Copy protection regarding retail box

[supremeoz]

Online activation and DRM seem to be all the rage these days.

And i refused to buy any retail box games that have online activation and you are restricted to a limited amount. I also believe that online activation serves no purpose considering the pirates have the game cracked in three days and have no pain. While the person who buys the retail box is considered as a criminal and has to endure all the DRM and the restrictions which go with that.

So i would like to know if Paradox is going to have any online activation or not for the retail box.

[Balthagor]

We do not use these sorts of copy protection. You won't find DRMs in our games (except in Russia if we release there, the Russian publishers always hack it in I'm told...)

[supremeoz]

We do not use these sorts of copy protection. You won't find DRMs in our games (except in Russia if we release there, the Russian publishers always hack it in I'm told...)

Thanks thats good news. I was going to buy Mass effect until i found out it had Online activation and a limited of 3 activations. While you could get more if you contact support and get treated like a criminal.

It seems this is the way the gaming industry is going with EA and 2K implementing online activation.

As i said before online activation serves no purpose and only punishes the genuine buyer of the game and not the pirates who have cracked it.

Interestingly Sins of the Solar Empire has no copy protection what so ever and yet it was one of the biggest games of the year and sold extremely well.

[Legend]

You might find one of our blogs interesting where we "come clean" with our added copy protection in SR2010. I forget which one but I'm sure you could find it quickly. Link to Blogs at top of this page with all the other links.

... ok i took a moment and looked it up.
http://www.supremeruler.com/blogs/?p=30
An Army of White Blocks

On a side note... if I recall correctly I do like Stardock's Gal Civ II system where you don't have to register... but if you do you get access to the updates and other content. So they reversed it and you get a free reward if you do register through their site.

[Gargantou]

We do not use these sorts of copy protection. You won't find DRMs in our games (except in Russia if we release there, the Russian publishers always hack it in I'm told...)

Thanks thats good news. I was going to buy Mass effect until i found out it had Online activation and a limited of 3 activations. While you could get more if you contact support and get treated like a criminal.

It seems this is the way the gaming industry is going with EA and 2K implementing online activation.

As i said before online activation serves no purpose and only punishes the genuine buyer of the game and not the pirates who have cracked it.

Interestingly Sins of the Solar Empire has no copy protection what so ever and yet it was one of the biggest games of the year and sold extremely well.

Didn't they scrap Mass Effects copyprotection? I clearly remember Bioware posting on their site that due to the HUGE amount of outrage about the copyprotection(Which was also planned for Spore), EA decided to remove it or something, or atleast change to a diff. system.

[supremeoz]

We do not use these sorts of copy protection. You won't find DRMs in our games (except in Russia if we release there, the Russian publishers always hack it in I'm told...)

Thanks thats good news. I was going to buy Mass effect until i found out it had Online activation and a limited of 3 activations. While you could get more if you contact support and get treated like a criminal.

It seems this is the way the gaming industry is going with EA and 2K implementing online activation.

As i said before online activation serves no purpose and only punishes the genuine buyer of the game and not the pirates who have cracked it.

Interestingly Sins of the Solar Empire has no copy protection what so ever and yet it was one of the biggest games of the year and sold extremely well.

Didn't they scrap Mass Effects copyprotection? I clearly remember Bioware posting on their site that due to the HUGE amount of outrage about the copyprotection(Which was also planned for Spore), EA decided to remove it or something, or atleast change to a diff. system.

As far as i know they haven't. The only thing they had removed was you had to keep activating it every ten days to keep the game running.

I have no objections in gaming companies trying to secure there games from pirates. But i do object to is when there anti pirate measures impact on the genuine gamer and also impact on the performance of the PC.

I think EA should use the Stardock system of updates. But of course EA doesn't want to spend money on Updates and yet they would save more money doing this way than having online activations.

[supremeoz]

You might find one of our blogs interesting where we "come clean" with our added copy protection in SR2010. I forget which one but I'm sure you could find it quickly. Link to Blogs at top of this page with all the other links.

... ok i took a moment and looked it up.
http://www.supremeruler.com/blogs/?p=30
An Army of White Blocks

On a side note... if I recall correctly I do like Stardock's Gal Civ II system where you don't have to register... but if you do you get access to the updates and other content. So they reversed it and you get a free reward if you do register through their site.

Very good article. At least BG respects the gamers a lot more. EA and 2K need to read your blog and also take note of Stardocks Sins of a solar empire.

I also agree with accessibility. If everyone had access to the game this would stop a lot of piracy. Also another way to combat piracy is to have a universal release all over the world at the same time.

[Gargantou]

To be honest, I blame the pirates just as much as I blame the companies who use the copyprotection, sure it punishes us normal consumers too, but if there weren't pirates then they wouldn't have to use it.

[supremeoz]

To be honest, I blame the pirates just as much as I blame the companies who use the copyprotection, sure it punishes us normal consumers too, but if there weren't pirates then they wouldn't have to use it.

The problem is i think that the gaming companies might blame the pirates more than they should. If a game doesn't sell very well they blame the pirates. They actually don't look at why people are not buying it. Take a look at Crysis it didn't sell very well not because of pirates. Gamers didn't like Crysis because it was crap.

Pretty much if the game is good people will buy it just look at Stardock.

[George Geczy]

Brad Wardell, head of Stardock, shares our view of copy protection (that it is a penalty against legitimate users), and has posted some excellent articles and blogs to that effect on his site and others.

Every time we've sat down with a publisher we've made sure that 'no copy protection' was part of the deal before we signed. It may be old-fashioned thinking, but our belief is that if we make a good game, people will buy it. And then we can keep making good games.

-- George.

[Lightbringer]

George,

One opinion/theory I have regarding 2010/2020 and piracy. While I am well aware that there are thieves of all stripes, creeds, colors, ages, etc. etc., I find that individual theft is often a mark of immaturity. Since Supreme Ruler is designed to appeal to those with patience, intelligence, and a love for details, it's focus on complex, slow developing grand schemes does not appeal to the childish, immediate gratification, FPS type crowd that is much more likely to indulge in software piracy for personal use. The disposable/interchangeable nature of such games make them vulnerable, since the ADD riddled players get bored and need a new game every 24-48 hours. If they can't get Mumsy and Daddums to buy them one, they turn to theft.

Not 100% accurate I'm sure, just my two cents.

-Light

[el_slapper]

well, I must say than during my student time(1994-1998 mainly), I did pirate a lot. & I would have enjoyed SR games already. But I didn't have money for games anyways, so working cpy protections(only if this is simply thinkable) would have pusehd me out of computer gaming. Since 2000, I've got a job, an income, & did buy 60 PC games or so. Some crap inside(Hotel Giant, Earth 2150), but a lot of gems(Shogun TW, Alpha Centauri, Silent Hunter 3, lot of Paradox games, Star Wars Rebellion - still good 11 years after.....). And I am proud to spend my money on good games.

the lone game I really regret buying is capitalism 2(1 was a wonder, & I did play it an eternity). As faulty copy protection did prevent me from playing it. Argh. Imperium Galactica 2, not working on XP, was not a very good buy either(but I had pirated number 1 in my dark years, so it's a kind of compensation).

[supremeoz]

Brad Wardell, head of Stardock, shares our view of copy protection (that it is a penalty against legitimate users), and has posted some excellent articles and blogs to that effect on his site and others.

Every time we've sat down with a publisher we've made sure that 'no copy protection' was part of the deal before we signed. It may be old-fashioned thinking, but our belief is that if we make a good game, people will buy it. And then we can keep making good games.

-- George.

Hi George do you have some links for Brad article's.

[tkobo]

http://forums.galciv2.com/303512

Im not george(you can tell becuase i have the right idea about the unit defection system) ,but here ya go