Here is my beef with PMDG.
Let me start out by saying I am a big fan of their 737 simulation, have been anxiously awaiting the 747 and did purchase it last night and have been duly impressed by the consistant quality in their products.
However....
I hate the new activation they have introduced into their 747. It's part of the continuing trend of treat their customers like criminals and consider them guilty of copyright infringment until proven innocent. What happens when I go and reinstall? I know the website says....
The installer will recognize that it may be necessary to occasionally reinstall your airplane and based upon your personal installation history will reauthorize occasional installations without intervention from PMDG Support.
In the event that you are not authorized as a result of installation activity, you will need to contact PMDG support with your name and ORDER ID. PMDG Support will review your installation history and manually authorize your installation.
But, what constitutes "occasionally" reinstalling? How does it determine what is "occasional"? I am preparing to build a new 64-bit desktop and of course would hope to be able to migrate my flight simming to that system. If I reinstall in a month when I build my new system, would that be too frequent and I get denied? Will that then flag me and say "this guy installs to many times and blacklist him", simply because I frequently change my configurations, reinstall, etc.?
What happens if it's 9:00 PM at night, and I need to reinstall and it says I have to call, will customer service be available 24 hours? What if that's the only time I can call?
What happens if PMDG decides to close it's doors for whatever reason? I better not have to ever reinstall again because if they're not around they can no longer authorize the reinstallation I'm out of luck if I ever need to reinstall. While I'm sure no one here would like to think of such a thing, with a company as small as PMDG, even though they have products of an extremely high quality, it's very possible.
What if the main system I want to run this on is NOT on the network. I know it may be hard for some people to grasp, but many people intentionally have systems that are not connected to the Internet for security reasons.
What if I am going on a trip (as I am preparing to do within the next few weeks) and want to transfer it to my laptop for the duration of the trip so that I can learn the systems before moving back to my main simulation desktop when I return home?
And on top of it all, I am getting sick and tired of companies treating me like a criminal simply because I want to run their software and don't want to have to ask permission. At time of transaction, it is treated like a sale and then AFTER the fact, they stick an EULA in our face telling us it's really only a license. Why do I have to ask permission to use something I PAID for, and supposedly "purchased"? Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, now PMDG all seem to be taking the stance that their customers are guilty (of violating copyright) until they are proven innocent. When in a court of law, it would be THEIR job to prove the customer is guilty instead of the customer proving their innocence.
Sorry for the rant but I am getting tired of companies always being suspicious of their customers.
That said, yes, I shelled out my $55 and enjoy the simulation from a technical standpoint, but if the activation/authorization/authentication foolishness continues, I will think twice about PMDG's next "must-have" roduct (such as if they decide to come out with a 787, A380, etc. which I otherwise would be interested in). I almost did not purchase the 747 because of it.