Building your own PC costs about $600 and a little time/effort compared to paying four times as much for Mommy Dell to sell you an equivalent machine preloaded with garbage software.

You can get a top-of-the-line machine for that price too, if you're willing to recycle non-CPU components like the HD and monitor. Now that consoles are nudging up around $500, maybe console gamers will take another look at this option.

Besides, you can always tell a console port by it's simplistic interface and lack of in-game options. 4x games would have to become very half-assed before they would ever execute well on a console.

Unfortunately Galciv2 was broken when released, it was crash prone and had severe memory leaks, imho, one could even espouse stardock was afraid of how buggy their game was and chose not to put copy protection on it because they knew it was being released in an unfinished state,

Except that this sort of model is used for all of SD's games, not just GalCiv2.

And, in my experience, GCII was far from "broken" on release. Yes, I had a few CTD's in 1.0, but no more than any other game I've owned that's been released in the last three years. And I don't have a state-of-the-art system (it's nice, but it's not a "gaming" rig). And since 1.0, I don't think I've had any crashes.

IMHO stardock I think the stardock team knew galciv2 had major bugs in it but most people who don't play more marathon like sessions would not see them very often.

You're kidding, right? Marathon sessions are the nature of 4X games (and strategy games in general), and there's no one releasing one who doesn't expect people to play it for hours at a stretch.

As for the survey, am I the only one who found it strange that, unless I'm misinterpreting, 17% of the people in this survey don't even buy PC games?

It must be higher. I don't trust in House Surveys. Its almost as bad as The DNC or GOP doing their own Surveys. I wonder how they will come out.

But thats still bad. Thats like saying 28% of the Democrats or Republicans are not going to vote this year. LOL.

The serial # for GC2 isn't meant as a copy protection at all. You can copy the game to your hearts content, install it on as many computers as you want, but you won't be able to update the game or get the extra content as easily without being able to log on and download it. Well, you shouldn't forget that since v1.1 there is an activation procedure that checks that the serial id you use is associated with your e-mail. But this check is needed only once per windows installation.

And that’s why until this is removed I will not be buying the game. (I still come here in the hope that it will be removed one day)

Note: I don't have an Internet connection at home, have no intention of getting one and the alternative activation process is far too inconvenient.

Unfortunately Galciv2 was broken when released, it was crash prone and had severe memory leaks, imho, one could even espouse stardock was afraid of how buggy their game was and chose not to put copy protection on it because they knew it was being released in an unfinished state, but instead of copy protection, bugs + serial # required for game updates have the same effects as any other copy protection mechanism, it just takes a few days longer for the cracks to show up. Thats all they are doing, if they were really not concerned about piracy they would not require serial # for game updates.

GalcCiv2 hardly shipped in a broken state. Despite being a beta tester I encountered very few stability issues in the final beta/release candidate, I don't recall it CTD'ing on me at all in late beta. The only truly serious and common issue was the GPU problem Brad himself mentioned, which only showed up late on and was quickly fixed as any other developer would. The decision not to use opy protection was taken long before release, they didn't decide to 'drop' copy protection as a publicity stunt.

Only an idiot of a developer would not be concerned about software piracy. The serial number is there to protect their business by giving paying customers free updates well after release. It's a reward. The alternative is to use software that can much up their computers to make them prove they havent stolen the game. Both methods are anti-theft, but one is better for the customer.

In fact some of the best games ever made had no copy protection what-so-ever, Civ2 and Alpha centauri come to mind.

Both of which are elderly titles from a time before we all got broadband. Back when they came out lot of people didnt even have the internet. Piracy wasn't on the same scale back then, and games didn't need such collossal investments that had to be protected.

Either way I would say galciv2's release was not stellar by a long shot, if Galciv2 had been released for consoles with the bugs it had with when it shipped for the PC, the people that allowed that to happen would have been in a deep pile of crap. IMHO stardock I think the stardock team knew galciv2 had major bugs in it but most people who don't play more marathon like sessions would not see them very often.

Console developers have the luxury of knowing precisely what hardware they are programming on and have far fewer variables. Everything is the same spec and the same manufacturer, you dont have to worry about new cards, old cards, drivers or whatever utilities the user is also running. An xbox is an xbox. It's far easier to extensively test all the variables than it is on a PC, as no two PC's are identical.

I will never buy any software that uses CD-Copy protection, or other intrusive measures. I guess I am a memeber of the 28%...and damned proud of it.

I bought a game last year, can't remember what it was now...and it would not run until I removed Alcohol 120%, a legal program I legally purchased ,licensed and use in my work....needless to say which one I uninstalled....

Kudos to Brad and Stardock...

Crysis isnt being ported to xbox 360 any time soon and thats coming from crytek.
I dunno where teamxbox got that from but all those videos and screenshots are for pc version only.

So about copy protections. I recently bought paraworld for pc and i installed it but it wont play at all from dvd. I had to download the no dvd crack to get the game to work.
I find this a bit annoying to pay for a game but having to use other methods to play the game cos of shoddy copy protection.

The -worst- copy protection is my opinion is Valve's Steam engine. What an intrusive piece of #$%^.

I have an untouched HL2 DVD sitting on my shelf because of this horrible little program. My favorite part was when Steam started causing problems with the sound in the game, which was confirmed about a thousand times by users and flatly denied by Valve, who then released a patch for it.

I won't buy a game anymore until I already have the crack for it. I wonder if the major publishers understand that the cracking sites they hate are actually protecting them from the consequences of their mistakes?

For what it is worth an opinion from a gamer with nearly four decades of experience....

I make real good money and I used to buy a lot of games. Sometimes I had four or five unopened boxes at a time on the shelf due to a lack of time to get to everything in short order. Then the madness started with copy protection systems. Now unless it is a title I have a history with or a publisher I know and trust (like Stardock)I will not buy any titles on impulse and I surely will NEVER buy a StarF*cked or Valve product again.

I will however download a game I am interested in try it out FIRST and IF it delivers on what it promises and there are no issues with the install or operation, then I will purchase a legit version/copy. I currently have several unopened CDs cases from games I have purchased after the fact (perfect backups if my HDD fails) and more importantly this method has allowed me to avoid many bombs.

On a side note I own hundreds of DVDs (near 1k) and well over 2k CDs and a few years ago I stopped buying US made DVDs, and CDs due to the copy protection madness as well. Yep the RIAA and the MPAA are right the entertainment lost lots of money. but it was not from piracy at least on my part but out of protest against fascist, draconian and criminal oriented copy protection systems.

Now about getting that DA upgrade....