concerning Copy Protection and why companies like Larian spend so much money and effort on it...
I think it's more of a subjective feeling of "hey, I don't want anybody to play this game in an illegal way, not without me receiving the propper credit for it". I think that this is a quite normal behaviour but were it all goes wrong is on how much money they would like to spend on CP to make this dream come true.
In general, companies who are specialized in security stimulate every possible way to make people believe that their security systems work and that it is also necessary to protect every little titbit of miniscule piece of data. I once had the case of company who insisted on installing a tripple DES system to encrypt their internal mail. Their internal mail for GOD's sake. The company who sold the system at that time was able to convince the not so bright IT-manager that it was absolutely necessary because the sensitive information they were distributing internally shouldn't fall in the wrong hands (mainly jokes and avi-files btw...). Needles to say that it was all a big waste of money because most people found the system to encrypt and decrypt mails with their keys to cumbersome and absolutely unnecessary for most of the mails.
The only system I have seen uptill now that really worked for a game was the system Halflife used (and so many others now): a unique key to gain access to the multiplayer-environment. So simple, so effective but off course useless for BD (no multiplayer). So please, don't spend to much money on CP, just the necessary and don't make those bastards of the security industry any richer (I even suspect them to crack the games themselves).
Sorry for all the rambling...
