Posted 07/15/2009 at 01:37:37pm

...(Also, How Are You Reading This?)

 I can read this because I have high speed internet at work.  No such luck at home where my gaming computer is.  What would be the point in paying for dial up at 40 kps?  That's the fastest I can get at home.  It might surprise many that many rural areas in US cannot get DSL/Cable broadband.  If I had known 10 years ago how my slow connection was affecting others online play, I probably would have been too embarassed to play online.  At least back then games still allowed you to play using dial up (Mechwarrior 4 :))

 So the only effect all this antipirating-online-activation and must-be-online-to-play has for me, is I don't buy those games.  I had bought a new computer so I could play Crysis and was looking forward to last years Crysis: Warhead, but it reqired online activation, so no Warhead (if they had a toll free number for activation, I still would have bought it).  They can spew all the BS about the terrible pirates, or how great it is not to have to keep a CD in drive, but that's a bunch of rationalizations.  So, I hope that since they eliminated the piracy that they sold a lot of copies to those who actually could play the game.  Of course, if online activation REALLY prevented piracy, then why scale up the draconian measures to must-be-online-to-play?

The other effect of such moves is further drive people away from PC gaming to consule gaming.  The third Crysis enstallment is supposed to be multi-platform, and since consules DRM/antipirating is built in to the systems and doesn't require online connection, I'll be buying it for Xbox.  Unfortunately, EA still makes the sale, but PC gaming looses.  It will suck that it won't have as beautiful of graphics as PC version.  The Xbox version of Command and Conquer 3 wasn't as good as my older version of PC C&C and I will never by another C&C for a consule.  It will be intersting to see how sales are if this really happens.