I remember several years ago, even before the internet became a common thing, and games still came on 3.5 inch disks, very rarely on CDs. I had several games that once you installed the game or copied the disks 3-5 times, you could no longer install the game or copy the disks. During that time, there was no indication on the box or the manual that you were limited on installs. You would only find out when you tried to install the game the 3rd or 5th time and it would not let you stating that you have installed the game to many times. Yup, I had several games that I could no longer play back then.

Online activation with install limits is no where near as bad as that. I only have 1 game where I have reached the max install limit, and that was Two Worlds, and you dont get an activation back when you uninstall the game like you do with Divinity 2. Anyways, when ever I feel like installing the game again, I have to call the publisher to get the game activated. Literally takes 30 seconds on the phone, and never on hold. I tell them I want to activate the game, I give them some numbers that the game gave me and they give me numbers back to type into the game. I know there is a crack to bypass all of that if you don't want to play Multi player though.