@ Gilly. I agree, it sucks. In a perfect world SP games would be completely DRM free and standalone. But I can't blame Ubisoft for trying to protect their investment this way. Torrents for AAA games are in the millions. And it's not like this is some brand new paradigm. Online games, web games, Steam, etc. have all blazed a trail. It's just hard for me to understand the level of shock and anger when this is such an obvious next step.

There will always be standalone games. Most will be standalone, I will wager, since maintaining verification servers is a major cost and hassle that will be implemented for only the most expensive titles. And some companies will take the opposite tack and make "no online required!" a selling point.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that this will blow over and result in even wider adoption as time goes on. And who knows, if it is successful in thwarting piracy, it may return the PC to her glory days as the premier development platform.