Starcraft 2 - worth buying?

[kandrathe]

Either that, or the management is a pack of idiots -- which also merits consideration.

Both. Back in the day... When I was a part of developing shrink wrapped software, we'd build in just enough copy protection to make it difficult to crack, but not impossible. It's like a lock keeping the honest people honest. The dishonest ones will figure it out. So, why spend thousands of hours trying to build bigger locks.

The best defense is "on going licensing" or "subscription", which if you agree to pay a % of the purchase price annually, qualifies you for "free" upgrades to the product. Then, the software developers release a new upgraded version every 6 months to a year, and minor releases every month or two. The pirates cannot sustain a development effort to keep up with an organized development shop, who is also developing a closer relationship with the consumer.

Now that everyone is mostly connected to the internet, patching can be done automatically as a service (such as what Blizzard, or Redhat does).

DDO has created another model, more limited, with a free basic MMO, with purchasable add ons. I think the future (of Blizzard, or Steam) is closer to what NCSoft is doing, and would evolve into a subscription service where you don't pay per game, but per month to access their portfolio of games. Think of Steam's portfolio, but without having to buy the games, but instead paying $30/month for unlimited family entertainment. Not much different than a cable TV package, and maybe even offered through your cable provider.