I've felt like this before, not about StarDock, but... well, there's a few problems I have with the PC game industry.

1. Games are still treated like childrens' toys instead of "electronic entertainment". Though it is rated in a similar manner as media, it's rare that we get adult-oriented games. Well, we do, but it's usually violence and foul language. I am still waiting for nudity to be tolerated in video games like it's tolerated in rated movies. It's all a matter of principal. I want boobies in my games. Now. Jack Thompson can burn in hell.
2. With the whole "software piracy" thing, usually PC games are non-returnable. Yeah, *some* stores will accept returns, but places like Wal-Mart will only replace a broken product. So what happens when you buy a game, and it turns out that its developers give lousy or zero support? Well, you're screwed, that's what. You just wasted your money. This could be one of the reasons we have software piracy in the first place. Piss poor service with no solution leads to frustration and rebellion.
3. Quality control. What is that? Well I suppose this doesn't just apply to PC games. It applies to everything you pay for. In the past several years I've noticed that I pay for a lot of things and get only a small percentage of the so-called "service" in return. Take my cable service, for example. ComCast. Pieces of unreliable, incompetent garbage. The "On Demand" function always returns "Error Receiving Data", and when you call "Customer Service" you get a clueless moron who wants to send out a technician, who then comes out and makes fun of the stupidity of the Customer Service, fixes your problem, which then breaks again the following day. Or, take power and water. I pay out the ying-yang for these utilities, and when someone farts in this town, the water and power go out. What can I do? Nothing... makes me wanna rip someone's spine out.

The game that ticked me off the most recently was Oblivion. It got one or two patches that didn't fix anything, really. There's so many bugs in that game, it's like I bought an ant hill. But going to the forums and e-mailing "Customer Service" falls on deaf ears and is replied to with pre-scripted poo poo. Actually, I bought Gothic 3 recently and THAT game is a friggen joke! It's like a bunch of people got together on the internet and made a shareware game, and then found someone to publish it. I don't know, it could have been written in BASIC.

Well at least StarDock actually are working on patches. The only company I know of that keeps up with its customers/fans are BioWare. Bethesda can bite me, EA Games can bite me, etc. etc. etc.

True enough, but the idea is only slightly similar. Usually all one needs to do is download a patch and install it (assuming the game even has a patch, which sadly isn't always the case). Steam required me to be online when I played the game (well, at least the first time). This game is really no different from method #1, as I would always download the patch anyway as my first step after installation. It just made it easier to do since the game updated for me, something I'm only used to with MMORPGs and the like (and Steam). I'm not saying it's a bad thing though. There's several good points I see about StarDock. 1. You seem devoted to fixing the game constantly, something I don't see much of (BioWare are the only other ones I've seen do this, at least with Neverwinter Nights). 2. No disc required in the drive. I usually don't have a problem with this, as I've gotten used to it over the years, but it's nice not to have to do it for a change. 3. You seem to have a strong, organized community here with developer interaction; again, I've only ever seen this with BioWare, most developers cannot be bothered so they send their PR guys or recruit a bunch of moderators who lack a sense of humor (and sometimes a personality, but I've seen some pretty nasty people out there). 4. Auto-updating software is a good thing in my opinion. Fishing around web pages for the proper patch file is not always fun. Here, you just click and all the work's done for ya. Like an MMORPG.

SDC is very nonintrusive since you don't have to run it to play games and it doesn't stay in memory when you're not explicitly running. It's a harmless "copy protection scheme" and a decent app for other stuff (download manager, finding trials/demos if you want to).

I also love the fact that I don't have to have a CD/DVD in the drive to play GCI/II - that is priceless to me because I hate that crap. I bought the CD + download for both GC I and II but it wasn't necessary since I always download and install the game via SDC.

Of all the many games I own, all the ones I've digitally downloaded (or otherwise don't require a CD/DVD, like MMORPGs) rate higher with me for the simple fact that I can frickin' play them without fishing out a CD/DVD first.

Something like Steam or the Web Tangent stuff is pretty much as annoying as most DVD based DRM, except for the Starforce Virus, which is the worst thing ever.

For the guy with the Mac - for you it's a choice thing. If you buy a PC game that's sold primarily thru digital download and updated thru digital download and you choose to not be connected to the internet on your PC, then that's your problem.

MOISSKA, if I'm following your logic, your claiming that your lack of internet connection is a form of copy protection. Granted, posting here only proves that you have internet access in some form, but I don't think that your lack of internet on a system that plays GalCiv is cause for criticism towards Stardock. What Stardock do by offering patches via the internet is no different from any other gaming company, and is in fact a lot better than most. At least they release a game that is playable from day 1 and won't crash every 10 minutes.

Granted you can only get the patches if you have purchased the game, but as I'm sure you have, I fail to see what your problem is.

I still can't figure out what the heck is so hard about popping a cd into the drive? Are we becoming that lazy and ignorant that something that takes a few seconds to do causes so much grief?
All of this is moot anyways, regardless of why things are done the way they are. I've learned my lesson, I hope.

Some of us have tons of games, and it's a real pain to try to find the one you want just to play a game.

It might be ok if it simply looked at the CD and went on its way, but it's more to it than that. The copy protection programs rely on unusual error codes that are written into the DVD/CD. Unfortunately, some drives can't properly read these codes. So it's possible that you can buy a game, have the disc in the drive, and the game still won't run. This hasn't happened to me often, but it has one or two times.

-HM

1) CDs can be lost or broken. Even if you do have it nearby and in working condition, if you're like me you've got a massive binder full of discs you have to dig through to find the right one.

2) It's a pain to carry discs around for everything if you play on a laptop.

3) The entire game is on the drive anyway, so you're putting wear on your disc drive (and in the case of a laptop, wasting valuable battery time) for no reason other than the comfort of the publisher.

4) With a download option and no disc requirement, you can download the game if you're away from home and play wherever you're at (provided you have permission to do so, of course).

that linked article was like reading about myself from a parallel universe. i have gone thru much of the same trying to be a "good consumer" and giving artists the royalties they are entitled to under copy protection.

when napster came out, before the recording industry spanked them, i got turned on to them. somet of the things i d/l'ed i already owned on vinyl primarily. the rest were things that i may have heard of , but never actually heard. new artists and such...when i would hear something i liked, my next move would be to buy the CD and check out more of their work. like "jarrett." i have spent my life embedded in the musical community. like him, as a fan and unlike him, as an artist. so, seeing both sides, i always tried to "support" anything i heard by buying it. the way i saw it, and used it, napster was a series of ads primarily to me, and when i saw an ad i liked, i bought the product.

then napster got beat up by the recording industry. they eventually re-emerged as a pay serivice. i signed up for their pay service and began to download songs. i was able to pay a flat fee of 10 bucks to have instant access to these songs (eventually totalling to over 13 days of continuous, non repeating music...literally 10's of thousands. ) napster had an offer that i could d/l the songs for a mere 99 cents a song. since i didn't really need the songs outside of my pc and had a pretty good sound system rigged up to it, i declined. also, the sheer expense for the amount of music i had stored would send me to the poorhouse. for my birthday that year, my wife bought me an mp3 player. she also signed me up for the "napster to go" service, which would allow me to rip the songs onto an mp3 player and take them with me. i thought it was a pretty good idea, and again, a flat rate, which i liked.

when i attempted to rip some songs, i learned that i didn't have the "right kind" of mp3 player. so i consulted their list of "acceptable players." when i shiopped them, i learned that these were the most expensive players on the market exclusively. not one of them was under 250, if i remember correctly (the mp3 i got as a gift sold for about 60 or 70 bucks.).

so we scrapped the idea.

a few months later, my wife got an ipod. she did all the stuff she needed to sign up with itunes on our pc and so forth. i thought nothing of it. till, some time later, before a party we were throwng was about to begin, i went to my pc library and went to set up a "playlist" for the evening.

and what do ya know...the napster stuff was all blocked due to a "licensing conflict" that i later figured out was because there was merely an "itunes" presence on my computer. even tho it is not even on my "side" as a user.

so everything i bought and thought i "owned" was a big pile of wasted memory in the end. yeah, i know how jarrett feels.

History has cleary demonstrated that corporate attempts to create monopolies of..." you have to buy our suite of products to use you purchase" have failed... just look at... (in my living memory) "Beta-max", poleroid, those funky record sized movie disks that i can't even remember the name of. Apple, (pre I-pod that is and well deserved kudo's to Steve and co for pulling that one out of the toilet) basicly look at any one of the less sucessful competing products over the last 30 years and the loser will always be the one who kept thier patent in close and tried to maintain a monopoly.

I for one thing the entertainment industry in general has a huge challenge comming.. computers, gaming, music, books, TV, is facing a fundamental shift in how buyers behave, the winners will be those who look beyond convention, and come up with new, faster more conveinient ways to offer thier products...

those who don't... will join the Beta-max machines in the dumpster.

put it this way... I havn't bought a CD since I was given my first I-pod for Christmas 2 years ago... I havn't bought a printed book since I was given my Palm Lifedrive last christmas... and I haven't bought a computer game from a retail store since Stardock introduced Gal Civ 2.

This is why should I ever be on a jury, and get to decide damages in an anti-piracy case, I'll rule it to be something laughable, such as $.05/song, since they didn't provide for the market. Honestly, I think SDC is a win for 99% of users and SDC

1) People without internet connections generally don't own computers these days.
2) I really haven't seen Stardock patches on the torrent sites, whereas a big-box game, the cracked patch is out a week after the real patch

I'm about ready to give up on the PC game market- outside of a few companies (the only companies I don't dislike right now are SD and Paradox- who are about 90% as good as Stardock- and try to be 100% as good)- as the big-box stuff is just crappy. I might be happier with just a Japanese PS2 for my niche games...

Almost every computer game needs to be patched eventually and those patches need an internet connection in order to download.Since you admit that you have a Internet connection for a mac how difficult would it be to switch the cable?Also don't forget that stardock is actually ADDING content to their games through patching while the near perfect Tech-support was proven with my example:
Bought both Gal civ II gold and Gal civ ultimate, downloaded gold edition then attempted to download gal civ 1, the serial was invalid.I emailed them and started browsing the web page for some support, then i shaw a post which telled of tech support via IRC chat.
Used that and with the kind help of Cari_Elf and T-man my problem was solved in 25 minutes (counted them).
At least with stardock i get what i was promised and paid for...

I'll step up to the fire and be honest. I pirate games, omg yes I do!

And I'll tell you why.

Some PC game publishers have this "Release now, patch later" motto that sickens me. MMO's are the worst of the bunch, but other genres are horrid at it too. Note I said publishers and not developers. Cause it's damn rare that a Dev will by choice release an unfinished or buggy game, it's often the publisher (EA & Atari I'm looking in your directions) that pushes the dev to release early due to money or holiday schedules.

I'm 26, been playing video games since Coleco. Once the N64 came out I felt burned due to it's lack of third party support and expensive carts. At this time I switched to PC Gaming. My biggest gripe was the lack of renting games. You could hit blockbuster and rent a console game, if you beat it in a weekend so be it, you never played it again. If the game held your interest for longer you went out and bought it.

It's not the same with PC games, yes I know there are demos, but often demos don't show how stable the end product will be. Also demos don't tell you how long the game will take to beat. If a PC game takes me only 6 hours to beat, has no replay, no mod support, or just no other way to maintain my interest then why shell out a full 60-80 bucks?

Before you say "to support the devs" then let me say I gladly buy and pay for any game that is solid and keeps me busy for more then a day. Games like Galciv, Defcon, Dawarina and others might be "short" but their replay is huge. I've purchased all of these games and done so gladly.

Others like Rainbow 6 and Dungeon Siege II, my god uninstalled within the first day. Unstable and totally glad I didn't plunk down the money.

If PC games could somehow open up into the Blockbuster type rental system I'd stop downloading games. Or if more games had "timer" based demos I'd be all for it. Complete game for download, only works for 7 days. I love those things, fantastic way to promote your product.

As for DRM, copy protection only stops the casual person from enjoying his software. The average person who downloads pirated games knows where to get them, how to install them, how to update them. Rarely does DRM affect them. There is of course starforce, but even then, it gets cracked.

So by placing DRM on your product all your doing is annoying the hell out of the average joe who just bought your game. The guy who either knows how to pirate, but instead chooses to buy the game, or the casual gamer who has no clue what pirated software even is.

I found Galciv thru a friend, he burned a copy for me, I played the game for a week without even realizing it. I was hooked and went and bought a copy online. I'm still hooked and enjoy the game immensly. The added patches with updates is just pure icing. Even without the end support this game is fantastic right out of the box.

I think the original post is somewhat hypocritical, because the Stardock Central basically is a form of DRM.

Beyond having to use it to get patches, which restricts the uses of the game by legitimate owners who don't want to use SDC (like me, whose computer SDC trashed in the Gal Civ I era), or who have computers not connected to the internet, it also restricts the user's rights to resale the game.

If I buy a game with disk copy protection, I can sell to someone else when I'm done with it. With this, if I sell it, they have to buy a new license from Stardock to get it to work with SDC. That is the core problem with DRM, and why every in the media industry wants to embrace - it cuts down on used copies, which they don't get a cut of. Pirates will be pirates, but honest people will often buy a used copy instead of a new one. DRM is just a way to wring money out of the honest people who don't want to pirate, but buy used.

Well put trancejeremy.  But then again, I hate all forms of restriction in general when it comes to the capitalist reality.

Why does "every" computer need to be patched

All my other games (DoW, Civ, SC, SMP) all have downloadable patches that I get with my mac. this system is way worse. It comprimizes my computer.

yes technically the cd's and record's you own aren't actually yours in many countries. they belong to the record company! You only own the license to listen to the music.

also in many places its illegal to lend books, videos etc to friends after you have listened to them.

I like the SD system. This is because the only time it checks if I'm doing the right thing (which I am) is when I install or apply a patch. Other than that I'm free to play as I choose.

I don't get it...Isn't your mac also compromised?Don't you use an antivirus with it (mac), in order to keep it safe? Its the same deal by the looks of it.
BTW:How does Stardock Central (SDC) compromises your computer?

Edit:

Trancejeremy@:
You forget something called the EULA.
Which more or less states: Its illegal to resell, lend or rent this product (game).
Also don't forget that by buying any game YOU (should) get tech support and multiplayer capabilities (when the game offers these) if you resell the game the Tech support an multi capabilities are kept in your name not the guy that bought the used game.

Why do I have to explain myself to you or anyone else that isn't an admin or support from Stardock. I've e-mailed them several times alread and no response.

I am very close to giving up on this game, and any future product of theirs, if this is the only way I can patch it.

Much of the copy protection saga in many Companies is - fundamentally - caused by the internal Bonus system linked to inappropriate Revenue goals. Those goals are virtually always as a result of the targets a CEO is set by the Shareholders. The latter are in it purely for the money - so it all cascades down the line as each layer sets it goals for the next layer under them. That always produces short term greed, and driving down the numbers of pirated copies is always erroneously seen by the end of financial year bonus driven individuals as a silver bullet to solve all their bonus ills.

By any measure of Business Sanity, Brad should have sold up a long time ago and by now should be gazing across a silver sand beach, under a Blue Sky sipping his Pims, contemplating what part of his private island he is going to build the new Beach Bungalows for his friends when he fly’s them in to his private helipad.

The fact he didn’t do that speaks mountains about his motivations and drivers. Be under no illusion, there is no way GalCiv would be what it is now if there were Shareholders lurking in the background. Therefore I don’t give a damn if its distributed by Pigeon Post, a good product is worth a little effort on the recipients part to help keep it going.

Brad ditched his island - I'll happily ditch convenience if that’s what it takes, and I give full marks to Stardock ditching Formal copy protection.

So far I have had to suffer nothing, as these guys do their best within Commercial Reality to look after us. If some of the Shareholders in other Games Companies ditched their Islands as well, they might reach GalCiv standards, but I cant see them doing that somehow ....

The only thing I would ask is if it gets to the stage of Pigeon Post, try and warn me so I can get a bag of mixed seed for them - you know what the Posties are like without their Xmas bonus

Regards
Zy

I believe that eventhough it may be more profitable to simply increase sales then trying to eliminate piracy, in the end it be about principle just like you don't allow people to only take one lollypop without paying.

Imagine if book publishers invented a way to protect books from "sharing."
Books would be sold in codes and the only way to read them would be to purchase the book from a store like Barnes & Nobles, Booksamillion or Borders and purchase a set of special serial numbered glasses.
Of course glasses bought at Borders would not let you read books sold at Barnes & Noble. Not only that your purchased books (which you don't really own) would only work with a single pair of glasses. Once registered to your pair of glasses the book would not work properly if you loaned the book to your child, neighbor or co-worker unless you loaned them your pair of glasses... of course you would not be reading any books without your special set of glasses.

Book sharing would cease. Book sales would likely bottom out too. There would be pirated glasses and books.. that you could get jail time for owning. Authors... like musicians & game designers deserve to get paid when someone reads their work so it is justified by the publishing industry.

Imagine how many worthwhile books that are now classics would go ignored? Book sharing made the publishing industry what it is today. I know I personally own many books that I first read without owning but then later bought because I enjoyed them so much. I have also been loaned a book of an author and later purchased other books by that author because I was turned on to it by sharing. While I may not have paid for the first book, the author and publisher saw a return on every book after that.

I have no problem with artists/game designers/authors getting paid for thier work, but going to extreme measures that alienate the very consumers that they want to reach is very bad business... and as frogboy pointed out originally, does lead to more piracy.

While I am aware there are programs that will let me pirate the CD I mentioned yesterday...I don't feel it is worth it and just plan to abstain from any other products that go to such copy protected antics. I won't wear the eyepatch yet... but tomorrow is another day.

Zomg! Heretic

Not really. It's not fiscally sound to do this (you need to keep paying the dev team to produce the patches, rather than sacking/assigning to a new project. Either way, they're essentially engaged in work (costs) which will produce no further revenue (profits)).
Early release tends to be the developer rather than the publisher. It's rare a publisher will force a release, unless they lose confidence in the project. Large publishers especially don't particularly care (they can afford to delay release. Take2 has been financing Duke Nukem Forever for how long now?). Usually, the Devs push to meet the milestones which mean they get the cash, which for smaller companies can be all thats keeping them running. Its more usual to see the opposite (the publisher refuses the release as they don't consider it complete).
In truth, 90% of the problems which are patched post release would never have even been discovered in development, no matter how long it went on for. In the first case, you have third parties who are not exactly forthcoming with their patented code (Microsoft, Graphics card makers and similar). This creates a host of problems in and of itself, since your not entirely sure of how the code will work (and it's impossible to test on every possible hardware/software combination). In addition, changes made by one of these companies to their software (like a driver update) could cause your code to no longer function, and you have no control over this.
Then you have things like balance or content patches. These are usually based on customer feedback, so you can never eliminate them until you have customers. MMORPG's in particular have a need to patch, since it's the added content and tweaks which keep people interested (and thus paying) for your game.

How would renting a PC game work? Back then in order to duplicate a console game you often needed specialised equipment, which the majority of people couldn't access. With a PC, it's always been relatively easy to duplicate or otherwise copy the media. There's not really any way you could stop someone renting the game, copying it and returning it to the store (Mind you, the best copy protection around at that time usually involved code wheels or manual pages...)

Neither will a pirated copy. How do you know that the instability isn't being caused by the altered executable? Furthermore, increasingly developers are incorporating code which causes bug like behaviour if it detects a crack or similar is being used.

Would only work for games which couldn't be completed in 7 days. While I understand you dislike those kind of games that's your choice - there's a large market precisely for those kind of games. I guess this is more to do with the description of the game. If a game stated on the box it could be completed in under 8 hours play, would you bother even looking at it?

There's legal reasons beyond preventing piracy to include DRM. What your saying is largely true though, DRM won't stop piracy in and of itself. I guess whats really needed is some form of DRM which the average Joe Gamer doesn't even see. Of course, since there's companies dependent on selling their particular version of DRM I doubt there's room in the market for sanity anymore

The average Joe thinks it's the way it's supposed to be- since you have to have your disk in to have it work on the PS2.

It's the power users who complain most about DRM- since they are the ones willing to DL patches/cracks to get their things working the way they want. I'll admit the first thing I do when I buy a game is look for the crack. I won't even patch until the crack comes.

As for the sell now, fix later motto. A lot depends on the game. I'll hold a big-box game to a higher standard, which it will fail.
Medieval 2 has been a disaster (I wouldn't have gotten it normally, but I had some store credit from selling some games I didn't need anymore and couldn't find a buyer for) Stardock's stuff has been very stable/low-bug, except for the last DA patch- which I know is an aberration.

As for the DRM in Stardock products, SDC is DRM. In fact, it's more effective DRM then the stuff big box companies use (I haven't seen DA patches out). However, it doesn't interfere with the running/startup of the game- so I don't mind that. The CD-checks waste battery life, force me to keep the CD, and slow down the startup of the game, so of course I look for the crack.

Plugging the internet in to your PC "comprimizes" the computer? What the heck do you have on that computer? Nuclear launch codes? Trying to protect from a Cylon infiltration or something?

StarDock doesn't owe you special treatment just because you are paranoid about using the internet on your PC. If the company made special patches just for people like you, they'd be out of business. If 99% of the people can get patches easily and with almost zero hassle, you can do it too. I know you got the whole "I run a Mac because I am counter-culture" thing going, which is fine, but when you demand special treatment from companies just to satisfy your fetish, that's not cool.