Not in my experience. I've had my ISP go down and all I had to do was hit the hotkey to turn my wireless adapter off. Steam was happy to go into offline mode, but sometimes does have a problem if a router drops out or something along those lines. Again disabling the network adapter will fix that. Steam seems to be unhappy when it thinks there SHOULD be a network connection but there isn't.

Good idea.

Better idea.

While I totally agree with the sentiment, I feel compelled to point out that what you and I might view as a never-ending torrent of crap from both Hollywood and most of the gaming industry, others view as a wonderful rainbow tinged cascade of entertainment.

Of course they're wrong and we're right. Right?

The claim you quote is also sounding distinctly like the WiiMote. I assume they're fairly sure the WiiMote does infring upon all claims or they'll be wasting their time and money here eh?

Congratulations, you read the title of the patent and jumped on the word "absolute". Patents are actually about the Claims, and if you'd like to skip down to there you'll see that the WiiMote does appear to infringe on Claim 1, at least.

Depends, he may have wanted you to evaluate his agreement before he increased it.

That's just your opinion. Don't confuse it with fact. You cite a few specific examples, but that doesn't make for a convincing argument. I can happily counter you with an anecdote of my own.

I spent a few pounds sterling on some in-game items for Team Fortress 2; some gifts that could be dished out to random players on the community server I play at. It was an event night, lots of people spread across the multiple servers, lots of gifts flying around, lots of fun and enjoyment being had. The small amount of money I spent on in game items hopefully brought a smile to a few people's faces, and definitely gave me a bit of a pleasure at giving something back to the community I enjoyed being part of. The fact that some actual cash had been expended to make this happen gave a bit of meaning to the act. If gift items were totally free there'd be no point.

Please explain how this translates, in any way, to microtransactions being inherently immoral.

Well done Sir. I was poised to add to the several people below who have already replied to point out your error, but then I decided to read your post all the way through to the end. Truely an impressive example of comedy online nerd-baiting.

I would have bought Driver 4 if it were published by a company that took a sane approach to DRM. The whole constant online check thing they slapped on games a few months back was enough to pursuade me never to spend any money on their products ever again. Another case where pirates get all the benefits and real customers get screwed. Unlike many /. users though, I refuse to take the immoral choice of pirating it. Not only is it wrong, I simply refuse to contribute to any "statistics" that the likes of Ubisoft use as a weapon to beat customers over the head with while taking their money.

This may be a stupid question, but isn't that accomplished by the lawsuit? Or are you implying that they should contest it in some other fashion? Contrary to popular opinion, a lawsuit is not always a middle finger extended to the accused. It can simply be a "we need to defend this and this is how the legal system dictates our defence should proceed".