Wheter or not you use emulator software to run pirated software or not is moot - emulator software is legit and has legitimate uses, wheter it's games, movies, no-cd images, whatever; and if DRM interferes with the legitimate workings of your computer, it's malware.

Okay, this is complete BS. You're making a similar argument now as companies do for games that won't run if you have a debugger installed on your computer. That argument goes most people with debuggers on their gaming machines only use them to make cracks for the game.

It was utter nonsense then, and it's utter nonsense now when talking about emulators. The fact of the matter is that DRM never stops pirates for any length of time. Emulators are useful tools. All you're really accomplishing is pissing off customers by blaming them for your broken attempt to stop something that cannot be stopped with the methods being employed.

Uninstall the offending software before playing the game? Yeah, right. I'll just take my business to a company that's not going to try and dictate what I do with my computer in order to be allowed to play the game I bought.

That's the beauty of this business. Since none of this will actually thwart the pirates, the paying customers have all the power. Piss us off, and the pirates are the only people you've got left playing your game. I wonder how well that pays the bills?

My point is I couldn't give a crap about a pirates complaints about DRM, like burglers complaining that their privacy is invaded with security cameras in stores, go to hell.

Criminals justifying their actions  because of crime preventative measures are just morons, Monk, you really don't need to lower yourself to arguing with that kind of person.

You seem to be unable to read.

And for the record, I've around 150 games I've bought.

Haree78, is it really possible that you're not realizing what you call a "crime preventative measure" is an equivalent of a frothing vigilante barging into people's homes, rummaging through their posessions and then locking them in their houses because they have "items which could be used for criminal activities"?

Me, I'd lock that bozo in a nice quiet, padded room where he can meditate on the error of his ways. Game publishers somehow get away with it though.

That analogy is like no DRM I have ever encountered in my life.  What are you going on about?

I'm going on about DRM software which will not only prevent the game from running if it detects what it considers "illegal software" (nevermind that you paid good money for that game), but will also interfere with the functioning of that software, as has been documented on numerous occasions. Coupled with the fact that some versions are notoriously hard to remove from your system, such DRM schemes have all the hallmarks of malware.

And again, just because *you* have had no issues with DRM does not mean there are none to be had.

Pirates don't care about DRM. They strip it off and then play the game without the nonsense.

Paying customers get saddled with DRM, random breakage, being told "oh you can't have THAT software on your computer to use this game you bought", authentication servers acting up, and other random stupidity. This thread has several potential customers saying they won't buy games that are defective by design and inferior to the pirate version. DRM does more damage to actual customers then it ever does to piracy.

My guess is that the amount of people that don't buy games because of DRM isn't much more than the people who whine on the forums about it.

It's like a little online cult, like EA bashers. 

My guess is that the number of people who download pirated copies because of DRM is much greater than the number of people whining about it on the forums. Its like a little online cult, only if the publishers continue the "iron boot" technique, its gonna become a religion.

Personally, although I don't condone piracy simply because it hurts the little guys, the artists and programmers in the end, I wouldn't have any moral qualms about pirating games published by EA. I would have such qualms about pirating games published by less "evil empire" themed publishers like Stardock.

People who pirate games regardless of DRM, will always pirate games because they're free. If they weren't available, most of them wouldn't be suddenly going on a shopping spree. So basically, as many experts have been claiming for a while now, piracy is not a factor.

Bad game design, oversaturation of the market, overblown prices etc. - those are the real reasons why some games fail and companies go under. However, they are much harder to address than simply blaming pirates.

Besides, when you're explaining to your investors why your revenues aren't exactly as high as they hoped they would be, its much easier to say "those DARNED pirates have been stealin' from ya sirs, damn their boots!" than go "Weeeell, you know, its really my fault. I kinda tried to sell regurgitated crap in a shiny box and it didn't go so well as I hoped..."

In the case of Dawn of Discovery I can confirm here that the TAGES software will NOT interfere with anything else you've got running on your computer. It doesn't interfere with the game or cause crashing of any kind.

The game is incredibly beautiful and fun to play with great depth, excellent voice acting, good campaign and perfect UI. It is worth evey penny of the $50 that it is going for at the moment.

Some very nice screenshots are in this thread:
http://www.annofans.com/plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?788.20#post_1619

Some good gameplay videos start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaNMi4VDtjw

I read somewhere though that Tages doesn't allow you to deregister a PC so on my 3rd PC change I wouldn't be able to install the game anymore?

Tages allows you three installs on different hardwares, unlimited on the same hardware. No one seems to know what counts as 'different hardware' though, so something like getting more memory for your PC might burn an activation.

And yes I know that getting more activations from customer support is supposed to be possible, but from what I've heard the service isn't exactly fast. And a lot of things can happen in ten years, so it might not even be possible to get more activations in the future. Not to mention what happens if tages servers go offline.

Regarding TAGES:

http://forums-de.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5251042375/m/2601015867

Have to disagree on the depth praise here. The game is quite beautiful, although I find the lack of construction animations somewhat immersion-breaking. Voice acting is good, done in a semi-goofy manner, as are the stereotypical characters. The music score is in my opinion excellent. UI is also satisfactory.

Depth-wise, however, I find the game lacking. Even the original Settlers had more depth, and anyone who played some of the old fashioned city sims will immediately notice how "disjointed" certain elements of the game seem. For example, one of my big pet peeves with the whole system is that production buildings require no base maintenance (aside from the ubiquitous coins being deducted from your treasury) i.e. food, staff etc.

This makes it possible to have entire islands dedicated to hyperproduction of certain basic goods without the need to build accompanying infrastructure to support them (or at least bring the needed people and goods by ship). This, in turn, makes it very easy to play the game - even on hard. I also noticed that if you keep expanding your population, even with peasants alone, the AI seems to be reluctant to attack, even though they have much more advanced civilizations than you. There were some pleasantly surprising backstabs though, which is a plus.

Basically, the game seems to be overly protective of the player, and if you crave a more complicated city building sim, where you have to plan ahead (far, far ahead) and can't easily correct mistakes such as having a wrong city layout, then this game might be a bit of a dissapointment for you.