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.'"

Comments

what assholes...

[Malor]

Boy, if you wanted any proof that the Starforce people are _serious_ assholes, there it is.

Re:what assholes...

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, how Mafia-esque. "Games which don't use our product suffer from more piracy... if you catch my drift."

Re:what assholes...

[quantax]

You said it.

Previously, I have defended starforce on the basis that it does do what it advertises; hell I have seen warez forums where people actually complain about how hard it is to get around it. Its not terribly difficult to get past, but most people are too lazy to go through that much effort to play a game, so their approach does work to an extent; they cant stop piracy but they can make it a real pain in the ass. But having bought GalCiv2 the day it came out via their online-delivery system, this type of shit makes me regret my prior defenses. I have no problem that SF wants to make a copy protection, even if its invasive and overbearing, but once they go out and then take a fairly independant game like GalCiv which doesn't have major publisher backing and then hold it out on a stick as an example of the failure to copy-protect, complete with torrent links, that just means you're a giant asshole who gets no sympathy when people attack your products, legitimate or not.

There you have it, perfect proof

[j0nb0y]

Now everyone knows what gamers have been saying all along.

Starforce encourages piracy.

Re:There you have it, perfect proof

[TubeSteak]

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

Re:There you have it, perfect proof

[GMFTatsujin]

In Soviet Russia, copy-protection cracks YOU!

Makes me wonder...

[miscz]

Makes me wonder if it was Starforce guys that released this torrents just to sell their product. Looking at how did they behave recently (threatening people, etc) I would bet some money on this.

Good on them

[LiquidCoooled]

A sensible approach to a modern world.
The trust model can work.

Gaining the trust of your user base WILL be beneficial.
If you treat them fairly, they will pay you back.

As long as the torrent sites follow the DMCA rules (as it suggests the one in the article does) then the piracy can be tamed (and having lots of well intentioned customers warning them of torrents will help)

Word of mouth will get this game far, I wonder just how many torrent downloaders will purchase this game vs an EA game?

Does high downloads turn into high profits?

I see something similar happening with Serenity, I saw it months ago after downloading it, but today went out and bought a copy.
I want to tell Wheldon and the backers I support it and want more.

Wow.

[Txiasaeia]

I didn't really like the first game, but I bought the second because of their distribution model & lack of DRM. It's a pleasant sidenote that the game is actually half-decent, but more important than the game itself, I wanted to support a company that provides games without DRM. Another news item on galciv.com says that they sold more copies of GalCiv2 in 10 days than they ever sold of GalCiv1, which says to me that their method certainly isn't *hurting* sales.

But if I ever needed a tangible reason to not use Starforce products, this would be enough.

GalCiv2 'Genuine Advantage'

[Ryz0r]

..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!

Good for them!

[(H)elix1]

About fracking time a game company figured out that people don't like the CD dongle. One of the reasons CounterStrike was such a huge hit was once you installed it, it just ran. No CD needed in the drive. Anytime I clicked it, I was good to go. I've got a mess of banged up media - three copies of some games - just because they need the physical disk in the drive.

The net dongle (via Steam and their ilk) is OK for multiplayer games, but it still pisses me off when I want to do single player. I got HL2, but don't plan to buy any more stand alone games that have to call home every time they start up.

Lastly, the StarForce stuff can badly munge up a system. I can't see any titles worth building a SCSI only box for just so my other software continues to run after they try to rewrite system drivers. I hope the support calls bury any profit those who opt for this type of 'protection'.

Re:Sell me the CD key

[mrRay720]

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)

Two can play that game...

[s3n10r d1ngd0ng]

Here are piratebay links to torrents of a few of the better Starforge protected games, most of which currently have cracks. King Kong: (action/adventure, Ubisoft)
http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=king%20kong&a udio=&video=&apps=&games=on&porn=&other=&what=sear ch&page=0&orderby=se

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones: (action/adventure, Ubisoft)
http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=two%20thrones &audio=&video=&apps=&games=on&porn=&other=&what=se arch&page=0&orderby=se

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (stealth action, Ubisoft)
http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=chaos%20theor y&audio=&video=&apps=&games=on&porn=&other=&what=s earch&page=0&orderby=se

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (first person shooter, Gearbox)
http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=brothers+in+a rms+earned+in+blood>

X3 (space sim, Enlight Software)
http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=x3+reunion&ga mes=on

enjoy.

Re:Sell me the CD key

[Fweeky]

Go ahead; grab a torrent of Gal Civ II. When you're ready to buy it, do so from the website, install Stardock's little management tool, and it will happily go ahead and upgrade your "pirate" install to the latest version with your legitimate activation key, no fuss.

Personally I almost bought it purely for this enlightened attitude but it's also a really good game so.. :)

Re:Not too surprising...

[stonecypher]

Dude. iD has had some of the harshest copy protection in history.

Of course, DOOM II is a trademark of id Software,
copyright 1994-95, so don't mess with it. Remember, if you
are playing a pirated copy of DOOM II you are going to HELL.
Buy it and avoid an eternity with all the other freeloaders.
If you have any problems playing DOOM II, please call our
technical support line at (212) 951-3126.

Maybe Starforce are thugs who promote software theft if you don't do business with you, but at least they're not sending you into the Inferno...

Re:I was an early adopter

[Daetrin]

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.

Well what you say makes a certain amount of sense, but here's an alternate view:

First, both good reviews and good developers sound like good reasons to consider buying a game. Good reviews for the obvious reason, good developers because i like to support such behavior. One can make a good theoretical argument that one should judge the merit of a piece of art solely on the basis of the work itself, completly isolated from the context of the artist(s) who made it. Although i understand the reasoning behind the argument i do believe that the actions of the artist should influence your judgement to some degree. If the artist is actively working to bring about changes to society that you disagree with then any interest you have in their work should be mitigated by the knowledge that supporting them will support a cause you disagree with. Likewise if the artist is working to support views you agree with then choosing to support their work in preference to other artists whose work may be technically superior but who are not "fighting the good fight" is a completely valid position.

Furthermore, those who played the first GalCiv already know that Stardock has a history of not only listening to feedback from the players but incorporating those changes into completely free patches and add-ons. Everything they've said so far indicates that they plan to do the same for GalCiv2 as well, which greatly mitigates any fears i have about purchasing an unplayable or even just unenjoyable game. And if you did play the first GalCiv, consider how much you paid for it (about $50 in my case i believe) and how much enjoyment you got out of it compared to other games of the same price. In my case the amount of time i spent playing it and the enjoyment i got out of those hours far exceeded what i gained from many other games that i paid just as much for. Personally i feel i "owe" Stardock more than the original $50 i paid for the first game, and as such paying another $50 for the second game is well worth the risk. If the second game turns out to be mediocre or worse then i can consider my karmic dept for the first game to be repaid and be more wary when and if they release a third game in the series.

Re:Even game demos!

[Sheetrock]

As I understand it, game demos are copy protected because it avoids giving software crackers an unencrypted/unprotected version of the game binary. While I doubt a demo game .exe would be an exact unprotected copy of a retail game .exe (i.e., you couldn't just drop it in with retail data files and expect it to work in most cases) maybe it's still useful to the cracker for comparison purposes?

I don't know that it makes that big of a difference if somebody's going to reverse the copy protection. I imagine protecting each successive patch a different way makes for a bigger headache. They've gotten so clever that they occasionally fail to permit my use of the games after I buy them, so I've mostly stopped buying or even playing them (although I did buy Galactic Civilizations, which is among the best games I've played, and shall buy Galactic Civilizations II because its creator doesn't engage in this wankery.)

Re:Well, heck!

[greenreaper]

GalCiv II is sort of a mix of Civilizations and MOO (2, not 3). The ship designer will make you enjoy building units. :-)

Re:talk about sour grapes ...

[svip]

Disclaimer: Even though I'm going to correct your facts I agree with your post. Also these things were true at the end of last year but I'm not 100% sure about the present state.

Firstly, I'm not sure what you were making it out to be, but SecuROM is a competing copy protection. EA, LucasArts and several other major publishers use it. On to Starforce.

Starforce is an in some ways really effective copy protection. First of all making a 'cracked exe' is a lot more work than just stripping the copy protection, as the Starforce protection produces heavily modified and obfuscated binaries, this is why you practically don't see backup CD cracks or 'NoCDs' for Starforce protected discs.

Additionally, Starforce refuses to load the CD from a SCSI drive if an IDE CD/DVD drive is present in the system. That includes the popular virtual CD programs, as they emulate SCSI drives (there's the not-released-yet Daemon Tools IDE version which apparently shares release date of Duke Nukem Forever). Older Starforce versions required you to disable the IDE controller in Windows to use a virtual drive for a Starforce game. Recent versions go to the level of requiring you to physically unplug the drive. However, anything that prevents the PC from having a standard IDE drive will, currently, let virtual drives run Starforce-protected games. This includes PCI raid controllers and USB CD drives. As such it's a fairly easily beatable protection but requires different hardware.

However, the really funny thing here is that most burners can burn working copies of Starforce games given a proper source image. So it fails at the most base level of preventing copying of the CDs. However, copying fails if the Starforce protection drivers are present in the system doing the burning. Yes, the Starforce drivers monitor all the CD drive access. Luckily, there's an offical tool to remove the protection drivers.