Gersen: I really don't like securom and most of the time I refuse to buy any game with online activation but...
If you looks 2K recent games : single activation after installation/re-installation,
unlimited number of activation, no need to run a third party application,
no regional restriction, possibility to activate "offline"... so I really fail to see how this can be is so "very annoying" when compared to Steam.
I'm going to stop you right there and point out that Bioshock 2's use of GfWL had none of the bolded and I'm not sure of the "activate offline" bit.
stonebro: Okay, I don't have a problem with Steam, but that is pretty damn shitty. One of the selling points of Civ4 was it's genuinely awesome moddability, which ensures the game basically will never die ... what are they thinking if they want to remove that?
They're probably trying to copy Blizzard, you know, for the online purposes. Here's a heads up;
you're not Blizzard.
Gundato: It really depends on how it is handled. All we know is that there is a centralized way to get mods and that some random person assumed that the EULA would make every other method illegal. And it isn't even cited :p
Let's assume this is true. As long as the mods are still free (and they likely will be, at least until Civ 6 :p), this just means that it will be easier to find the mods.
Unless you actively hang out at the various modding forums (and there are a few), you would never even have heard of Fall from Heaven until Beyond the Sword included an older version of it (and many people don't even realize that was an older version :p). With this, you could theoretically browse in-game. More exposure.
Is there potential for bad stuff? Yup. But let's not immediately assume the worst :P
Oi! Desura had the idea first! (And if they get their arses into gear, they might also be first to put this principal into practice).