The pirates will simply find the "off switch" for the advertisements and now the only ones punished with the ads will be legitimate users who've installed it on more than 2 PCs or whatever trips the "pirate-o-meter" alarm.
Why would they crack something that can be played for free?
is the point of the exercise that the crackers won't find the same challenge in breaking and removing the protection if it's only ads? Because I suspect they will.
Of course; for the first few major name titles. But this will soon become boring if it remains largely unchanged between releases; or changed just enough to brake the last crack.
Look hard if you will, but i'm yet to see one - apart from the subscription model.
Didn't have to look very hard to see that those with limited or no internet connectivity are pretty screwed.