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Galactic Civilizations II Breaks DRM Mold
Machitis writes "A recent news item at GalCiv2.com says, 'Our license allows you to install the game onto as many machines that you own that you want as long as only one copy is being used at once. How many sales are lost because people want to have a game on their laptop and desktop and don't want to drag CDs around so choose not to buy the game? [...] we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary.'"
Don't make the same mistake I did and run out to purchase the game based on good reviews and the fact that the developers have a good attitude. At this point I'm pretty much thinking of GC2 in the same way I thought about Black & White: It was awesome for the first few days but over the course of a week or so I started liking it less and less. Even after a few patches I'd say the game is still suffering from a poor UI and a lack of information about how the game mechanics actually work. Wait for a demo, and then decide if you're going to buy, as always.
And it is the most effective way to prove his point that I'm aware of, so I'd like to give the Starforce guy the benefit of the doubt (as odious as I find copy protection and DRM and similar things), even though he probably should have considered how his comment would be taken -- piracy of a program that's sold by somebody who is not their customer is NOT ANY OF HIS BUSINESS, even if it does suggest that his software is great or something (it's not, but I digress.) (And really, even if this were a customer of his, posting a link like this is bad form. A screen shot of how many people are involved in the torrent would have proven the point almost as well, and get him a lot less flak.
However, the point that he's trying to make is easily rebuffed by simply posting another link (or many other links) to software that was protected by Starforce and yet people are still downloading it, because the protection has been cracked, either via things like SecuROM or a cracked binary that removes the Starforce checks. Copy protection negatively affects those who paid for the software the most -- the pirates just emulate it, or use cracks to bypass it, so it doesn't really affect them at all.
The forum admin linked to a torrent search of GalCiv II...that is utterly shameful.
Well, the StarForce Forum Administrator who made the post (with torrent link) is from Russia.
What he did might not be illegal over there.
But yea, talk about being an A-Hole.
Screen shot of the StarForce thread: http://www.galciv2.com/temp/starfo2.jpg
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
..to coin a phrase. Although the actual game has no DRM in it, the guys at Stardock use the unique serial number method to access online content such as frequent updates and bugfixes, giving people a good incentive to buy it instead of pirating it.
On top of there being no DRM, the game is also $10 cheaper than most retail games, which makes up for there being no multiplayer in it (at the moment.) The guys over at IGN reckon there's multiplayer architecture hidden in the game at the moment, and think they'll incorporate the multiplayer later on as part of their 'geniune advantage' scheme. Who knows, it may boost their game sales up a notch after the initial release sales have died down. Good on 'em!
Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
id hasn't been releasing the most popular games for the PC since Quake I. On top of that their titles do CD checks, which are latter removed in patches after a certain quantity of time. They don't rely on any special anti-piracy techniques, but they aren't exactly the most user-friendly with their tendency to require CDs at launch.
www.galciv2.com - go there and you can buy, download, install, and play the game with minimum hassle.
IT sems to me that they're giving you exactly what you're asking for, and that's great. I did it and I have never had to touch a CD. I have a backup stored on my HD, and can re-downoad it from them whenever I want and all I have to do is supply them with the serial number to do so.
Oh, if I lose the serial number too, if I can prove ownership (via registered email address, receipt, etc) they'll give me the serial number I lost so I can get playing again.
Pretty neat, eh? (Not a fanboy, just VERY impressed with a company where supporting the customer is priority)
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Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (first person shooter, Gearbox)a rms+earned+in+blood>
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X3 (space sim, Enlight Software)a mes=on
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enjoy.
It pisses me off that game demos have these protections too. I wonder if game companies are lazy to remove them from demos, want us customers to test them, etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Please RTFA. There are two main points to it, A: Stardock, the company behind GalCiv, uses virtually no DRM and particularly doesn't use third-party customer-unfriendly DRM such as that provided by Starforce, and that the heavy sales of the game may seem threatening to companies whose primary buisness is selling DRM software (again, such as Starforce.)
B: A Starforce employee posted on the Starforce forums a link to a site where pirate torrents of GalCiv2 could be downloaded. Ostensibly this was to provide "proof" that GalCiv/Stardock were suffering from piracy. (Presumably with the intent to encourage other companies to purchase Starforce software.) As noted in other comments however some people are viewing it as a mafia-esque tactic to harm Stardock by increasing piracy of their game. (Presumably with the intent to intimidate Stardock and other companies into purchasing Starforce software.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
We asked them nicely to consider not listing our work on their torrent listing site. They did. Score one for politeness.
GalCiv II is sort of a mix of Civilizations and MOO (2, not 3). The ship designer will make you enjoy building units. :-)
umm, GalCiv2 is $39. you should atleast check the price before you say it's too much =P but i can see how that would be easy to do, most games are $50 anyway..
Democracy rocks. Played that thing non stop for a while. Its also a great game to jump into for a few turns whenever you have a few minutes. Haven't quite figured out how to get Japan out of debt yet, though ...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 BPBAPI/
less than $39 with free shipping and almost all places no tax.
Thats equivelent to $35 in a store with tax :)
Raven made the game under iD supervision. Just because it doesn't fit your vision doesn't make it cease existing. When Quake 3 was made, CD-based copy protections were just starting to come into fashion with Microsoft Games and EA using the at the time #1 name, Safedisc, but a lot of gamse had, like Quake 3, merely a basic CD check. It was nothing special at the time. If they release a game now with no real protection, all respect to that. But 1999?
By the way, the 2000 Quake 3: Team Arena expansion, in-house iD developed, used a commercial copy protection.
This is a sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
Just FYI, if you don't have an internet connection (or you can choose so, I believe) you can set Steam to offline mode which won't do a phone home when playing single player.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Interesting. The link was still there yesterday - guess they were a bit slow in cleaning up that blunder. I'd almost thought they were standing by the post, but at least now they've admitted it was wrong. :)
Anyway, the link was to isohunt's search page, and apparently Stardock had already gotten isohunt to remove the torrents.
Careful there. Sersious cracking groups are not dumb by any means. They had to destroy the first two generations of Starforce protection, along with pretty much everything SecurROM and Safedisc has come out with.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion