what you like because it is a simple click of a mouse away and you have convinced yourself it is ok with B.S. justifications. Here is the thing though:
That just proves Ubisoft's point.
Pirates, the vast majority of them anyway, will not stop pirating. They say demos, no DRM, PC features or whatever else will stop them, but none of it does. Games with demos are heavily pirated, games with no DRM are heavily pirated. The fact of the matter is a ton of people just steam games because they are selfish, ignorant of the reprecussions to PC gaming and cheapskates. These people like games, they would not download a ton and play them if they didn't, and if piracy went away you are telling me they would drop gaming altogether? Never buy a game ever? I call B.S. on that... some would, but a lot would not, they would be forced to pay for their games if piracy was ever killed.
Which is why Ubisoft will continue to try and kill piracy.
Simple.

Which all means diddly squat in the real world. You can object all you want but you'd be ignoring reality and I already stipulated how reality works. Justification? That means nothing. Those pirates don't need to justify their actions to get these games for free and why would they? They'll do it whether you like it or not and that's exactly the problem.
Your response proves to me you got no clue what my point was nor how it all works. The facts remain that to combat piracy, stronger measures that harm the consumer are a very double edged sword or did you forget what happened to Starforce and its games? Even a blind man can see Ubisoft are hurting their real customers AND turning away those that are on the fence. I don't believe for a moment that the few pirates that will buy the game because it's not cracked yet will balance out the sales lost to this new system. I wouldn't touch such a system with a 10 foot pole and I own 1300+ PC games.
All the rest is besides the point and all the complaining about piracy won't change that. Make a game worth buying and it will sell more, THAT is reality. The figures are out there - you just need to open your eyes and see. You can believe all the rest you want, but I know what I'll believe and I'll go for common sense namely that alienating your customers is not the right way to do things.

Something I really sticked for long, but there is always the factor that many gamers are just a mindless mass which just buys the most commercialed games.
Take System Shock 2 for example.
A perfect horror-shooter with RPG-Elements like non other (Well, Mass Effect is just the opposite,lol with so many game feature to keep up gameplay fun), but it got really really low sales.
Why? Because everyone was hyped for Half Life(which I remember was having more commercials than SS2) and bought that instead.
I am really sure if the sales of SS 2 were as high as HL, then there would've been sequels and most important re-releases for new plattforms.
But it didn't happened, and it caused Valve to support their Steam shit. Oh snap.
Beyond Good and Evil and Prince of Persia SoT/WW suffered under this aswell. All three great games and better than what was thrown in the game industry, but it still got low sales.
Heck, now I can understand why Ubisoft redesigned Kindred Blades into the ugly shit called Two Thrones because they feared that the finale would even have lower sales than ever. Including using Star Force to prevent to much rating loss.
There were many good PC-games and ports, but again the sales were low due hyping for many PS2(and Xbox)-exclusive games.
God of War, Shadow of Colossus,Halo, Half-Life 2, Kingdom Hearts 1 and the (horrible) sequel,GTA3 and even FF X, this horrible garbage even...
pick any of those highly commercialised games you remember, and compare them to the sales of your favourite PC-games, you'll realize the majority gives at the end no crap about what is a good game, but more what is being hyped by the media.
It's a difference like if you watch Hollywood Movies or independend Eurasian ones.I can tell you of 20 good movies you've probably never heard of, because they weren't that much advertised like those Blockbuster shits and you have to watcht ARTE the whole time only to see a fraction of those good movies.
Only a minority gives a fuck to watch something else than what is hyped by the media, like I said there's no different with the games here.
I doubt even over 1% of the PC-community is aware of GoG and all the good games we have on the wishlist and instead buy anything hyped on Steam, like Bad Company now.
I doubt Ubisoft isn able to realize why they don't get as much customers as Valve. They are dumb enough to hypothise that the DRM of Steam is the reason fr saving their rates, coming to another dumb conclusion why they don't get enough sales:
The Pirates.
Irony is they just hit the nail by getting the hype of the mass with AC 2, but they just destroyed the hype for any future Ubigame with this DRM.

Games that sell well get pirated even more...
Also - I'll have to side with Velvet on this - the "demo pirates", while slightly less disgusting, are also a marginal minority.
We all agree that DRM is not the answer. We all want good games to be made.
Velvet and I are simply trying to point out that it's not the developer's/publisher's job to try to appease pirates. You know how the saying goes: "You don't negotiate with terrorists (You get rid of them)".
You can't convince them that not being a pirate is worthwhile, because it isn't. Instead, you should focus on showing them that they are sick bastards that are slowly cutting the branch we're all sitting on.

But they still sell well. The goal of a business is to make money, and do so by selling their product. If cutting down on piracy contributes to this goal (beyond what such efforts cost) then go for it, but cutting down on piracy is not a worthwhile goal in its own right. Just setting out to stop piracy regardless of the cost or effect on sales is completely missing the mark, and will result in the business performing far worse than it could. Selling product needs to be the goal, and increasing the value proposition for people willing to buy the game is far more effective towards this goal than focusing efforts on people who probably aren't willing to buy the product under any circumstances.

That's the primary method in many countries now.

Yeah, for example, mine. :D And no ubisoft DRM scheme is going to stop that.

I think publishers like Ubisoft don't know how to deal with piracy because it so violently opposes capitalism in its nature. They can't just "let it go" like those of us who aren't so driven by money. I guess it's a different situation when you put millions into a game and people's families depend on that lost income. But yeah, I guess as a result less money should be put into games. Which is unfortunate.

This is a fool's errand though and it only ends up hurting legitimate customers, which is why DRM is so controversial. It is similar to how legitimate buyers of DVDs are forced to sit through trailers warning them not to pirate DVDs while pirates do not because those are removed from any scene release.
Back in the old days, before broadband was commonplace, it used to be that the pirated version of a product was inferior to the legal product. Pirated games had music, sound files and cutscenes removed to reduce the size of the game, pirated videos had been recorded off vcr streams, etc. Nowadays that relationship is reversed, buying it legally nets you an inferior product compared to pirating unless you are willing to go through the extra steps of applying a crack to the game or ripping the DVD and burn it sans trailers. At best it will only be a minor fault, such as a disc check or a requirement of a one-time activation with an offline alternative. This Ubisoft scheme is pretty damn awful though and only serves to underscore the point that something has gone very awry with the industry.

AC2 is out of the best seller list of Steam.

Actually so was MW2 when it was available for preorder. They are both $60 and they are both controversial in a bad way. Coincidence?

I think not!

I think we got our wires crossed about what makes a game worth buying. You limit that to "good games" but like you said, hype and other factors weigh in too heavily. I meant more in terms of the length of a game, the "moddability", editors, free extras included with the game, etc. Basically, things that make you feel "I'll want to play this a year from now". Multiplayer games as well, of course.
To be honest, this whole subject is incredibly complex and hard to put down in a few sentences without omitting vital factors. My original point was really that it was pointless to point the fingers at pirates and going "ooo bad people" because that doesn't change things since they'll keep doing what they want to do.
There's only one group of pirates that needs to be targeted and it's those who have the means to buy games but need to be convinced to do so, or forced to do so. Forcing them is what Ubisoft is trying to do now, but whether it will work? God knows. I definitely won't touch any of their games with this DRM and if I can rely on all other forums and sites, many seem to be following suit. So will pirates appreciate this move? Or will it have the same effect and will it just drive them away from buying the game as well?
Don't forget Ubisoft dropped Starforce because it reduced sales - this seems even a worse system so if I can predict things, they'll remove it after a year or so as well.

They dropped it, but as far as I see it on their forums, SF is still in their games, such as T2T.