1) A car requires dozens of people to assemble.
2) A car must be assembled before it can be used.

Therefore:

3) A car requires dozens of people to use.

QED?

It's pretty clear here that people are referring to whether or not you need an internet connection at the time the game is being played, not over the entire life of the game.

I'm sorry that I didn't clarify that with "to an individual." I would have thought that the context would have made it clear enough, or did you think that I was trying to say that the book bursts into flame after it's read?

Books, CDs, movies... these are all forms of entertainment that lose a lot of their value once they've been viewed once. If game companies don't want people reselling games, they need to make some kind of incentive for people to hold onto their games, and make the gameplay actually enjoyable so that people keep the game to enjoy, rather than just to finish the single-player content once. Great examples of this are the Smash Bros. series and the Halo series. Both are enjoyable to play with friends (or online) after you've finished the single-player campaign. Things like XBox achievements do a lot to add replayability to games, but if the games aren't inherently fun, then even they can't save a game.

If you feel that the parent post wasn't being literal with his post, I'd love to hear why you think that, rather than snippy little sarcastic comments which do nothing to further the discussion.

While I can understand why you feel the way you do, your statement is wrong.

First, a large amount of tournament play is "Limited" - that is, you use sealed product to play with, rather than your own cards. There are different variations that test different skills (Booster Draft vs. Sealed Deck), but both are extremely skill intensive, and an individual's collection has no bearing on their performance.

In "Constructed" events - events where you play with cards from your own collection - it's often possible to outplay or outbuild the decks loaded with expensive cards at the casual or semi-competitive level. Tarmogoyf, a card that was selling for upwards of $50 on the secondary market, was an extremely powerful and efficient creature, but it could still be addressed by standard creature removal spells, such as Terror and Deathmark. Budget decks can often be around 90% as effective as the more expensive decks.

At the ultra-competitive level, the cost of cards caps out and everyone ends up spending around the same amount of money on their decks (probably around $500 if I were to buy all the individual cards on the secondary market). While this does create a barrier to entry, I've never heard people complaining about paintball or racing as "determined by how much they spend on the game." Most hobbies have equipment, if you're looking at competitive level Magic, players invest in their decks, but everyone caps out on cards so money isn't a determining factor.

Finally, players will often loan and borrow cards among their friends, further lowering the cost of acquiring cards to create a deck.

You're kidding me, I hope.

Do you know what a bank account is? It's you giving the bank money, and the bank owing you that money upon demand.

Do you know what wages are? They're the money that an employer owes you for the work you do.

Do you know what retirement accounts are? Oh wait, money that's owed to old people, who rely on that money to survive.

There would be a lot more than debt collectors put out on the street.