Just some annoyance with games for windows live, finding out I need to make an account to save and stuff.

1 - A forced 6 month wait before I was able to play Mafia 2 thanks to Valve/2K Japan fucking up the local release and Valve insisting on IP blocking installation of retail imports -- they eventually removed the IP blocking after several requests from 2K (the game was then finally released in this region a couple of months later on Steam).

2 - A four month (4 months from "international release date" and 2 months from local PC release date) forced wait before I was able to play my legally purchased digital retail copy of FEAR 3 thanks to Valve once again, refusing to unlock the game, even after being shown clear proof the game was being sold in this region with the publisher's permission.

So in short, worst experiences I've had with DRM have all been the result of Steamworks. Securom, Tages, Ubisoft DRM, GFWL, etc., have never caused me as many problems.

I remember GTA 4 3 years ago. Took me 2 hours (excluding installation) to make things work correctly. Rockstar Social Club was rather easy. GFWL was the main culprit, without it you can't save the game. That thing was sensitive and picky, updating process always failed if you didn't have appropriate component such as C++ etc. The sad part is it only notify you with error code for troubleshooting, you have to dig the cause by yourself via google.

I found a cheap retail copy of Bioshock 2 and almost bought it until I noticed that it said one had to be online to save.

Was I misreading the fine print? And if not, does anyone know if this has this been patched out subsequently?

Rush for Berlin (which by the way is a good game) had Starforce, which i was unaware of when I bought the game. Came home, installed it and... BSOD. Hm, restarted the computer and BSOD. Restarted again... yea you can guess what happened.

So I went into safe mode, removed starforce, then cracked the game. No more BSOD.

And Sam & Max Season 1 episode 5 refused to run for me, as securom had decided that I had pirated it. All the other episodes worked but E5 did not.

The installation of GTA IV was pretty horrendous thanks to the layers of DRM.
More recently the Ubi DRM on Anno 2070 treated me like a criminal by refusing to let me play online (drm server was offline). Very annoying!

Mine was Half-Life 2 at release actually. Was still stuck on dial-up back then, and I had to wait 6 hours between when I started the setup from the retail version's 1st CD and when I finally got to play the bloody game, all of this just for "activating". To this day I refuse to buy anything that comes saddled with Steam.

As far as I know, you read the fine print properly. I don't think it is possible to save unless you are logged in to Games for Windows Live (unless you make an offline profile, though I don't think I was able to do that with Bioshock 2). Actually, I can't remember being able to play the game at all unless I was logged into GFWL. Again, though, I think there might be an offline mode. I played through the entirety of Fallout 3 without needing to log in at all.

Didn't know that. Thanks. Did that answer your question, agogfan?

Apart from the GTA 4 suicidal-mode-turn-on (couldn't save because I wasn't "connected" to GFWL, are you fucking shitting me???), on one occasion steam wouldn't/couldn't connect to their servers and the offline mode was insisting I had to sing in to go offline. Much cursing resulted.

Basically, I now get riled at anything requiring constant internet connection because of this.

Oh yes, now I remember: My retail copy of Settlers 3 was broken, since it's DRM was so paranoid that it for no apparent reason refused to allow the in-game trees to grow. Goodbye economy, goodbye gameplay.

I've got a tie, one from STEAM and one from EA Origin

The first from STEAM was buying a boxed copy of Deus Ex:Human Revolution and then having to spend over 30 hours downloading things from STEAM (via broadband mind you) despite having the physical copy. I then proceeded to have the STEAM client/DRM cause instabilities and malfunctions in the game both during and after the installation. Over the course of several days while these issues were occurring I sent a total of 4 message to both STEAM and the devs seeking tech support only to have each of them reply with nothing but auto-responder messages directing me to contact the other group for support. Support which neither of them ever provided. In the end I managed to fix my problems myself and completed the game in approximately half the time it took me to get it working thanks to the DRM. Needless to say that was my final purchase of a STEAM game.

Second was when EA in all their overbearing glory altered the way they were handling DRM on all their games in the Bioware catalog causing multiple games which had been working smoothly to stop functioning. After (I kid you not) *months* talking with "customer service" at EA I was finally able to get the titles working again however to do so required installing patches that slowed down some of the games and installing/using the Origin client to even be able to boot up others. And all of this on physical copies of the games that had been working flawlessly until EA updated its DRM. This is where I gave up on buying anything from EA.

it's unlikely to change in the near future, apparently
http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?112758-When-will-Bioshock-DRM-be-patched-out

Lost my CD key to Starcraft, that's about it.
I've never had any bad experiences with modern drm

About as bad as losing the book to my box copy of Eye of the Beholder 2. Nothing like getting 5-10 mins into the game and getting those old look up the word on page whatever screens only to realize you don't have the manual.