DRM can delay piracy though, as was the case with StarForce and Colin McRae 2005 or UFO: Aftershock. Both saw a cracked version 3 months after release, and someone could argue that the first 3 months were the important ones for sales.
On the other hand, StarForce was a huge pain for the paying customer as well.

Your post reminded me of a nice blurb from the defectivebydesign.org FAQ:

# What is the purpose of DRM?

While it is advertised as a mechanism to prevent copyright infringement, DRM is actually designed to restrict all of the incredible possibilities enabled by digital technologies and place them under the control of a few, who can then micromanage and track every interaction with digital media. In other words, DRM is designed to take away every possible use of digital media, regardless of legal rights, and sell some of these functionalities back as severely limited services.

edit: Also, isn't there a website that lists pc games and notes how long before/after release it took to crack them? I remember browsing through it a while ago but I can't remember its name.

This one?

I think you make an excellent point. DRM isn't about piracy anymore since, as you noted, it's completely ineffective for that purpose. What DRM is about is control. The companies want to control how you, the consumer, use the product you paid for. Frankly, this doesn't deter me from buying their products, depending on how harsh the DRM actually is, but it severely devalues the product in my eyes. You want to retain control over the product I pay for? Fine, then I'll pay very, very little for it.

For me personally, all DRM does is make me wait for a deep, deep discount on the game. For example, I'll buy games that require Steam, but the maximum I'll pay for them is about 5 bucks. Not sure that really benefits the industry all that much in the end.

Yes, which was chronologically before the bill was passed. I don't mean that as a bombshell revelation of any sorts, and agree that the data clearly shows changing consumer behavior in response to public awareness of the bill.

I'd disagree with characterizing it as stabilized. The period from Jan-11 through May-11 is relatively stable and overshadowed by noise, but so was the period between Jan-10 and May-10, which was followed by a substantial convergence in the latter part of that year. Did this convergence repeat in 2011? Did the divergence resume as Hadopi notices began to escalate? Did it stay at these steady-state values? I'd like to see more data, because I could see any of those three being the case. Thanks for the quote. I fully agree that a pirate-turned-consumer is more likely to purchase from digital channels, but that only underscores the point that we'd expect different results from an analysis of physical product sales.

Having an approximate 3:1 ratio of physical to digital sales is also good to know. I was uncertain of what the ratio would have been in France at the time. Ideally, I'd like to see sales data for music, movies, books, and games, split by digital and physical products. That would be an illustrative comparison across the major classes of entertainment. And yes, I doubt we'll ever see such a study.

It's not bowtie that's classy; it's the wearer who makes a classy bowtie. Therefore, any bowtie Winston Churchill wears is classy, yet not every bowtie is classy. This bowtie is a lie as it seems mr. Churchill did not actually wear it as it is shown - as such, it can not be classy. I'm sorry.

If I buy a digital game and agree to the terms and conditions that remove my right to be able to resell the game, but I do so regardless, whether for $10 or $0, ... that's still a form of piracy. So I think piracy is still relevant to the discussion of DRM and 2nd hand sales.

But you need to look at those wonderful sales figures, then look at the number of sale after the first 3 weeks. Even Blizzard have stated that it may have caused people to back away from the game.
If that is not enough then you just need to take into account how people (especially reviewers) felt about the latest Sim City and its always online need, which was broken by hackers happy to help people play their game without being knocked offline every 10 minuets.

These days the hackers and "pirates" feel more like fatter Robin Hoods, giving back to the poor while taking on the corrupt rich.

Yeah, but Simcity after nine patches is still crap, as seen by the Kotaku review. There is just a bad game there, nothing else to say about it. At least with Diablo, the core game in 2014 is damn addictive. Too addictive. Must. Stop. Playing. It.

That was easy for me. The always online put me off playing the game, left a bad memory of the game barely working.
I wont be playing Diablo 3 or the addon pack. I even find I would have second thoughts about buying the game a second time even if it came DRM free.
I think I will just stick to games that Blizzard did do well. So anything before WOW was released.

God damnit, I knew this was going to happen.

You got one of the Fullmetal Alchemist intro songs stuck in my head.

This one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8hPp9xYR6s

I love that series, might be time for another anime session with Scrapped Princess.