okies, understood chief, i was just trying to point out the 'one week, less than one week etc..' theory isnt really applicable anymore for pretty much all the popular protections at the moment.. they're all getting tougher.. thats evident even from the gamejackal change logs / updates etc...
I'm not saying you or anyone else didn't make any valid points. The topic of cracks just doesn't really need to be discussed. They exist, of course, but we all know that.
for this one, theres too much hype about the protection, boycotting (imho) is really pointless.. people threatened to boycott bioshock, yet it had record sales... activation every 10 days mightn't be to everyones liking, but its possible this may change, to every month, whatever.. if the game is popular people will buy it, that much is evident... and we can't really guess the outcome of what will happen, ea etc have pretty much made up their minds in their 'direction' so we will just have to wait and see...
I think that people not buying the game or a more public boycott wouldn't be a bad thing.
I perfectly understand online validation and it makes total sense for an online multi-player game. I cannot accept that a single-player game with no need to connect to the net in terms of gameplay should require a connection for validation. Online validation lets them better keep track of how many times the game has been installed and on how many different systems, etc. This, obviously, couldn't be done w/o validating it online.
The problem is the repeated validation. I know some people who have a rocking internet connection when they are at college because it is free but during the summers when they are home they don't have internet access and the aren't able to pickup on any open wireless connections, either. They would be unable to play the game during the summers. No matter how it is worded or packaged a continual 10 day validation process that if interrupted will make it impossible to play the game until a net connection is available is just going too far. It's unfair to people who will spend money. Now, some will argue that this isn't on many games but give it time and it very well may. We'll start seeing
"Requires an internet connection" on more and more games.
As much as I am greatly interested in the game I could pass on purchasing or playing it just to show my displeasure. The bottom line is that sales do stand out and if a lot of people don't buy the game or many people cancel a pre-order then
E.A. will take a financial hit. If they lose money they might think twice about using this method in the future if not taking this method and making it even more intrusive, restrictive, and downright unfriendly to the legitimate user.
Lastly, personally, I don't care about the online validation insomuch as I have a 24/7/365 connection. I'm going to be online anyway so I can handle it. I think it's wrong but it won't really impact me. My issue is with the limited activations (3) and no way to deactivate an activation. There hasn't been enough explanation as to what happens if I install the game and then upgrade a lot of my hardware. If the system is now seen as a different system then I'd use up a second activation. I shouldn't have to worry about it. I should be able to deactivate the game thereby releasing that "used" activation, upgrade my system, then reactivate. I will have only used that single activation in the process and not had to blow 2. The whole only 3 allocated activations w/o dealing with a human being is just stupid and will cause a lot of headaches, IMHO.
Anyway, just my thoughts.