Sounds unnervingly like the problem I had with Atari and their digital downloads.
Although that was entirely due to bad/incompetent customer service.
... And the fact that apparently the people 'selling' stuff on Atari's website aren't, in fact, Atari themselves. (Which is fun...)
I got Locomotion (an almost unknown sequel to Transport Tycoon) off of Atari's digital download service - which is apparently a company called Skyfire behind the scenes.
OK, so they give me an install code, and a download package which creates a directory mirroring what you would see on a CD. (the game is almost 10 years old).
Problem is, the game then starts an installer that looks every bit like what you would expect from a game from 2001... And which, surprise! Asks for a CD key.
All well and good right? They gave me a code after all...
But... What they gave me isn't a CD key. It doesn't look like one. And based on some basic research, it has completely the wrong format to be a CD key for the game I bought.
So... I contact sales... They apologise and give me a code... The same code they already gave me! Which I pointed out to them didn't work.
I emailed them again, they told me ask technical support.
Technical support... Is run by Atari itself or something, and is a different company to the sales people.
I contact technical support, and they at least understand the problem, but unfortunately because it's me not having been given a CD key, it is the responsibility of the company that sold the game to me...
Which, despite superficial appearances is a separate company.
So... Email sales again... Explain what the technical support people said... And they... Tell me to contact technical support. >_<
Anyways... Somewhere along the lines I got fed up with this and found a CD code on the dubious parts of the internet.
Which... worked flawlessly.
But then I discovered what the other code was for. Securom online activation.
And... Of course, it was somehow cross-checking against the CD code I had used, and since the two codes didn't match... This other code they'd given me didn't work either at this point.
I can consider myself lucky that there is a trivial patch to this particular game (because there was once a copy sold without all this stupid DRM)
But when a company firstly doesn't give you what you need to deal with their DRM after you pay them, then seems completely ignorant of what you're even talking about when you point this out to them...
Their customer service then plays an indefinite game of 'pass the buck',
and the only way you can get the game working at all is to bypass all this DRM of theirs...
(You have to wonder why they even bother with that, considering it's a game that's over 10 years old).
Let's just say that didn't leave me with a whole heap of goodwill towards the companies involved.
Pirating the game in question? Trivial.
Getting the legitimately purchased copy working through legal means? Nearly impossible.
Getting a legitimately purchased copy working at all? requires legally questionable means.
Somewhere along the lines something here has gone horribly wrong...
It literally seems like a punishment for doing the right thing.
And I don't think that's the message that should be sent here...