Speaking of " retarded contrarians", I wonder which person here is contradicting everyone else... Makes you think, doesn't it?
so you might as well rob them again?

Faulty logic. When DRM gets heavier, the PC gamers abandon the company. The same reason Ubisoft lost up to 90% of their PC audience with their DRM like AssCreed's always-online. And what did that result in, Ubisoft eventually did a 360 on that DRM.

We aren't talking about consoles here with closed infrastructure, where piracy is pretty difficult and risks your hardware. Getting a pirated game is literally a few clicks away for a PC gamer, you might personally think piracy is evil but that's because you think in an emotional way and not a systematic way. Piracy is the ultimate equalizer for the PC gamer, with it publishers are forced (at the risk of losing their sales) to do things gamers want.

So no, your line of argument is patently false fear-mongering. Sure, let them make more restrictive DRM, they'll just go bankrupt and have to come back to the table when everyone just pirates their game.

What, you don't think companies look at piracy numbers and often use those numbers to justify their continued use or drm? Whether you give money directly to steam or become a piracy statistic you are contributing to the problem. Awfully convenient the contribution you chose saves you some money though ay.

Far as I remember there's a way to make offline mode "more offline" using the registry, a parameter or some such. Might have checked it if it was on another forum, but I hate what Steam threads degenerate into here, so I'm not going to bother. I'd suggest that you ask somewhere where there are more people who like Steam and a lot fewer who don't.

Yes, we see how people stay away from DRM, just see how horrible Steam is doing... or Diablo 3... Heck even Sim City 2013 is turning a nice profit now the servers are running properly. The normal player do not care about DRM, it is your logic which have some problems there.

How am I responsible for publishers making incorrect assumptions? Piracy statistics are an indication of how popular something is, nothing more. If publishers want to turn those statistics into dollars then they should offer a better service than the torrent sites, including updates, reliable fast hosting for downloads, extras, no-DRM, good support and service, etc, stuff that turns the pirates into customers. Well to be honest that is kinda right, I don't want to spend my money on a game with DRM. No one is made of unlimited money and I certainly am not going to waste any of sub-par service which (in my opinion) is less convenient and more obstructive than pirating it.

Sorry got a bit off topic.
With your problem, that used to happen a lot when I wasn't existing steam properly before shutting down my computer.

But they want. They will use those number to increase security and implement different revenue streams to make sure they will milk the pirates also.

The only way to fight DRM is to show that it can be just as profitable,and maybe even more, to not implement it. Piracy do not do so, it shows them that they need stricter controls.

Actually, Sim City and D3 burnt a lot of people and permanently damaged the brands. They only sold well because of brand recognition and heavy marketing. I will be very surprised in future Diablo or Sim City games sold well.

This is the be all end all, honestly. Xbox One would have been accepted too, if Microsoft stuck to their guns and released some exclusive games.

In the end those of us who care about game preservation and DRM are in the small minority. Pirating does not send a message, it encourages stronger tactics. Pirates have always said "hey it's 20XX invent new business models har har." Well they did that, it's called always online, free to play and social features... the very shit I hate. So thanks pirates, your influence really helped us all out.

Anyway... I tolerate install activation because I can get around it if I need to. I don't buy always online games. That's my line in the sand. It doesn't matter though, always online will take over eventually anyway.

but they gained a lot of new players on also. I would not be surprised that the # of fans today is pretty equal to what it was before. The new fans would probably not mind a sequel when the time is right.

You are making some pretty wild claims there, how can you claim to know how these corporations and their management think, what their business plans are and what their thoughts on piracy are?

Again as I said, if these publishers continue to make incorrect assumptions like that, then they will end up paying the price themselves. No game is uncrackable and piracy cannot be stopped, as I mentioned, whatever they think now eventually they will have to come to that conclusion.
You're making that assumption now, can you say that will be the case in a few years time? Markets are rapidly changing.

What a load of bollocks, from experience I would say it's the other way round. Internet Hippies and their anti-steam babbling. While I have no problem with other peoples opinions, talking rubbish like THIS is quite annoying.

Your view of the industry is pretty static. You really think that current batch of publishers now will always be the same? And it doesn't really matter what method of DRM they move towards, because the other side of the industry, the indie and Kickstarter funded projects, is already moving in the opposite direction. Crowdfunding is growing in size by millions of dollars every month.

Yes but for how long and what if these indie people end up becoming the next EA or Ubisoft etc.

Remeber that LucasFilm was an independent studio and Star Wars was actually an indie film and look how they ended up, becoming what they were against.

Money fucking changes people man :P