Well, I'm almost of the same mind there. Having the cracking of the game be actually illegal, while a useful tool for the business, is kind of overkill and to be honest ultimately it's usually unenforceable. It only means you can sue people after the fact.
However, why can't they have it both ways? I said games were shifting to being MOSTLY service rather than product. You can provide a service that involves property. The service provided just dovetails with the product enough to make using the service appealing and having the game without the service less appealing.
The problem is that there's the Steam model and the Gametap model. Gametap is renting you a jet-ski and you can drive it around in their lake for however long you pay them for the privilege. Steam is, uh, letting you buy a jet-ski for full price, and letting you use their lake for free, but you can't leave with it. I guess.