[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
For every major game out there you will find a download spot and the appropriate crack to make it work. By now, Dominions 2 played in a minor league, consisting of fans willing to pay money for the game.

This is heard in every such discussion. It doesnt stop it so why bother. That can be said of any law and punishment. However, stopping it isnt the complete purpose. If it was then it would be a total bummer to anyone that tried.

The effort is to make it as hard as possible for as many as possible for as long as possible. In the case of pirating its not really the pirates that are the targets. Its the good honest citizens who wouldnt stop to think of it as stealing if they could give a copy to a friend. Its referred to as "casual copiers" in the software world. Thats the target of protection schemes with real pirates being a fun side-game. Of course that has to be balanced against how much trouble it puts to the honest buyer. All such protections have some problems.

Companies FAR larger than Illwinter and Shrapnel (no offense guys) have looked at this. Not just game companies but all software companies. Business people with college degrees who work in nothing but hard numbers have set the guidelines. We should be happy that in this case its being decided by people who happen to love gaming since they obviously didnt go for the recommended extremes but preferred something more user friendly. Believe me the extremes are available without having to program them from scratch. You can buy them and add them just like the compression programs and installers they use.