So do I. I wonder who the last one is?

Me! I got all my installers on an external hard drive that wa rescued from my laptop...

Number 3 here. I do from gog as I want everything safe and secure.

Wait... I've lost count now :-/

I am number 3....he's number 6.....:theprisoner:

Not a lot of people will know what you're talking about...
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"

Then they need to google The Prisoner .....no excuses! XD

Man, I loved that show. They used to show them as classics here on cable.

I read the book by Thomas Diesch(sp?). Good book, imo.

Yep, i agree. The multi-quoting is getting boring.
Gundato:
I feel like you still missed a couple of points i was trying to make.
I was never arguing that pirates should be helped. How could I?
And i already told you that i feel glad that the tool will indeed help you and others who also need it to get that one activation back.
I was underlining the irony that you, who payed for your game with your money, had to wait untill now to get this 'tool' to get one activation back, while pirates never had to bother with any of this.
Paying customers shouldn't need this kind of 'gift' this late in the game because they deserve (at the very least) the same hassle free ride that people that download the game from the web have. That's it.
Is this an EA exclusive problem ? No. But while i can deslike all forms of DRM in principle, i can only complaint objectively about stuff that hits me in the face. EA hit me in the face.
Bottomline, i feel i was not treated with the respect i know i deserve as a customer, and it will take a lot more then this kind of 'gift' to change my mind.
About SecuRom, my main problem with is that it got installed on my HD without my knowledge, period. Nitpick all you want about it but nothing will ever change this. This is a clear abuse, borderline illegal in my book. If you're ok with it, fine. I'm not.
They surely have the righ to protect their IP and their products any way they see fit. And I'm pretty sure that i (still) have the right to decide about what crap get's installed on my HD. I didn't do anything to deprive them of their rights. The same cannot be said about the way they treated their customers.
So i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
You are gratefull for the tool. Fine. I'm not. Now that i know what comes with the game, i won't reinstall it, so i don't need the one activation back.They can keep it and shove it wherever it fits best.
You think they did this because they are 'paying attention' to the community. Fine. I see it differentely. To me, it's nothing more than standart damage control B.S.
I'm not on a crusade, i'm not telling people not to buy/use their products.
I'm expressing my opinions as a paying customer based on my own experience with their latest products.

I actually don't think their motivations matter at all, or more precisely, I expect the motivation of nearly every business decision to be maximizing the value of the company, and since all the motivations are the same it's senseless to waste any time considering the matter. My comment was more a critique of the spin you were putting on the matter than a shot at EA. The bottom line is that EA took a small step towards fixing a fuckup they made, although the bulk of the fuckup still remains unchanged. Their motivation for doing so means pretty much nothing. I think they should be acknowledged for the small step they took, but they should still be receiving a fair amount of criticism, since as I said the bulk of their fuckup still remains.
I have every installer saved to my hard drive and also backed up to an external drive, and from the responses so far it looks like I'm not alone. The key point, though, which you seem to recognize but are trying desperately to gloss over, is that with GOG we are both able and encouraged to archive our games in a way that is no way dependent on GOG's continued existence, while Steam purposefully makes doing such impossible (at least without violating the law). Really, if I have to spell this out any further this discussion isn't even worth my time anymore.
I actually give MS a hell of a lot of flak for this whenever the matter comes up, so yes, I not only could argue that, I do argue that. Was there a point here?
Impressive, a car analogy and one that's completely nonsensical at that. Do you post on Slashdot regularly? ;) My point, which you seem to have got but then pretty much ignored, is that releasing games devoid of DRM is not some crazy pipe dream but a perfectly viable business decision. The recent PoP game also shows this (there are examples from various other sources as well, but I don't feel like digging up and typing out a comprehensive list). Pushing developers and publishers to release games free of DRM is not asking them to slit their throats, or even take a hit in profits. It's pointing out that DRM is a failed and fundamentally flawed idea, that it fails to prevent piracy, that it's hostile towards actual paying customers, that an increasing number of gamers are fed up with it, and in short that there's simply no need to include it and plenty of reasons not to.
Some of the world is quite willing to deal with DRM (or more precisely is simply oblivious to its existence, at least until they get bit), while some of the world is also not willing to deal with it. One of the reasons that iTunes has continued to remain strong is that a significant and increasing portion of their catalog is DRM free, thus allowing them to retain the people who do care about DRM as customers. It seems even Apple, one of the worst offenders out there in terms of proprietary systems and vendor lock-in, recognizes that offering products free of DRM is important for retaining a non-trivial number of people as customers.
The argument as it needs to be stated isn't "we shouldn't have needed this in the first place," but rather "we don't need this." Period. Full stop. This is because, as I stated earlier, products being released free of DRM isn't some idealized pipe dream, but a perfectly viable business decision, and has already been shown to be such in multiple, varied instances. DRM doesn't accomplish its goal; it's been shown to not be needed; it only succeeds in inconveniencing legitimate customers and deterring sales; it's time to move past this failed idea.

We don't need a way to restore our activations? News to me. I have been afraid to uninstall MEPC since I got it for that very reason :p.
And you are right, DRM probably isn't needed. But it is here. My point with the car metaphor was taht what works for one person might not work for others. And most people would prefer to go the conventional route (buying a car from a dealership or the newspaper) rather than try a semi-radical idea (buying a car on the shoulder of the road). And if DRM is here, I don't see the major publishers giving up. So if I want to be realistic, I am going to hope for Steam :p.
Either way, I doubt either of us will be able to convince the other. I am taking the side of "annoyed resignation with a hope for a better tomorrow" whereas you seem pretty hellbent on arguing that everyone feels the way you do (and they just don't know it yet :p). For what it is worth, I actually agree with you (to an extent) regarding DRM. I don't like it (never did, and that includes when we had holes in our floppies). But it is here, and it is not going to go away (if only because it might send the wrong message). So I am just hoping we get manageable and tolerable DRM methods.

I did get your point from your rather convoluted analogy, I'm just of the opinion that it's complete rubbish. Selling games (or other software) without DRM is not some semi-radical idea, it's been done from the very inception of computer software up to the present day, with games ranging from good old games, to indy games of varying popularity, to brand new triple A titles. The market has also spoken time and again on the matter of particularly limiting or annoying DRM, from code-wheels, to dongles, to the current internet activation limits. And every time the answer has been the same: no fucking way. It seems like the only reason DRM keeps coming back is because those in decision-making positions are unable/unwilling to learn from history, and are denser than depleted uranium. Every time a new bit of technology becomes available they seem to get a hard-on thinking about how much more money they could make using it to restrict what consumers can do, which is why it is so important to smack them down every time they embark on some new assault on consumer rights.
Finally, one of the most basic rules of negotiation: Never ask for what you want. Ask for much more, then settle for what you want. Hold publishers to the standard that Steam is just fine and soon you'll be dealing with something worse. Hold them to the standard that any DRM decreases the value of their product and while only some will actually end up going this route the DRM we do see will be fairly mild. The major backlash against the latest round of DRM over the past 8 months or so demonstrates that game developers and publishers will start listening and adhering to customer wishes once their bottom line starts getting hit; now we just have to make sure that the wishes we are communicating are ones that, when heard, will actually get us what we want.
It was never my intention to convince you (or anyone else) of anything; I just engage in these kinds of discussions because I enjoy it. As for the position you're taking, it's your right to take whatever position you wish. I also am quite aware that there are many (most, probably) who don't agree with my position; I speak only for myself with what my position is and why I hold this position. As for whether DRM goes away, that's entirely up to how us, as game buyers, respond to it. Companies will respond to the market or perish, so it falls to each of us to voice our opinion on the matter of DRM, and most importantly to voice that opinion through how we spend our money.

You've been AFFRAID to uninstall YOUR game from YOUR machine?
They effectively managed to limit the way you're using YOUR legit software on YOUR hardware?
And you're still willing to praise them for 'giving' you/us this tool ? Really ?
Maybe if you could forget about the damn game entirely you'd realize that if this kind of behaviour ever became mainstream with software/games publishers, the control of what goes on on your system would slowly but surely be taken away from you. And being AFFRAID to unistall legit software, because you don't know if you'll be able to activate it later on does qualify as loss of control over your property. Are you telling me you're ok with that ? Really ? Forget about the game and think about the principle at stake here.
Guess what, people who dowloaded the game from the web have been unistalling and reinstalling the game at will without any fear. They didn't pay a cent for their game. See my point now?

Namur: So I should forget about what they actually did, and just complain about DRM in general? Got it :p. Seriously, that is why I say we should praise them. They didn't have to do that, but they did. And that is something to be acknowledged.
And people who download games from the internet don't have to swap CDs or enter serial numbers (you can copy-paste those from the .nfo :p). They also don't have to waste money on gas (or, you know, the game itself) when they initially buy it. Hell, if we are going to rate the merit of a service on how much easier it is to pirate, feth GoG. Why should we buy Freespace here when we can just grab the FSO Installer (something we would probably all use anyway) and let that download. Those who don't pay don't need to extract any files or deal with reading a readme file on how to install something. Same with Duke3d. Most torrent sites have it all eDuke'd up and ready to go, but we need to extract a few executables if we want to use the source port.
So yeah, I would prefer to not take everything out of context (although, if you do take everything out of context, EA are heroes for giving us a less limited method of DRM. See, without context, you can't give them the finger for making us deal with this DRM in the first place :p). Context is important. Hell, if they completely removed the DRM from Madden 2020: Madden Harder but didn't even remove MEPC's activation limits, people (including myself) would bitch about that.
As for Phoenix: You are right, there have been DRM-less games since the start. But you are wrong about all "bad" DRMs going away, unless your metric is whether or not they are still around. I sure as hell find having to swap discs (especially since I only bothered to put in one dvd drive in my current computer) to be a particularly limiting and annoying DRM. Many times I have lost the willpower to play a different game, just because I don't feel like having to open a box.
I sure as hell find having to enter serial numbers (especially since so few publishers understand that an O and a 0, and an l and a 1 can look very similar if you use a bad font...) every time I want to install a game. I fear uninstalling Neverwinter Nights because it has three keys (does that mean I should firebomb BIoware and Atari? :p). Yet pretty much every release (except, shockingly, the activation models. Usually) still has those bits of DRM.
Hell, a lot of people (say they) don't want to connect to the internet once a month. Yet Steam is still going strong. And people were vehemently opposed to that when it first came out (I just saw it as a way to trick Valve into thinking I owned the entire first generation of Half-Life games :p).
But I know, you are going to argue "but those aren't annoying or limiting" or "those don't cause anywhere near as many problems". All I have to say is, go to one of the cess pools of the gaming community, and you will see at least one or two morons who feed their manuals to their dogs or lose discs. If we are to assume that the most vocal are the majority (judging by your argument that being vehemently anti-DRM is the majority :p), at last a large portion of gamers are too stupid to take care of what they buy. So disc-checks and serial numbers are a pretty big concern. Hell, if we are to really believe all the rumors, most CD-Checks lower your performance. So a lot of tweak-guides suggest finding and using a no-cd crack. And things like Steam and Impulse are attempting to get rid of that.
So yeah, I think we have a long history of people getting used to DRM. Sure the more draconian (ie. the ones where the people who couldn't bypass it started horrifying rumors. See Starforce (which I disliked almost as much as this variation of Securom) :p) methods get phased out, and it looks like the limited activations model is going to be phased out. But online activation itself is here to stay. Even GoG is "guilty" of promoting it by encouraging people to embrace digital distribution (sure they don't have an activation in the truest sense of the word, but they are still showing people that a box and a manual are not needed).
Because digital distribution for any modern game IS DRM if done right. Everyone praises Stardock, but they essentially are doing exactly what you guyy are accusing EA of doing with The SIms 3. Sure there is no DRM to play the game, but if you want the patches, you are pretty much forced to use Impulse (I can only find the first one or two patches for the core game on Fileplanet and what not, let alone patches for Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor), So you still have to activate your copy and tie your key to an account.. Well, the last part may not be fully there yet, but it is coming.
And here is a negotiation tip for you (since we are both clearly experts of the art :p): Always propose an alternative that both parties can live with. If all you do is pout and scream that you want ice cream, you are going to have to eat all your (yummy) vegetables. If you propose a compromise, you might get a bit of ice cream after only half of your (delicious) Brussels sprouts. There is clearly a reason that publishers want DRM of some form (whether or not that is a valid reason isn't really relevant), so they are going to use DRM of some form. Even Stardock is pushing Impulse and that GOO thing these days.