Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

Hooray for Gamers!

No copy protection = better sales?

This month's Computer Gaming World has a letter to the editor giving us kudos for not putting CD copy protection on Galactic Civilizations II. In it, he says that not having copy protection helped make his decision to get the game.

As a gamer, I have a similar point of view. I lose my CDs. I scratch my CDs. My desk is a mess. Nowadays, with games requring 3 or 4 CDs (I wish retailers would universally accept DVDs but that's a different issue), keeping CDs around to play is annoying.

I don't have exact worldwide sales numbers for Galactic Civilizations II, but we do know they're well over 100,000 units sold worldwide in the first 90 or so days. That number is about as high as a game of our distribution level can sell in that time frame (units sold is a function of popularity X outlets available in the same way that a movie's first weekend take is a function of how well received it is X how many theaters it's showing in).

The question about copy protection is straight forward in our view: Does CD copy protection generate more sales due to less piracy than it costs in sales due to people on the fence deciding not to purchase.

CD copy protection to me is a lot like the issue I have with shareware. I don't mind registing shareware. But I know that I'm going to lose that serial # at some point. IF the site has a very very simple way of looking me up and sending me my info that is very apparent, then I'm inclined to buy it. Similarly, not having CD copy protection helps protect my investment -- knowing I'll be able to play the game even if I lose those CDs.

In GalCiv II's case, our upgrade system even has electronic registration. When someone upgrades to one of the new versions, they enter in their serial # that came with the game and it automatically registers them. So even if they lose the CDs AND their hard drive dies, they can re-download the entire game from us (not just updates the ENTIRE GAME) even yeras from now.

For these reasons, we are convinced that game developers/publishers can increase their sales by focusing on SERVING their customers rather than focusing on thwarting pirates. If someone is paying $40 for a game, they should be treated with respect, not with suspicion.

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Nice post Frogboy

To be honest, I downloaded this game from a torrent site and played it for a week or so. The two things that made me decide to buy the game were:

1) I thought it was worth giving my money to encourage a game like this
2) I saw the amazing support (patches, devs posting on boards, etc) that this game gets

So basically, piracy helped make a sale in my case.

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I scratched so many CD's including homeworld 2! which is tough to find (and ticks me off) and I have a X64 system wich is incompatible with most CD protection software out there so most of my games refuse to even run on my new PC.

so I had to buy a new hard drive to install an older os and downclock the PC just top lay games taht don't run on newer OS's, and what pains me is some of these games have 64 bit support. why does it have 64 bit support IF the copy protection suoftware doesn't!

and I will admit it but I pirated Galactic Civ2 before I bought it, didn't know if I would like it or not. I played it for a day or so and went out and got it.

if it had copy protection software, there sale would have been lost.

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I couldn't agree more. I bought a popular strategy game from a mail-order-only Game developer. I really liked the game, but I lost the CD. Upon trying to contact them, I needed to have either the CD or the manual to get another copy of the program. It made me pretty irate that'd I'd spent the money on the game and I couldn't play it any longer. What were my options at that point? Either buy the game again, pirate it, or not play it.

I figured I just wouldn't play it.

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What the heck is this!?! Frogboy is a developer right? Then why is he thinking like a human!?! It....doesn't.....make.....sense..... Gah, it's hurting my head trying to process how one can combine customer service and game development.

All sarcasm aside, Stardock has gone above and beyond the call of game development with their approach to this title. It's spectacularly fun, well supported, and reasonably priced. Frogboy's next goal should be to publish a book entitled "Entertainment Industry Business and Management Principles" and then sell it to the rest of the major developers *cough*EA*cough* thereby causing a revolution in game development.

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Greetings,

Its really nice to hear things like this! I hope SD is the vanguard of a sea change in the industry

Three cheers to the Frog!

Yours in Plasma,
Star Dagger

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From a buyer's point of view:
CD copy protection = putting the disk on every time=disk wear=uninstallable disk after a time (I had to re-buy 2 games because of this).

Also, we like to play a game, exit and play another which means disk-swapping frenzy.

Worse still, intrusive copy protection systems can mess up your whole system e.g. Pace Interlok, Starforce.

The Sims 2 copy protection registers as 2 Trojan's on some scanners. Deleting them mistakenly renders the game unplayable, yet the last time I checked there is no info on the Sims 2 site and forums about this issue.

Another experience is electronic purchase. I have bought and downloaded games online only to discover that I have to connect to a server everytime I want to play. What if you are on a laptop or the net is unavailable?

Copy protection is like someone constantly watching over your shoulder. Companies' products are their life-blood but there must be other ways that don't treat us all suspiciously - and there is: your way.

I have seen every game cracked in one way or another, including Starforce games.

We are not naive and at some point a lot of people on here have downlaoded games from FTP sites and peer-share groups. Who really wants to risk having a virus, trojan or unstable ware on thier PC , with no box, manual or other goodies and being unable to update the game.

Arguably, the kind of person that would continue using ware downloaded off the net is the person who doesn't respect some faceless inhuman company that treats you suspiciously. If you are dealing with a comany that is bunch of friendly guys, who listen to what you say, who give you what you want, who treat you like buddies, then chances are, they are gonna respect you and buy your game legit.

In the case of GalCiv 2, this theory has undoubtably worked.

After all, if every time we walked around our local shopping malls and we were followed by security for no reason, wouldn't we all start shopping elsewhere?

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

I'll go so far as to play I will not buy games where I can't get the crack for it. Putting the CD in is too inconvenient.
I wait to patch usually until the crack is done.

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I preordered GalCiv II in part because of this feature. The less work as a gamer I have to do to play, the better, and Stardock's done a bang-up job.

Thank you for your support, and I'm glad to see that you can show those big publishers that their Ivory Tower ideals aren't useful in the real world.

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Great job Frogboy!!!

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In my case, as soon as I read your views on game design and your intent of distributing, I immediately, read same day, went to my Gamestop and purchased it. I fully support your efforts and have put my money where my mouth is.

I personally feel that the future of PC gaming is actually in this direction: small developers creating excellent games at reasonable cost with the gamer in mind.

Again thank you.

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The copy protection systems mostly just harm the people who actually bought the game. Like in the past when one had to look up some weird word on page x, paragraph y etc mean while the pirates just pressed enter. Whee. Not to mention the heavy copy protection systems cost time and money for the game makers. That could be invested in bug squashing. Though pirating can be a major problem for the game makers, for example what Amiga had. I think it's more matter of the culture and price. I've bought a few $50 games and have been <----------------------------> this dissappointed. Pirating all of the sudden becomes more attractive.

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Here, Here, Frogboy. SD's commitment to the galciv communitty is fantastic and is a huge part of the reason why i bought this game regardless of no cd protection. If more developers put their time and money into the game instead of the protection we would be living happily. Keep up the great work and maybe other companies might take notice at the fantastic job done by you and all the others here at SD!!!!

Thankyou,

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amen brotherman! preach the gospel! *gives his donation(in form of buying more games) to the church of stardock for cleansing his soul of the evil copy protection schemes*

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Well, i used to download the games and see what they are like and how hard it is to run the game without the CD/DVD and even if i love the game and its too hard to even run the game without the disk, i don't buy it.

Lately though its been way too risky to do that stuff, i really wish demos accually came out BEFORE the retail version does.....but nope.

This game is totally worth paying money for, you can just install and put the CDs away and you can play, no other games can do that, especially not games coming out around the same time and in the future.

Its like Kotor 2, that game was not worth buying at all, the game was rushed, poorly optimized and the cut content was poorly hidden or they never even bothered trying to hide the info and the protection prevented me from making a backup copy, which violates my rights to the 'terms of agreement'....i think.

It says that i am allowed one back of the game for backup purposes, but with these annoying protections that is virtually impossible.

I hope all the companies go the same route as you guys do.......so if you want a patch that fixes a bug you keep getting, buy the game. lol

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______________________________________________________________________________
quote:
If someone is paying $40 for a game, they should be treated with respect, not with suspicion.
______________________________________________________________________________

Any chance you could buy out the RIAA?

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I totally agree with everything Frogboy said.

I occasionally "try before I buy" some games, and if the copy protection prevents me from even doing that, then I'm not going to chance spending $40-50 on a game that may be half finished, and never get properly fixed in the end.

I also wish more companies would distribute their multi-CD wares on single DVD versions as well. Hey, if the UK can do it, why can't we? I think most of that blame goes to the publishers though, because most of the time multi-country games use different publishers for different parts of the world.

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I purchased very recently partly due to the lack of protection. Copy protection only stops the honest or ignorant, not the determined. I'm not sure how much of a budget goes into buying copying protection, but considering that it is usually cracked within days of the release, the money could have been flushed with less hassle.

scintilion

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I love Civ type games i.e.CivIII, CivIV. What got my attention was the news regarding Stardock and Starforce. Since I have an absolute hatred for the copy protection scheme of Starforce ( ruined two of my cd drives), I decided to support Stardock and bought the game.

I love the game and for Stardock trying to send a wakeup call to the industry. Most of the games that I have rarely get played when they have some type of copy protection unless I find a no cd patch.

Kudos to Stardock and hopefully the industry will take notice.

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I can certainly say that I bought the game purely to support the no cd protection agenda you guys seem to be pushing, the game also turned out to be quite enjoyable, so that was a bonus for me.

Also: I believe Steam/Valve had this no cd protection thing down first (albeit with a horde of problems for many months) but it's really nice to see stardock get it right first try, no muss, no fuss. Kudos to you, Stardock.

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Great post, and a lot of good feedback. My main beef with copy protection is that FRICKEN LOUD spin-up noise my high-speed DVD-ROM emits that totally kills the atmosphere in the room, and I'm sure there's wear & tear on the device with that amount of vibration, not to mention the disk getting brushed & scratched as I add/remove it to/from the stack of CD wallets under my desk with other games like X3 and Oblivion..

I wonder how long Stardock will be around though? Does the client application resolve an IP through DNS or does it keep a library of last known server IPs?

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I think that it is awesome that Stardock and the developers of GalCiv2 have the presence of mind to accually work with their game to make it better, not just release it and be done with it like mostly all the other componies do. I love that you guys take feedback from the players of this game to make it better, it really adds to the experience and makes it ALOT more enjoyable!

It is real convienient to not have copy protection, but that is not the reason I bought the game. I looked around this site for a few days and saw how involved all of the developers of the game were in making their game much better and decided that becuase of this and that it looked like a good 4x it was worth the buy. I can say I have not been dissapointed!

So great job Stardock and great job developers for being so involved in making this game much much better, keep up the great work!!!

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I am like many of the above, where the copy protection attitude won Stardock my purchase. After playing the demo (from the PCGamer disc) I was left debating purchasing the full game. Usually those debates result in a "No" verdict, but here the "Yes" was strongly motivated by Stardock's stance on copy protection - it's a stance I greatly appreciate, and want to support. I'm not generally a turn-based fan, but even I find GalCiv2 fun, and Stardock gave me a chance to "vote with my dollar" on this moral-and-economic issue. So I did.

(and an extra thank you for not requiring the CD in the drive to play - makes things so much more enjoyable in the medium and long term)

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And let's be really cynical for a second - copy protection doesn't actually work. Even games like Sims2 etc, with horrible intrusive copy protection, are crackable in moments by anyone with a net connection. So what's the point? The point of pissing off your customers, licensing the copy protection software, etc? I guess companies like Starforce just wave the 'zomg lost profits' flyer, and have really neat presentations about how much money they'll save by using super copy protection... because we all know the people who torrent games will just go buy it if it's copy protected, right? RIGHT?

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Well, I have to say that, not being much of a gamer, this issue originally made no difference to me. I bought GalCiv II because I loved the demo, and it would actually play on my aging computer. However ... I had some problems with another game, so I decided to re-install it. The CDs work fine, I have all the manuals -- but at some point I replaced the jewel case and threw out the CD key, so I can't play the game. Now I understand exactly why this issue is so important.

"Serve your customers, and treat them with respect" ... such a simple model for commercial success, and yet so rarely used.

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Stardock for teh win. If you guys had a bumper sticker that read "Proud to be a Stardock customer," I'd put one on my brand new Lexus (if only I had a brand new Lexus to put it on).

I just bought GalCiv2 this past Friday after discovering that the game I had intended to buy (Space Rangers 2) uses Starforce. I really, really wanted SR2... but decided I'd rather give GalCiv2 a shot rather than risk the integrity of my home-built PC (due to complaints I've read from Starforce victims with hardware / software configurations similar to my own).

So the lack of copy protection on GC2 most definitely put *my* money into your pockets. It's just so awesome to be able to install a game, put the CD's safely back into their case, tuck the case into the box, and put that box on my shelf knowing that, if I don't want to, I never have to touch those CD's again until I upgrade my HDD. I can't remember being able to do that with a game since the days of the 5.25" floppy (and even back then, I still had to keep track of some goofy code-wheel or something similarly frustrating).

Anyway, thanks for a fantastic game - but thanks even more for treating me like a customer instead of a potential criminal. If sales of GC2 are any indicator of what's in store for the future of PC gaming, then the "guilty-until-proven-innocent" philosophy behind modern copy protection will soon be a thing of the past...

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