No, it doesn't. What if I buy this game to play on my laptop. And then I am out of the country in a place where there is no internet connection. Will I be able to play this game? The fact is that I paid my hard earned money on this game, and I own the game. I don't want to jump through hoops to actually play the game. I agree that it prevents piracy to some extent, but are they (Ubisoft) so naive to believe that this additional layer of security is hard to crack. Seriously, Ubisoft needs to rethink it's strategy before it alienates its customers.