http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/09/deliberate-glitch-foils-arkham-pc-pirates/
Love the official response

This is nothing new really. SecuROM, TAGES and the like, all allow hooks in the code that negatively affect gameplay. The sad thing is, most of the vocal pirates are too stupid to realise this and then act like twats on official forums (as well as the rest of the net).

The game is available for pre-order. It is possible the dum-dum did buy it and just couldn't wait for the official release. It is possible...

While I have little sympathy for people pirating the game, what happens when this DRM inevitably tags a legitimate copy as being pirated? With most DRM systems that simply refuse to run the game it's easy to spot that there's a problem and take the necessary steps to correct it. But with this system legitimate customers won't know there's a problem until they hit the game-breaking bug, and even then unless they're fairly savvy and up to date on the game's DRM they're likely to spend many hours in frustration before they figure out what's wrong (and I'm guessing they won't be too happy at that point). Although I suppose Eidos won't particularly care as they've already been paid.
As for myself, I was considering getting the game after it was out for a few months, but it will be a much tougher sell now that I know about this, and I'll be looking at customer feedback for the PC version much more closely before making any purchasing decision.

Reminds me of FADE for Operation Flashpoint.

the risk is that (like other recent games) the pirates spread the word about it being buggy. Then people pirate it to see if it's really buggy. Then no one buys it.
IMHO they should hide some random code that waits until a random time 40-50% of the way through the game, and then brings up a message about the game being pirated. then messes everything up.
It seems the majority of people with problems in many game forums didn't actually buy the game... cracks often seems to introduce a lot of stability issues.

Hmm, cracks have never given me any trouble and have solved one or two stability issues

Which will still get stripped out of the pirated version after a week or two, while legitimate customers continue to occasionally have their game screwed up when the DRM gives a false positive. And to add insult to injury they're also directly accused of pirating the game they paid for and which now doesn't work. Remind me how this is going to help any company sell more of their games.

Generally companies only put in the intentional flaws in builds before release, which means only leaked copies have the issue.

Ah, thanks for the info. Obviously much less onerous with regards to those buying the game, although it still doesn't seem all that great a plan, as it risks giving the game a reputation for being buggy before it even is released.

Most vocal people are very, very stupid.
Whether or not I'll buy this game, depends on a working crack coming (which it probably will), since I can't be arsed with Securom or Tages.

Oh, it's a horrible idea. Many game releases have been tainted from news of a buggy release copy. It seems like they're cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Idiotic DRM bullshit like this is why I don't even bother with new releases until there's a working crack. And why is stuff like this even there? So that seven days ahead of release, the crack is only half-working, and only on day -6 can pirates play the game properly?

it doens't help them sell more games, and it isn't meant to. It's about control, and stockholders. Stockholders see "Copy protection prevents piracy" and they applaud, and likely, so does the stock market in a marginal way. So, the makers of SecuRom and it's ilk , who have alterior motives, profit by convincing companies with alterior motives, that their product will convince the shareholders of X, even while all parties know that Y is actually true.
Y is the fact that DRM's do not prefent piracy, and actually, can mathematically be said to INCREASE it, since the pirated versions are technically speaking the definitive versions of the game.

Publishers aren't stupid. Well, they aren't naïve, anyway. They are aware someone, somewhere will crack their software somehow. But they believe they can at least prevent "day zero" (as I think it is known) leaks.