Comic Transcript
CUSTOMER: I don’t understand why my game isn’t working.
ALEX: Well, in order to effectively combat piracy, every time you load the game it pings one of our game servers. The game says to the game server “I’m a legitimate copy!” and then the server says “yes you are!” it does this at regular intervals while you’re playing.
CUSTOMER: But this isn’t even an online game! It’s a single-player game!
ALEX: Single-player games get pirated, too.
CUSTOMER: Single-player games shouldn’t require internet access to function.
ALEX: It’s not a big deal. Everybody has internet access these days! Internet access is a ubiquitous part of the computing experience! The entire game verification mechanism runs in the background. Nobody even notices it happening.
CUSTOMER: Until you bring the verification servers down for maintenance and all the games stop working.
ALEX: That’s not the point.
CUSTOMER: It really, really is.
