Our last poll asked people how they liked the update system we use with Galactic Civilizations II.  Our position on CD copy protection is pretty well known as this point -- we don't use it.

We just don't want people to have to keep a CD in the drive to use the game. Once it's installed on their home computers, players should not have to worry where any physical medium is.

On the other hand, to get the free updates, players do have to type in their serial #. This allows us to have much more expansive product updates because we can change all the files in the game if we want without significant fear that someone is going to combine it with a demo or even be able to play the game purely on the updates (if one looks at 1.0 to 1.3, nearly every major game file has been changed).

The serial # then talks to our server which knows which serial #s have been issued and creates an account for the user. The user can then not only download updates but re-download the entire game. So even if you lose your serial # AND the CD years from now, you can still come on and re-download the entire game with the account it created (when you use Stardock Central, your Stardock.net account knows all the products you've purchased so you don't have to type in serial #s again).

In the poll, 83% of users like the system. 17% of users did not.  Some users don't like having to type in a serial #. Others don't like having to use the Internet to register the product to get updates. That's understandable, there's trade-offs with any system. 

The next poll is a follow-up to the previous multiplayer poll.  Stardock does, however, plan to create an expansion pack sometime mid next year to GalCiv II that includes multiplayer depending on how well Dark Avatar sells (pricing would be about the same as Dark Avatar and it would have lots of other features as well to make sure it appeals to a wide spectrum).