The Football Manager Forums have complaints from users unhappy over the fact that Windows and OS X editions of Football Manager 2012 will require a one-time online activation through Steam as an anti-piracy measure (thanks Develop). There are pages of objections to this from fans of the sports simulation who don't seem to find this reasoning from SEGA acceptable:

Make no mistake, if a quarter of the people that usually pirate the game switch to purchasing Football Manager 2012, the sales of the game worldwide would more than double. This would lead to increased development budgets and more benefits for all of you who do buy the game.

We've taken this decision because we believe that the steps the consumer has to take are not excessive, and that as a one-time only measure with no tracking or reporting it is not too intrusive. Having worked with Steam for a few years now we also believe that their system is ever improving and gives Football Manager players a good service of free auto-updating, achievements and other great benefits without cost or hassle.

We hope you understand and support the decision. It's by no means taken lightly, although I hope for the vast majority of you it's nowhere near as big an issue as we treat it as being.

In summary:

• You need to connect to the internet to activate Football Manager 2012 on PC and Mac before you start playing it
• To activate you will need to sign up to, and install the Steam client
• Once you have activated Football Manager 2012 you can then play it in Steam's "offline mode" - meaning you do not have to be connected to the internet to play
• Saved games are stored locally on your machine, but you can play Football Manager on any machine by signing into Steam and selecting it from your purchased games
• Staying connected to Steam will mean Football Manager 2012 is automatically updated with any patches or data updates released