What do you think should be the alternative? Forcing everyone to use cloud-based gaming services because the publishers will simply stop making personal copies available?
Online activation and tracking number of installs per license seems to work just fine. And there's something to be said for "risk" as a "cost of doing business". I mean, we certainly pay for imagined risk (insurance, healthcare, legal fees, warrantees, cost of customer support, etc. all factored into product cost).