However, what if the DRM is finally hacked? Do you think Ubi will remove the DRM for paying customers or leave it as it is? They’ll leave it, of course, and the pirates will be the ones able to play offline while the legit customers have to be online at all times.

This new DRM system is something that customers are either going to deal with or not. Personally, I decided I COULD deal with it and bought AC2. I also plan on buying Splinter Cell Conviction which has the same system.

I have only seen one occasion where the game paused as my connection dropped, but others are having a far worse time of it. For example, lots of soldiers play video games on their downtime and, well, not an option for them with the lack of a permanent connection on foreign military bases.

I think the new DRM sucks, but I’ll live with it. I also think it will affect Ubi’s sales and will give them less reason to develop for the PC.

I love these knee jerk OMG DRM is the worst thing on the planet arguments. Your end statement implies that Piracy and IP theft wasn’t an issue until DRM came along. Well I’d like to point out that piracy was a major issue even back in the Amiga days, companies did choose to ignore it and have suffered the missing revenue for decades. The simplistic argument that draconian copy-protection systems are the reason for the withdrawal from PC market are just stupid.

as for this statement “all because of the way they treated their customers” well this is just ill thought out, and laughable. The problem is Piracy, if it was such a huge % of sales going missing, then the IP owners wouldn’t need to go to such lengths to protect their work and investments. Do you really think that UbiSoft want to make it hard for legitimate customers? Do you think that people who spend a lot of time and money to make something fun, want to waste effort and energy on dull DRM? Instead of jumping on the popular DRM is a pain bandwagon, maybe consumers should think about the results of their actions next time they steal someone else’s work. If the PC market fails it’s not through the lack of trying from the industry. Blame the pirates.