The news horn of Eurogamer sounds a clear note of DRM alarm as it notes this voluminous thread on the Football Manager 2012 forums. The situation nothing like as venomous as other DRM solutions we’ve seen of late, being a one-time only Steam activation, but it has nevertheless been greeted with scorn by thousands of players. Publishers Sega have responded defending the DRM solution, and saying: “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.”

Oh dear.