Quote Originally Posted by Gramner View Post
It would be trivial to keep people from leaking the game early without the use of intrusive DRM, simply encrypt the entire game contents and release the encryption key through online activation on the release date, I belive this is how Steam preload works and it's pretty much uncrackable.
Or more simple: Ship the retail game without a launcher (the .exe) and on release day, when you do the online authentification, you also download the 4MB of missing file(s). I don't see how pirates would be able do code a working .exe by themselves..
And another idea: if your game uses Steam as DRM (like Football Manager 2009, NBA2k9 and all Valve games) simply integrate the exe inside the steam client; then when the game ships steam would get an update containing the launcher. This means it would be even harder to pirate a game, you would basically have to crack the steam client..