Oh believe me, I hate all the dumb DRM that gets layered on top of games. Having to go through Steam I will accept, but that is because it has made itself so useful in other areas that I keep it running all the time anyway. But I completely understand the valid arguments against it. What really irks me is when a game is already through steam, but the publisher is too lazy to strip out GFWL or Securom or some other junk that's already in it. I still grudgingly accept it with games that I really want to play anyway, but I reserve my right to complain about it nonetheless. Some games, like Assassin's Creed for example, I have still avoided to this day simply because of how many horror stories I hear about the DRM.
I still can't find that article about Valve, but I remember that it made the point that if you keep a game updated and supported with new, free bells and whistles that only people with a valid copy of the game can have access to, you go a long way towards curbing piracy without upsetting your honest customers by imposing draconian DRM. Of course, a lot of that relies on the fact that they have Steam there acting as the doorman, so in reality they're still using DRM to determine who is and who is not an honest customer.
And for AI War to do something similar would be pretty difficult I suppose. Although I suppose it does have to do a 'call home' of sorts in order to download new updates. It would be nice if there were a way for it to determine if it was a valid copy before allowing new updates to apply, but then Arcen finds themselves in the position of trying to run their own DRM system... not much fun.
Piracy truly is a pain. I'll admit that I did some of my own back many years ago, before digital distribution became the norm. (Yes, I was bad, I apologize!) A lot of that had to do more with the convenience of not having to go out and track down a physical copy of the game. Now that I can easily buy it and download a game immediately, I don't have any reason to do otherwise. Music is the same way.
