No it doesn't, Lynn. The most pirated game in 2008 was, apparently, Spore - which is protected by SecuROM Internet Edition.
Plenty of people are put off from buying games because of limited installs and online activation, though. You only have to look at a few threads on the Mass Effect and Spore forums to see that. Not to mention the Amazon users' campaign against excessive DRM.
Excessive DRM drives away legitimate customers and has no effect on pirates at all.
I (And many like me) would NEVER pirate a game. End of. I want games companies to thrive because I love playing games and quite apart from the 'piracy hurts people' argument I see it as being in my OWN interests to support the making of good games. Being a writer myself, I completely understand why people want to protect their intellectual property and I thoroughly approve of them having the right to do so.
However, NO company has the right to treat me with contempt when I am a legitimate paying customer who has done them no wrong. If they try, I simply do not buy their product. If I have to miss out on a game I really wanted because of that, so be it.
I have no problem with any reasonable copy protection methods and I never have had. But UNreasonable methods are a whole other thing.
