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Galactic Civilizations II, Copy Protection, and Piracy

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Galactic Civilizations II, Copy Protection, and Piracy

Setting the record straight

from GalCiv2 Forums

Digg is reporting that a website is implying that we want Galactic Civilizations II to be pirated.  Absolutely not! Of course we DO NOT want our game to be pirated. We're a small company, every lost sale hurts us.

This got started because sales reports on Galactic Civilizations II have been much higher than anticipated. We've now outsold the first Galactic Civilizations in North America in the first 10 days. Last week we were apparently the #1 PC game at Walmart. 

Naturally, some peple have taken the conclusion that because we don't have copy protection on our game, that we invite piracy. That is not the case, we simply think there are other ways to stop piracy than CD checks, strict DRM, etc.

What we do is provide a serial # that users can choose to enter when they install and use that unique serial # to download free and frequent updates.

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?

Our company also makes utility software. We've been around a long time -- 14 years now. Our software gets pirated. We don't like it but piracy is a fact of life. And not every pirated copy means a lost sale.

The question isn't about eliminating piracy, it's about increasing sales. It's about trying to make sure that people who would buy your product buy it instead of steal it. 

Our primary weapon to fight piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates.

If you make it easy for users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more users from that convenience than you'll lose from piracy.

We realize that some people or companies might feel threatened at any evidence that implies that draconian DRM schemes or CD copy protection may not make that big of a difference in sales. 

For example, 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.

All software is pirated, there's no way around it. We've been making software for over 10 years.  We don't like our software being pirated.  Like I said, every lost sales has an impact on us.  But there are other ways to reduce it than through draconian copy protection systems.

Incidentally, the site that Starforce's forum admin linked to "prove" how much our software was being pirated we visited, followed the instructions on the site to get our game removed and the links were removed within a couple of hours.  We'll continue to follow-up with them.

Update: Starforce has removed the URL to the illegal files.

Update: View follow-up.

523,918 views 309 replies
Reply #176 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I haven't bought a soft for several years. Download,down,down everyday.But I'll buy GCII,when it will put on sell in China.It won't be useful although.
Reply #177 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'll admit it. I've downloaded games off BitTorrent. Why didn't I do it with this game? I could have saved $45.00. The difference is though ya'll produced a game that's, well, almost perfect. I was so excited about this game and so impressed that I felt that I really wanted to spur on production. I must say I was right. This game is perfection, and I'm happy that I bought it from ya'll. Thanks for an awesome game.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #178 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Haha this is brilliant, more publicity for stardock increasing their sales even more.
Reply #179 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
all we know starforce want to acaparate all the game company , but this is vary low is not better idea to save the money the companys pay to protect ther games and discount the games to 20 us or above so all can to afford to buy game because in my acountry i dont win much money
Reply #180 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Galactic Civilizations 2 is a truly BAD game. It has take up so much of my time I am hardly getting any sleep! Just about everything I ever wanted to see in a space strategy game is in it. As for DRM, I usually download cracked exe's for all the copy protected games I buy. I hate having a CD in a drive just so I can play a game. I think there should be a law that says what DRM comes with a game on the front of the box. That way if it is one of the ones I detest I can opt not to buy the game.

FYI: I play on a Dell 30" at 2560x1600 resolution, GalCiv2 looks totally awsome on it. Made the mistake of buying X3 with GalCiv2, what a waste of money that was. It comes with starforce DRM and all I did was install it and its been sitting there taking up disk space. I think I will just remove it. Fricking Starforce makes me wait what feels like 5 min before it will even let me into the game.
Reply #181 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
GAL-CIV 2. THE PROPER HEIR TO THE LEGENDARY MASTER OF ORION 1

The first STARFORCE protected game that i played was Prince of Perdia-The Two Thrones (ORIGINAL). That was two months ago. From that point and on i have had problems with my hard drive,my dvd-rom player and occasional system shutdowns. I had none of these problems before installing a starforce game. Now i'm thinking about the following:

1) Who is going to pay for my system instability?

2) Are the $1000 that the STARFORCE programmers give to a person who can prove that there are problems with his/her PC/Starforce enough to cover my hardware expenses ?(2,500 initially)... that is, IF they give me the money, which i seriously doubt it.

3) Why should i ever buy a STARFORCE protected game if i know that the company is not at least POLITICALLY CORRECT by acknowledging the problems caused by it's software.

4) STARDOCK HAS TRUE POWER. The power of knowing that by following this policy it will make more people BUY the game. At least i did.

5) Avoid the software company whose name starts with UB.....

Thank You
Reply #182 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Even if the link that was there is gone, there's a boatload of people today that found out that a pretty good game can be downloaded and used, no strings attached. This lends strength to Starforce's argument: our system can prevent this.


I just took literally about 10 seconds to find active torrents to a game "protected" by Starforce (Silent Hunter III). It took me the exact same amount of time to find active torrents to Galactic Civilization 2. The difference of course, is that while there were two torrents for GalCiv2, there were 6 for Silent Hunter III.

The fact that it is possible to download GalCiv2 does nothing to bolster Starforce's argument if it is also possible to download Starforce protected programs.
Reply #183 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Rumor has it, one of the reasons Digital Jesters went out of business is because all of their stuff had Starforce, and the boycott movement KILLED their sales.


This is precisely the reason why I will not boycott starforce protected games. Sure I am against some of the things they do, but boycotting them is only going to hurt the game producers that use them. Starforce has already got their money once a game is using it. So boycotting that game only kills the game producers. I haven't heard of Digital Jesters, but if they wrote decent games, then I would not like to see them get killed. It isn't their fault that Starforce has problems.

Bigger companies won't be effected by boycots either, since their market base is so huge that the number of people boycotting is always going to be relatively small, no matter what we do.

Getting producers to stop using Starforce (or more specifically, doing what it takes to solve the issue of them treating their customers as enemies) is definately a good, but boycotting is only going to harm game development for the small people, not fix DRM issues.
Reply #184 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Folks, let's face it - starforce *is* effective, sometimes, for a limited period of time. It's delayed the effective cracking of some games by as much as a week as far as I know. Given the number of game sales made in that initial period, that may well be an important factor.

The question is, is it worth it for punishing your own customers for buying the product? Worth increasing your support costs? Worth the impact of the starforce license fees on your already small margins? Putting off some (probably small, but maybe not negligible) percentage of customers from buying the product at all? Somewhat shadier, is it worth the lost word-of-mouth marketing from people who copied it off a friend (personally, this is how I've bought LOTS of games) but would never have bought it (eg broke students)? What about the people who buy a copy and share it? They otherwise wouldn't buy it at all 'cos it's too darn expensive - they *are* violating the license, but it's still money you otherwise wouldn't have.

I remember having at least one game - alas, I don't remember which one, and have a fair stack - whose developers released a patch within about 6 months that totally disabled the copy protection. That, I like. No more CD in the drive, no more license keys. If you have to use technical copy protection measures, that seems like the most user-friendly way to do it (except for online games with unique serial numbers, of course, which is about as non-evil as you can get).

The music industry is going through the same issues at present, and there's a lot of backlash against the draconian copy-protection and anti-piracy measures there among small independent musicians. Small game developers are in a similar position when it comes to the need to get the word out about their product, etc, and it's possible there are some parallels. I guess you folks must think so

Both musicians and small developers also bombarded with the same questionable fearmongering regarding every copied game being a "lost sale" - which to my mind is patently baloney. My personal experience is with downloading games or borrowing them off friends to determine if they're any good, because I'm not paying AU$90 for a lemon, and demos are often almost useless for checking out games. Sometimes I rush out and buy it after that, sometimes I decide to wait until it's cheaper, and sometimes I delete it then wipe my brow in relief that I haven't wasted more than an hour of my time on that complete piece of s**t.
Reply #185 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's also worth noting that Starforce has officially apologized for what happened, and removed the post from their forum (a fact I'm sure most news sites and forum posters will conveniently disregard when they're spreading this story).


Starforce didn't apologize for posting the link. They apologized for the inconvinience it caused, and they did so in some buried and closed thread. That doesn't count for much.

The person who posted the link should be fired, and his account banned. Why? Because he commited a crime using company resources, and has shown himself to be a liability. As long as that person is on staff then they have not made any improvements to make sure it wont happen again. They need to set an example.

I'd bet money that if I posted a link to any pirated game in this forum, I would be banned in an instant.
Reply #186 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It should be pretty obvious to everyone that the poster at the Starforce-forums wasn't trying to hurt Stardock, but rather show proof that the game is being widely pirated. Yes, it was a very unprofessional thing to do, but this was the actions of one person and not the entire company, and I'm pretty sure there was no ill intent.


While they might be showing proof that GCIIis being widely pirated, that's only part of the fact. Stardock relies on a serial and subsequent updates for copy protection. Even if Stardock used starforce, it will be cracked sooner or later. Thus stardock protects their game through the use of updates that require a serial. Is it perfect? No. Is it different from starforce? Yes. Does that mean the lack of SF is hurting the sale of GCII? could be eihter way.

It's stardock's policy to not employ a business model that is different from one that would employ SF or similar program. The copy protection works in different way thus showing how many people are d/ling gc2 doesn't mean anything.

Furthermore, if anyone posted a link to any SF's game torrent, that post would most likely be removed. Why can't someone demonstrate the point that SF is not effective by posting a pirate torrent when SF can post a pirate torrent to another game's product?

Even if SF post a pirate torrent to their own game and a pirate torrent to GC2, it would still not be an accurate demonstration of which copy protection is better.
Reply #187 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I also bought Galactic Civilizations II, I would not have heard about it for the DRM fuss, would I have bought it if the fuss had been heavy DRM, absolutely not. I bought it because it looks cool & I like your attitude to DRM, I'm happy to pay for things, heck I have a decent DVD collection & purchase CD's for my children for the music they like, but nothing annoys me more than Region coding for DVD's, which unfairly penalises people like myself who have lived in multiple parts of the world & CD's which are not able to be ripped onto my children's iPod's. I think generally people are honest and congradulations for taking a stand for realistic DRM.
Reply #188 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good lord I've never even played this game before. But I'm heading out the door right now to buy it. I've never even heard of it before. This anti-piracy stuff is getting out of hand. Kudos to you guys for doing the right thing. If people were making games that were worth a shit, there wouldn't be so much damn piracy going on in the first place. The last game I played that I felt was truly worth the money was Tribes and I had 3 count that T-H-R-E-E copies. I think I had a problem but anyways I'm going to buy your game right now and keep up the good fight.
Reply #189 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I know it doesn't mean much, but I just wanted to say that the hardworking employees at Stardock have really, truly earned my respect. Despite knowing nothing at all about Galactic Civilizations II, I'm very likely going to purchase a copy, if only to show my support for such an amazing business model. You treat your customers with respect, and that in turn has earned my respect. Keep up the good work.
Reply #190 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Stardock protection work because there's so much games out at once that when they finish to crack a game they go for the next one so there is very few persons who crack updates protection and most of the time pirates crack games protection for the challenge and they just make it avaible to download has a proof that they have cracked the protection to gain prestige in the pirate commnity. GalCiv2 anyone could have uploaded the install to a torrent.
Reply #191 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The person who posted the link should be fired, and his account banned. Why? Because he commited a crime using company resources, and has shown himself to be a liability. As long as that person is on staff then they have not made any improvements to make sure it wont happen again. They need to set an example.



That should be the first step, the second should be to repay Stardock for all the software that was illegaly downloaded, because the guy who put the link works for them , so he is liable and he made his company liable for his stupidity.

Starforce screwed my computer so bad that I had to reformat the whole hardrive and my computer has not worked properly since then.
Reply #192 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The person who posted the link should be fired, and his account banned. Why? Because he commited a crime using company resources, and has shown himself to be a liability.


Geez, I would never want to work for you. One mistake and out the door? You are suggesting that they should treat their employees the same way we are trying to stop development companies from treating their customers.

Sure he should be told that that behaviour is not acceptable, and warned not to do so again. But firing is going a little bit overboard.
Reply #193 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't know stardock personally. Their a corporate entity to me. I don't know StarForce. They are an equally distant entity. I don't pirate games I didn't pay for. And I word that carefully. I have pirated games... games I bought legitimately. Thus I find it hard to praise the people of Stardock, or decry StarForce's employee's. What I do find refreshing is the lack of copy-protection software which is to me (a legit user) the lack of frustrating software. Thus the policy and seeming ideology which drives said policy, is a most lovely thing to me.

Its just nice to not have to deal with that software. I've known gamers who will download hacks to all their games, whether they bought them or not, just so they wouldn't have to deal with cd's. Its just a bunch of hassles that get tossed out the window when elaborite programs devised to prevent me from doing stuff are eliminated.
Reply #194 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Geez, I would never want to work for you. One mistake and out the door? You are suggesting that they should treat their employees the same way we are trying to stop development companies from treating their customers.

Sure he should be told that that behaviour is not acceptable, and warned not to do so again. But firing is going a little bit overboard.


Do you consider that going overboard? I only know of one company in the world that wouldn't fire you for commiting an unlawful act in the companies name. Incidently that company happens to make Starforce.

I don't quite see how you are drawing the line between a Starforce employee advocating piracy, and a gamer not wanting to be treated like a common crook.

Besides, legally, the company as a whole may be liable for the actions of their employee if they do not show that they have taken remedial action.
Reply #195 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is great. Starforce just dug their own grave, meanwhile boosting Stardock's GalCivII sales through the roof as literally every tech / gaming news site on the internet is now carrying this story.
Reply #196 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A couple of things I feel like I need to say here.
First of all, I already made up my mind of StarForce earlier when I bought Trackmania Sunrise and I also had some problems with a my CD/DVD drive afterwards. However, despite their software protection being intrusive and unfair, I would not blame this entire "crisis" on the company as a whole. A single individual made a bad judgement call and the company now takes the damage done, though most of those who're going on this new crusade against SF already hated it anyway.
But there's no need for excess anger here...

I would like to congradulate Stardock though, for posting this in fact insignificant error of judgement by one single employee on their website read by thousands. They knew the word would be picked up by bloggers instantly (which it did) and so the whole gaming has now read about SF's attack on GalCiv II.
Was SF trying to hurt GalCiv II sales ? Unlikely, but Stardock's crew picked it up and made it public (very few read that thread in advance)
What has this done to Stardock ? Massive hits, massive popularity in just 2 days time and now I'd say more than double as much people know about GalCiv II than before (if not, the links will keep bringing people in, no worries)
To take such a tiny event and turn it into a huge publicity stunt is a remarkable achievement. Funny how no one blames Stardock for taking advantage like that, but personally I can only applaud what they've done and how they've done it... shows good marketing skills.

Furthermore, I've been to the stores 4 times already (in 3 different cities) but haven't been able to purchase this game yet (first time delayed, other 3 times sold out in 1 day ). I used to be a warez kiddo and I did download the GalCiv 1 Altarian Prophecy game illegally. But then again, if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have bought it anyway and I wouldn't have been waiting for the release of GalCiv II for a couple of months now.
Normally, I download all games except the ones I use to play online (like Civ IV), but this time, I think this will be the first "offline" game I'll ever have purchased. Why ? Not only the continuous support, but how would I put it ... respect for lack of a better word. I actually respect a gaming company, there's a first.
Reply #197 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I didn't even know this game existed before StarForce opened their mouth about the torrent. After reading a few reviews, I've decided to purchase two copies (one as a gift), so thanks SF!
Reply #198 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm going to chime in here against the usual flow of comments..

Were they wrong to post links to torrents of Galciv 2? Yes.
Is it reasonable to not buy games based on the copy protection? Yes.

Have I bought games with Starforce? Yes. I bought UFO Aftershock, and enjoy it very much.
Would I do so again? Maybe. The game would have to be very good. I made the decision to ORDER Aftershock because I wanted to play it.

Will I remove Starforce when I finish Aftershock? Maybe. I've cleaned up systems seriously rooted with spyware... Starforce is very, very small potatoes when compared with #### like CWS..

If you want to buy products that don't use copy protection, fine. Stardock is going about it in a very good way, and Galciv II is now the third product I've bought from them, starting with The Corporate Machine. However, I don't understand the excuses why so many people pirate games anyway.. if you can't afford it, you aren't buying the game anyway. If you want to "try before you buy", sure... I can't think of a good title that was ruined by software companies pirating it rather than publishers stiffing developers on royalties. But if you pirate every game you play, what message are you sending to developers?

I see pirates saying that they bought this game to support the lack of copy-protection. Good.. but I have to wonder if that is a good reason to be buy a particular game. I buy games because I want to play them. Shouldn't you too? Not that I'm saying that pirates shouldn't buy this game, but that if they choose to only buy titles because they don't have protection, they shoud choose better behavior to reward.
Reply #199 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First, did you noticed that no Stardock employees have written anything in this topic it just mean that stardock dont really care about the event they've got the link removed that's what they wanted in the first place. They're probably happy that it make publicity for their game, but they would have been happy even without the publicity the event made.

To those who hope that stardock will die, be realistic the time will make people forget about the starforce admin post you'll have some more peoples boycotting stardock protected games, but nothing really significant. The only thing you can do is keeping the pressure to add more peoples to your cause and nothing else, because post will repeat points already made by other persons and this event will be distant memories after a time.

I didn't heard of the sony Copy Protection program problem before this saturnday and know that there's a big difference between sony and starforce the size of the company starforce is relatively small and is unknow to the public it wont likely make it to the big news network like BBC, etc., Sony is a world-wide known corporation it make the a big news. My point is the fact that much of the public dont even know that stardock exist is a big advantage for them.
Reply #200 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You keep doing precisely what you're doing and don't let a bunch of Russian jerks tell you otherwise! I bought GalCiv, I bought a Stardock subscription for GalCiv2, and I buy every single game that I enjoy, except for those that use asinine, computer-crippling copy potection. Which is a shame, I want to get X3, but they use Starforce, so they aren't getting my business.