Oh no! I've downloaded a pirated version of this game

Honorable thing to do, and I salute you for it.

Yea, wouldn't normally have had an interest in this type of game [GC2], but Stardock's policy on copy protection got my interest. Bought the game and found it's the most interesting game I've ever played. I finish one game and can't wait to start the next.

- Craig

Respect the gamers and the gamers shall respect you.

I remember my first brush with GalCiv. Version 1.0 on OS/2. Someone at work brought in a pirated version and said, "Here, play this. You won't be able to put it down."

I was so amazed that I immediately went and bought it! I figured that someone who can put out this quality stuff deserves my money.

Bill

I guess Stardock's policy of no CP is actually giving them more sales. Way to go, guys. You set an example for the rest of the gaming industry. Seriously.

And on top of that, they are willing to make a hard choice, no multiplayer, in order to give us an amazingly solid and fun game. Personally, I did the same thing. I read a couple reviews that this game was really great but I've heard that before and didn't want to sink my money into another blackhole game. Pirated it and by the end of the day I went out and bought it.

Well, I have to admit (perhaps with a slight twinge of shame in it) that I got a pirated copy of GalCiv II myself...however, in my case it was slightly different. I got my pirated copy BEFORE the demo of it had been released. So in essence, the pirated copy was a sort of "try-before-you-buy" thing. I liked what I saw so much I decided to buy the game, ordered it directly from Stardock too - both digital download and a physical CD shipment. Best purchase I've ever made, I believe, Stardock has made a FANTASTIC game.

I'm not too proud to admit it, the very first encounter I had with GC (before the Altarian expansion) was a pirated copy, I think I was able to wait 24 hours before I bought my copy. I pre-ordered AP and GC2 and as soon as I can I'll be on the DA pre-order as well.

Someone in this thread said it right, respect the gamers and they'll respect you.

So I'm not the only one. Awesome, glad to see that a company ( and small one too ) can make profits whith absolutely NO pirate protecion like that s*** Starforce ( a shame X3 has it... ) and other stuff. Want bonus and fix patches? Buy the game. Want to participate in net competition ( MV )? Then buy the game. This is the way to go in my opinion and it seems they're having success.

Here's to a great company and great game!
Cheers!

I was waiting for a followup to a similar game to this (can't remember what it was now) When I found this, I was on the fence about buying it, but the lack of copy protection, and no need for a cd swung my decision (As well as the instant delivery)

It's nice that they treat us as custumers instead of criminals.

You know what, it doesn't matter what other publishers do because once you start playing GC2, all your other games will just collect dust.

I buy games that are sequels of games I've already got. There are times when I am a bit concerned if the game is exactly what I'm looking for and don't want to pay out money to find it's rather rubbish, even if the reviews are good. Sometimes, the reviews slat a game, but it ends up to be a very enjoyable game.

Therefore, I either try out a demo, or if a demo isn't available, I'll try and see if a "copy" of it is available. If I like the game, I'll buy it. If I don't like it, it gets deleted.

I know piracy is wrong, and can hurt companies. But, compare that with companies who release rubbish games and charge a lot of money for it!

However, saying that, I have read a lot of reviews for this game, and have looked at the site and have decided to buy the game before trying the demo out.

That's one thing about copy protection that really screws the end user. Even if you are sure you want to buy a game, the copy protection may cause the game to be un-runable on your system. That happended to me with two games I paid good money for. They simply would not authorize on my system. I had no recourse at all. Now I always check what kind of copy protection a game uses before I buy it.

That's true. But there are some cases that the company that produced the game doesn't decide to include extreme measures like Starforce. Take Egosoft for example ( X, X2, X3 ). Alot of users still complain about Starforce and actually boicoted the game. They demand for Egosoft to get rid of it but they reply on saying that the decision of Starforce wasn't theirs. It was their publisher's, so yeah, that's to bad for them. I have X3 and I like it, but I don't have it installed.

I'm glad you decided to go out and pick up a retail copy of the game.  Not only is it copy-rpotection free, you're also gonna get a lot of good patches and support for "free"  The 1.2 patch added a lot of goodies, and 1.3 should have some significant AI improvements and bug fixes. 

Brad's been pretty vocal on how he views CP, or the lack of it, impacts sales and that GC2 seems to be selling great despite being wide open, which goes completely against the arguments made by major publishers.

Oh, and this game does have a demo, a darn good one with a 100 turn limit (you can complete some games in that time frame) and some limits on game settings so you can get a pretty complete game experience on a smallish map.  If you have other friends sitting on the fence, I'd point them to the "Downloads" link on the left for the demo.

You won't regret your purchase 

-Z

This simply proves what I've viewed as the best way to defeat piracy for a long time. Its quite simple really:

MAKE A GOOD GAME

you cant destroy piracy, not everywhere people even have 50$ to spend on game, but surely enough in the civilized world buying original game is a salute and respect for the creators for their time spent in the office and the afterhours especialy when it comes with no cd protection in times where piracy is at its highs

I wonder how many sales were gained through the whole Starforce fiasco?

Kind of backfired on them I bet. I reckon there'll be a fair few people went and downloaded the pirated version thanks to their link, then went out and bought a legit copy for the patches.

Reminds me of the old shareware model - get a cut down version of the game for free, but you need to pay to open up the full content.

I'm curious... People keep saying how this game has no piracy protection - yet, it seems it somewhat does to me.

If you want to install the patch, you need to have the registered serial number and the email it was registered to. So, it does have a slight (easy to get over, yes... but still there) version of piracy protection

Personally, I perfer their sort of piracy protection. Of all the games I have bought this one has the best. Give people the basic game without portection, but make them have to have a key for the extra stuff. I hope that more companies follow this model.

Sure, there is an activation that should be made only once. But only starting from patch 1.1. And don't forget that your serial Id should be a first hand one.

But no CD required to play, no internet connexion everytime you want to play, no hidden drivers installed. And with SDC you can also archive the whole game and burn it on CD or DVD.

And the main point was that the version 1.0 was without any protection as well as the first updates.

Yeah it's a wide open game. I bought it, and couldn't stop. The no CD policy prevented laggy games due to junky CDs that won't stop creating problems. GC2 rocks!   I'll be waiting for Dark Avatar....

The whole CD copy protection idea is one that really burdens the user for the sake of protecting a publisher's financial interests. Often these protection schemes are cracked within days of a game's release. There are no-cd exe files for a lot of games floating around the net, but using them caries some risk since they are cracks done by people who just like to do that sort of thing. The whole idea is really quite ridiculous and stupid.

Stardock has the correct approach. The only hassle for me is that I need to enter my serial number and connect for authorization when I load the game the first time. On a new laptop computer, I just installed GC2 from CD then applied the 1.2 patch. I only had to enter the serial once. I can run the game on all my machines without worry of having a CD with me or an internet connection. That's the way it should be.

All publishers should be using Stardock's approach to copy protection. It makes the game most enjoyable for me as a user while protecting the publisher's interests.