The consequences of detection are also the validation step for people cracking your DRM. They won't release something until they can confirm they've broken it.
It's much harder to work through removing DRM if you have to play the game for half an hour each time you want to test a partial solution. Games that dump you before even showing the title screen are actually making this confirmation activity easier.
It's much harder to work through removing DRM if you have to play the game for half an hour each time you want to test a partial solution.
Actually, I think it's best if the time interval is something like two weeks. Shift much of the revenue to downloadable content and online multiplayer. Make the consequences for having been detected completely invisible until then.
This gives the pirates two choices: either they can release their crack early, and their customers will be screwed, because even if a new crack is released, those users will already have been identified, or they can wait until well after the release, when the downloadable content comes online, in which case, you've won a reprieve where there are no sales lost to that pirate.
It's much harder to work through removing DRM if you have to play the game for half an hour each time you want to test a partial solution. Games that dump you before even showing the title screen are actually making this confirmation activity easier.