Perhaps it worked because the targeted demographic was entirely different.

Spore is marketed towards a more casual, mainstream audience.

Mass Effect is marketed towards the sci-fi/rpg/action segment of the market.

Geopolitical Simulator is aimed at a highly specific niche in what already is becoming a niche market: the simulation genre. Most likely, those who were looking out for GPS were already into the subject and everything, more than likely to buy the full product regardless of DRM -perhaps even unaware of the implications of DRM.

The fact that the DRM code was cracked at all can be called a bit wondrous in that regards. In fact, you might in fact wonder if the offered DRM pirated version isn't basically a scam to install trojans on your PC.

Here's the thing about SC 2's multiplayer: every game has to go through Blizzard's servers. Every. Last. One. (this will probably have the side effect of KILLING any chance for a tournament scene close to what Star Craft I had.)

There is no spawn installation, there is no LAN play, there is no direct connect option, you have to go through Blizzard to play multiplayer, and they WILL be checking for illegal copies. Blizzard's explanation for doing this is, as noted, complete bullshit, as they're doing it to force people to buy 2nd and 3rd and 4th copies of the game to play multiplayer in the same building on the same network (in addition to detecting pirated copies of the game).

Well, either they force people to buy multiple copies or, you know... people bring their own gaming laptop/desktop with their own copy to the party. Which makes a lot more sense and most likely happens anyway, what with people having personal preferences and all.

Yes, it is sad to see spawned multiplay go (nice feature back in the day), Then again, you might ask yourself the following: how many of those who got a spawned copy to play, didn't buy the full product in the end anyway? Starcraft / Diablo etc. was just that good.

And if Starcraft is pre-installed, you can pretty much login with your own account so you have access to your personal (online) progress. So I don't see the big problem. In fact, tournament wise I think this is the better solution.

Also, I don't see battle.net shutting down anytime soon, and there is a lively community always eager to offer a solution.

If you make a private "not-LAN" party, you now would have to have a really fast internet connection because all the people in the party will connect trough your internet provider to the battle.net only to receive the data the other players in the same room uploaded to it. As you can guess, this WILL destroy LAN parties because not everyone can afford such a tube, esp. not for bigger parties.

Secondly, people still play Starcraft (and older games). They'll probably want to play SC 2 ten years from now, too. Can you guarantee that battle.net will still exist ten years in the future?

That sentence does not make a whole heap of sense, I agree. Usually, the inclusion of a specific type of CP is not the decision of the developer, but usually instigated by the publisher.

I don't think many a developer would like to endorse Star Force or DRM, but more often than not the choice is not theirs.

The second one on having the manual being intrusive... chalk that one up to people sometimes being pretty careless about where they leave their booklets. I myself leave it in the case the game resides in, and with the older (pre DVD-case containers), I got a bookshelf full with manuals. Then again, a friend of mine bought the Half-Life: Blue Shift complete set 3 times because he lost his CD-keys and could not find the manual. Granted, Half-Life is a fine game, but having the game on 4 seperate sets (yes, not only the 3 complete sets!) because of missing manuals is a bit stupid.

Perhaps better for a IJBM entry, but I think that those who complain the loudest about CP at all, are those not bothering with an original copy anyway. Aside from Star Force (breaks down your system) and DRM (treats me, the purchaser of the product as a criminal, while pretty much not hindering anyone with a cracked pirated version), pretty much every other form of CP I don't have issues with. I like the manuals, I like the extras, I never had an issue with Steam (got HL 2 on launch day as well, took a bit longer than expected but still) or equivalent tools. To date, I have no illegal/pirated games in my game collection. A collection which I started to build at age 8, and which contains over 600 unique titles over a wide range of systems at age 27.

So aside from the legitemate complaints, much of these measures were necessary from day one. Back in the floppy era (a wee bit before my time PC wise, I started PC'ing when the CD-rom era came around, '94/'95-ish) I never knew one person with an original copy of a game, but everyone had everything that was popular.

Still, I think copy protection is pretty much unncessary for a lot of games. Those games which are genuinly good, usually end up in everybody's possession as a legal copy. Think about (new IP) Sins of a Solar Empire, no protection at all but one of the best selling games of the year it came out. Compare that to any DRM protected games from the same time (long running IP Red Alert 3) and you start to wonder.

Well, this response is getting a bit longwinded. There are many facets to this subject. I endorse CP to a degree, until it becomes too much restrictive (I have no clue how many activations I've got left for Spore or Red Alert 3, which I thouroughly hate!) or invasive. But "forcing" me to pick up a manual? So what?

|*I only lament the fact that manuals are not as interesting as they used to be. Manuals for games like Starcraft, Homeworld, Mechwarrior... interesting read, gave you a lot of background material and in-universe views. How many games still have that?

It is "intrusive" in that using the game when this copy protection is in place requires additional tasks from the user.

In this context, Steam is non-intrusive, as is the infamous Secu ROM - Starforce, howver, IS intrusive as you have to install it separately.

Lies!

You don't install it seperately.

In fact, most of the time the user is not aware of ever having installed that piece of crap.

It's installed for you, without you making so much of a concious decision (read: clicking through installshield windows without reading the UELA etc.). Only to find that half your system is slowly going to hell over the next couple of weeks.

Luckily, Star Force has been pulled and no credible publisher would ship their games with it ever again. Too bad that some games I really like (X3 for example) is bogged down by that crap. But workarounds exist luckily.

The fact that there is a pretty easy workaround kinda defeats the whole purpose of Star Force. Especially since the workaround was freely available while publishers were still resorting to it.

• insert Picard facepalm here plx*