Ask any game developer, and he or she knows that DRM does nothing to prevent piracy. Back during the Spore fiasco, I talked to one of the games' lead designers about it. He didn't want to say too much, but he was clearly against it's infamous "draconian" drm system. I'm good friends with an ex-Ubisoft producer, and I've discussed DRM with her in the past. She knows it's pointless. And she was a producer, for god's sake; that's as close to upper management as it's possible to get while still staying part of a dev team. I'd really like to know who exactly makes these decisions, and why they think it's a good idea to damage the experience of legitimate customers while simultaneously encouraging piracy on a number of levels.

If there was even the slightest scrap of evidence that it was effective, then sure... but there really isn't. I can point to plenty of anecdotal evidence that it makes pirating more likely. As soon as media outlets are talking about DRM to prevent piracy, it reminds all of the readers that piracy is an option. In the minds of many pirates, it vindicates their piracy. It causes many legitimate customers to decide not to support the company, and many of those then turn to piracy. It's utterly self-defeating. I myself, a game designer who hasn't pirated a game in years and won't because it's hypocritical, considered pirating Spore when it's DRM was revealed.


EDIT: I will say that there is one type of "piracy" that DRM prevents: casual disc-borrowing between friends that wouldn't otherwise be bothered to pirate. You don't see people loaning PC games like they used to, or like they do with console games. But that's certainly not worth it, especially since the loanees probably wouldn't be purchasing the game anyway.