galciv2 and CRAP
games / p2pnet: To sell a game without copy protection, not even requesting a serial number on installation. Must be commercial suicide – sale figures should be miserable.
At least, one would think so, if one believes the stories told by the copyright industry.
But that isn’t the case.
Galactic Civilisations 2 went to #1 on software sales at Wal-Mart after its release. Overall software, not just game sales.
And it’s not like there was a six month build up of ‘hype,’ or whatever. Few reviews are up yet.
Frogboy from Stardock says:
It’s word of mouth. You guys. Individual people from around the world simply getting the game and telling their friends that they liked it.
And here’s another thing to consider: Galactic Civilizations II has no copy protection whatsoever. Not even a CD check. Heck, you can install the game and toss out the CD and use the included serial # (which you don’t even have to use to install) to redownload the entire game from us even years in the future.
Producers of CRAP (Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection, formerly known as DRM) and other copy protection software are trying to tell us they provide the only products still available that guarantee artists or software producers an income.
The opposite is true, as Stardock demonstrates. To have market sucess, you do not need crappy copy protection. What you DO need is a fine game and loyal fans.
People buy games they like, from producers they can trust not to try to install malware on their computers, or to deactivate other software. They won’t buy games installing hidden drivers, preventing them from copying game disks, degrading CD/DVD performance and causing hardware errors.
And thats why they boycott Starforce. And threatening critics of “Copy Protection” like Starforce won’t change consumer behaviour.
As long as game producers use Software like Starforce, they shouldn’t be surprised by declining sales. Neither should Stardock, though they’re experiencing some strange sales developments.
Here’s some more from Frogboy:
Several retail chains re-ordered more units in a single go than their initial order. EB Canada, for instance re-ordered a very large number.
Yay Canada!
See, typically what happens at retail is that you get your initial “sell-in”. Re-orders are only designed to bring stocking levels back to that initial sell-in level. So over time, the game fades away. It’s very unusual for a game to actually increase its retail stocking after the release.”
Big surprise?
You can get Galactic Civilizations 2 here.
Korrupt – Gulli.com, Germany
March 11th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
What a great story. It’s proof right there that everything all those copy protection zealots say is a lie. The timing is interesting for me too since I just had my first encounter with the Star Force copy protection. I saw Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory in the bargain bin the other day for practically nothing, so I picked it up. Luckily all it took to fix my crashing problems was to unload Window Blinds, another Stardock product that I legally own and paid for, before running Chaos Theory. How stupid is that? Thanks to this article I now know more about Star Force and will do what I can to avoid it in the future. Thankfully I was able to download the removal tool, which I will use as soon as I finish the game. I plan on avoiding all Star Force infected games from now on too, and consider myself lucky that nothing truly bad happened with this malware (I hope). If it should be unavoidable because of a great game I really wish to play, then i guess when it hits the bargain bin I’ll pick it up and likely create a dual boot system just for game. Either that or rent the console version of the game for pennies, or perhaps borrow it from a friend and pay nothing haha. Star Force, and all the companies immoral enough to support such incredibly malignant software because they care more about themselves than their customers, can blow not only me, but the hundreds of thousands of gamers out there as well. They have no right to employ such shady under-handed schemes. Perhaps they won’t mind if I come into their home uninvited and do what ever I want to their stuff, all while they are completely unaware that I’m there? For shame.