[exDM69]

This is a very valid point and I would like to see it backed or refuted by sales data. Of course, it's very difficult to speculate how much sales were lost due to piracy or how much was gained due to the countermeasures. But comparing several games with roughly similar total sales over a long period vs. the sales by the time a crack to come out could give a nice data point to start with. If there's a strong decline in sales per day when the crack comes out, that should be a clear indicator that piracy is hurting sales (but I find that hard to believe).

Judging by the article, there was a lot of serious software engineering resources put to this crack protection system. It takes thousands or tens of thousands of sales to pay back the time spent. This money and effort could have been spent on making the product better in a way that is directly visible to the customer. How many sales could have that bought?

But things have changed since the days this game (and article) came out. Ubiquitous Internet connectivity is now on consoles too. Games get (more) patches after they are released (well they are also more buggy on release day). The downside is not being able to play when your connection goes down (or the servers go down) but this has become somewhat acceptable (albeit it's a nuisance).

It has become a lot easier to buy games online and a lot more difficult to pirate them. This is what ultimately made me stop pirating games.