Further thoughts:
IL2 is just one game produced by 1C. 1C produces lots of games, and sells them via huge-volume distributors such as Ubisoft. If distribution costs can be reduced, the producers and distributors can make more profit, which is very important to them.
Producers and distributors can make more profit if they can sell these products via download. In order to do that they have to be able to prevent the customer copying the downloaded product, either as originally downloaded, or after the customer has hacked it.
For offline games, this is a big problem.
For online games, it should be easier to solve; with an active internet connection required for online play, the client files could be programmed to 'phone home' (to the developer site) either periodically, or on demand. In other words, put a sort of trojan in the client executable! This opens up various ways of ensuring client file integrity.
If the industry could get this right, downloading could become the norm, they would make a lot more money, and the hackers would be confined to playing offline.
