How hard can it be to protect AAA games when can't be bought or played without an internet connection? (Can't be bought because you don't buy stuff on physical media any more, and can't be played because there is a huge patch every 3 days that you'll need if you expect to be able to finish it).

Just make the damn thing require an internet connection all the time. I don't care. If you are a good publisher then you promise to remove this restriction after 1 or 2 years and enable offline play.