It is no secret that Silverman's latest baby, Red Alert 3, massively hyped and advertised by paying God knows how many millions of dollars, isn't quite living up to the expectations. The game is quite nice for multiplayer and skirmish, but the campaign part is just plain boring. Always the same schemata "We must destroy 3 pieces of the XY, then after that we can build a base and destroy 5 pieces of YX, and after that ..." WTF?! Why, David, should I always start with a handfull of units then destroy some XY building (and I intentionally put "XY" here, because it doesn't really matter that much what building are we talking about)  and THEN have the right to build my base - in almost every mission, the same way?

Anyway, the specific "review" of Red Alert 3 apart, why do people copy/download pirated versions of games? Well, first, because they are cheaper of course. Actually almost free. Second, as ironic as it might sound: People who download pirated games do not have to struggle with SecuROM and the shit alike. They do not have to worry how many times they are allowed to install the game, nor that the Copy Protection will install who knows what rootkits on their PCs, etc. According to Silverman "If you give people a reason to buy the game they'll buy it." True. But you are doing the opposite.

The only people who are "molested" through copy protection measures, are the legit buyers - which brings us to money. With so many games coming out these days, what should I buy? I would really like to have a nice FPS, and a strategy game, some Sims3 for my wife would be nice too, and maybe a few games for my kids? Well, guess what - these games all cost ca. 50 Euros (65 $) per piece. Are you kidding me?! And in this case, with games being hyped so much, I maybe end up paying 200-300 Euros for games, which I will only play a few times and then throw 'em away, because they aren't really THAT good. I can't really sell them either: Who will buy them, when they are not sure they can install them again? Or they CAN install them, but they have to call the Publisher and explain to them who they are, and why are they "re-installing" the game.

The whole point of using copy protection systems like SecuROM and DRM is blown away, by the fact that these games, meant to be "protected" from being copied, are available as pirated versions mostly on the release day. So, what the hell, why use copy protection at all? To molest legit buyers?