So you support a developer that blocks you out of your game and forces you to download a crack for the game you purchased? I'm sorry but When companys think it's ok to treat their customers like that , I say "Pirate away". This is coming from someone with over 900 items on steam and I don't pirate pc games. I've been wanting to play Batman Arkam City for so long but I refuse to the drm, They don't get my money and they never will. I don't care how good their game is they won't get my money.
My point was if your downloading a crack for your legit game you're being treated like crap from the people you paid to support. It won't be long before they drop the fucked up drm if people stopped buying it. Drm only restricts the paying customers not the pirates.
The DRM and AP were put there BECAUSE piracy is rampant. If you think that any self-respecting programmer would put code that hinders the inner workings of their program deliberately then you are wrong - those are orders from the top of the ladder my friend.
I'm not a supporter of AP or DRM - I believe that the customer is entitled to do whatever he or she wants with the software he or she purchased legitimately, but at the same time I'm the last person to support a piss-poor excuse just to download games. I understand why the AP's and DRM's are out there and I know that I have to deal with them because people don't feel like buying games, I know that people don't buy games because they're expensive, I know that they're expensive because people don't buy enough of them to cover the production costs and I'm well-aware that I am a part of the problem since I download as well. This is what they call a viscious cycle - nobody will make the first move because in this scenario everybody loses anyways.
Companies don't make games - artists do. Programmers, sound editors, CG artists, designers, actors and so-on and so-forth, and I'm more than willing to put food on their table because I know that making a great game is no small feat, especially with the competition they have nowadays from other studios and the ever-expanding capabilities of the hardware. I can see where you're coming from and I agree that even if the pirates are the great majority, companies shouldn't put hurdles on the way of legitimate users, but from their perspective, it's their money put into the product and their hard work and sweat put into its development. They're not excused, by no means - AP should be designed in a way that does not impede normal use of the applications, but hackers are crafty - we all know that.