Combat vs civilian flight simulators

Just FYI, Windows, MS Office, MS Visual Studio, Photoshop, all kinds of stuff do have activations and limits. So the fight against activation limits is pretty impossible to fight unless you join the Linux crowd.

Yeah I know, its a good thing I purchased earlier versions that do not have this. I was a big consumer of software before we entered the 'DRM dark ages' sometime during 2000, the house is full of all sorts of old software boxes. I see no need for the moment to update my MS Office, Windows, Macromedia stuff and the rest of my software. Also I'm perfectly happy doing my re-paints and any graphic work in Photoshop 7.0. There's also Open Office out there, which is a good alternative to MS Office and its free (http://www.openoffice.org). Just because the fight against activation limits is extremely hard does not mean we can't atleast try.The Linux crowd can be a confusing place but I may very well end up there.

As far as activation limits on DCS goes though, just so you know, when you uninstall the game, the activation remains on that computer, and if you are going to change something major on the computer, you revoke the activation on that PC before you swap it over, and it tosses that activation back in the pool. Note that deactivation is limited as well, but it still extends it. As far as hoops goes though, usually it only takes one or two e-mails to ED to get the problem fixed (in the same conversation, in other words, not multiple requests, just multiple replies). While normally I am against activation limits, DCS is one of those things where if you don't buy it, you just won't see any more DCS games, because it's so high risk of a game to make financially. Even if you don't support activation limits, like I don't, in the case of flight simulators, I let it slide because of how rare it is to see them. In the case of something like an FPS, those are a dime a dozen, and not very precious, so I will boycott those, however things like DCS are just too rare to boycott, and because of them being rare, if they gross low, then you won't see any more.

That kind of accepting attitude and rationalization of something not good is what landed us in this DRM mess. If people outright refused the obstructive DRMs in the first place we wouldn't be here and DCS would have been released without it. Now one wonders how many future simulators will follow the same path with substantially increasing draconian and obstructive DRMs. No-one is denying that DCS is a good simulation (and I really, really did want to try it out), but at the end of the day its a luxury good and not vital for my survival. Also, and this is something that companies tend to forget, I do have a ton of old flight simulation software to keep me happy. If DCS came out there without the DRM or atleast without the activation and limits (not to mention that it also has deactivation limits!), I'll be all over it. Its time for me to quit this thread, off to process some files!!