Good for GOG for trying to counter this, but the "new" reality since Windows XP (when it really hit the masses) is online activation.

So many things require you to be online just to send a few tokens over the internet to prove you own the thing.

It's really annoying, and makes me hope that with every year that it gets easier to make games (even with the help of AI), more and more people will release games, not because they want money, but because they want to share something worthwhile (and maybe make a little money, too).