Stardock introduces flexible DRM solution: Goo

I'll be happy with it so long as the DRM doesn't cripple the game by hampering performance or causing bugs, or making my PC run like crap. Since I left college and got a real job I've pirated exactly 0 games, but I still crack them because half of the DRMs out there kill game performance.

While this scheme certainly makes sense to consumers, I can see how publishers would like Steam's method better -- no resale available.

I completely agree with you. This solution does make alot of sense. And the email thing is also correct. I have only changed my main email once. From Yahoo Mail to Windows Live Mail.

lulz, why not Gmail?

yea i moved from AOL mail (god that sucked lol) to gmail. gmail is awesome. get it if you don't have it.

Sure, until your email gets hacked and you lose any control access to your games since you can't log in to your email.

i also went from yahoo to gmail, and its the best ever

@wickedpheonix: Sure, until your email gets hacked and you lose any control access to your games since you can't log in to your email.

I presume that e-mail is used only as a unique user identifier.

And I'm pretty sure that StarDock isn't that stupid as to not allow e-mail address change. Most companies dealing with DRM activations also have special support stuff whom you can call for specially cases like that.

I believe that selling games is actually a side effect of possibility to change e-mail address your copy of game is bound to.

I wouldn't worry about things like changing your e-mail address. We have things in place now to change your account e-mail, and we have taken this into consideration with Goo as well. :)

StarDock doesn't have much from big publishers. As for indie games ... there is whole bunch of them.

StarDock itself at times looks more like indie than full-fledged developer/publisher. At least they behave like indie - and try to make friends of gamers - not like big publishers for whom we are all are just single number on accounting sheet.

DRM is a roadblock designed to keep non-techies from pirating games. It's never going to stop pirates that actually know what they are doing, and I think they've realized that themselves at this point. The real reason they keep it is that they'd be admitting defeat if they were to go DRM free. That, and there is plenty of data (the validity of which is suspect) that shows DRM free games getting pirated at astronomical rates compared to DRM'd games, so no executive has the balls to change it as this point.


DRM only negatively effects people like me that actually buy their games. Because of this negative effect, I buy fewer games than I would otherwise, and instead of pirating them like others, I just don't get to play them period. It's lose/lose, for everyone involved, and until they realize this, nothing is going to get better.


Then again, I'm positive they want to completely shift to a rent-only business model where you get a license and nothing more. A license you can't sell/trade/etc.

BananaBoat is spot on. i never pirate games. maybe some CD's or a movie here and there i'm iffy on going to see but never games and i hate DRM mostly because it really only makes things difficult on the honest user. this system seems about as headache free as you can get without removing DRM all together. register it and forget about it.

Fader, the goal of StarDock is to provide a range of options to game studios. (Similarly to Creative Commons licenses.)

My understanding that e.g. on Steam everything has pretty much same DRM (+ whatever extra DRM game itself contains). On StarDock this is all left for game studio/publisher to decide.

Actually goo will be cracked on March 25th

Steam *would* be a working solution to piracy if it actually prevented its products from being pirated. Although it's pretty near perfect for us consumers, it won't be what I like to call "realistically perfect" until it protects developers too.

"...until it protects developers too."

Steam does protect them, by the doctrine of lazy assholes. Steam was the genesis to get me to stop pirating just as iTunes did. When you provide a service that makes it easier than piracy to get games, you absorb a portion of lazy pirates. When you can transfer those games to any machine, you absorb another portion. When, unlike EA, the DRM never intrudes on my conscience mind, you get yet another portion. When you get get decent games at bargain bin prices fairly quickly, there goes another portion. Hell, when you don't have to worry about seeds and leeches and have a dedicated fast transfer...woot, another portion is drawn.

Like many people have observed, you will never stop the dedicated pirate. But you can take a good chunk of business back by appealing to the lazy side of geekdom. Granted, I got a bit of ethics after Psychonauts (a game I loved dearly) tanked, but Steam appeals to me. Stardock seems to take that model and introduce yet another variable that permits legal transfers of games. Good for them.

Damn, I love me some Sins of Solar Empire.

Impulse has your games "forever" as well. You can switch PC's, reformat, whatever, and all you have to do is redownload them via Impulse. You don't even to keep Impulse installed after that if you wish.

What's wrong with Stardock?

It's obvious; they aren't Steam. And yet another type of fanboy wars is born. Though it could also be the annoyance of having X types of download services on one's machine too. I have three: EA, Steam, and Impulse.

Maybe Nadril is confusing Stardock with Starforce.

Brit is correct. Their names are incredibly similar. This is also why joystiq needs an edit feature.

And thanks borland, but I'm not a fanboy.

If you were to ebay all of your games, then yes, one could not have a second-hand PC game market, because there would be asymmetric information. However, a verification page or some such thing that showed the serial number had been released from your email address might help assuage ebayers fears. This is a great option for publishers who want to use DRM, which may in fact be a necessary evil, considering the rates of piracy that developers such as Infinity Ward and Crytek have experienced in the past year. It is far less intrusive than SecuROM, obviously.

Your options are also all quite valid, but the retail way simply isn't working for most developers anymore, not to mention PC retail presence has decreased dramatically at places such as Gamestop. Also, to say that the 'best' games are worth buying is naive, because what you and I think is good enough to buy doesn't mean that Joe the Downloader agrees - in fact, he probably doesn't think that games should ever be paid for. Obviously the arguments for and against this are very complex, but I think this system is a step forward in the world of DRM.

Thank god for Steam, eliminating your NEED to pirate games. Tool.

@ John: Then, you would run into scams where people would disable the game during the auction, people try to pay, and the scammer re-enables the game on their computer right before accepting the money.

@ Mike: yeah, because at $50 -$60 a pop I couldn't afford to pay for all these awesome games, so I would have a NEED to pirate them. If you're going to make sarcastic comments about whether or not people "need" video games as entertainment, then wtf are you doing on joystiq, troll?

Do you think this was something that was just developed overnight. :D

Yeah actually. Just speculation, but this doesn't seem like something that would need a hell of a lot of development time.

True, but it's a lot easier to convince publishers to go with a method like Goo rather than no DRM at all.