My bet is that the game was designed with always-on DRM, EA took one look at the response, thought "fuck this", issued a press release to say "you've got it all backwards" and have now got the dev studio on feverishing fixing it to only need a login.

This is what happens when you give a finger to publishers regarding DRM - they'll take the whole fucking hand.

Most so called cracks are modified files from the original game, which are still intellectual property. At least sharing such cracks is still illegal, depends on the country whether downloading one is too.

Someone needs to edit the thread title, SimCity's DRM might prove to be a bit inconvenient, but it won't require a persistent internet connection to play.
Source:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/29/simcity-always-on-clarified-will-need-internet-for-every-launch/

Either way, I may want to play on the go or simply like it happened to me last year, due to financial problems I had to go wihtout internet for 6 months, how would I play my backlog if they all were allways-on DRM?

Yeah because obviously if your router crops up, or there is a bounce in your telecom bill payment, or you shifted house and need to get your ISP to realign your connection, or your ISP accidentally terminates your account, or there is a thunderstorm that fries your router, or your Internet adapter suddenly stops working, it is a sign of being backdated. And let's just say "fuck it" to places in the world where only a few ISPs are available eh? Like, who gives a crap about people living in Asia? You're doing okay, so that must mean 99.99999999% of the world must conform to your standards too.

Great sweeping generalizations and analogy there.

I hate the concept of being forced to be online to play games, I mean steam as horrible as it is still has offline mode. It's like making a law that everyone in the world with access to the internet must have a facebook account.

The future is Facebook.

Get with the times.

So now I'm reading that EA has "clarified" that always-on DRM really means just check at launch. And folks are okay with that???

SO, you're still okay with paying $50 for game that you won't be able to play three years from now when the servers that the game needs to connect to to launch are no longer there??

Well, then IMO, you deserve the always on DRM. There's not much difference between the two. In both cases, three or five years from now you won't be able to play a game you "bought."

But, like I said, if this is the way folks feel, then IMO they deserve it and whatever other intrusive measure these companies can think of. Trust me, they haven't stopped thinking new ones up. Enjoy them.

Certainly not going to pay 50$/€ for it, it'll sit on the wishlist (or probably not since it's on Origin) till it's on sale for a reasonable price given it's reviews after a year or so (at the very least given EA's pricing, price delay for EU and 'sales').

And I'm not gonna settle for the stripped version either, so that price will have to come waaaaaaayyyyyyyy down before i buy it.

The check on startup however, that's something I can live with. :p

There are many problems with this assumption. First, I'm offline quite a bit. Second, the onus isn't on me and whether or not I SHOULD or SHOULDN'T be online... its on the developer to determine whether they should or shouldn't FORCE it. Simply saying, "people shouldn't NEED to go offline" to base a fundamental decision on is unbelievably poor at best.

This isn't even getting into issues about stability of the servers, future proofing the product AND the developer, AND their desire to keep the game functioning even if they do prosper years from now. They you have YOUR hardware, YOUR internet, and a plethora number of things that can keep you from playing simply because the unnecessary check-in can't occur.

I won't support games with always on DRM like I did in the past, I refused to buy Starcraft 2 despite being a huge fan of blizzard strategy games, I had Assassins Creed and loved it yet I didn't buy AC2. I bought Fallout 3 and loved it, yet I refused to buy New Vegas because of steamworks(I don't use steam why should I install it for just one game?).

You may argue that I'm the one missing out, but I won't support games that restrict me so much.