Stardock Working on User-Friendly DRM Package for 3rd Parties

[DoctorFinger]

DRM (digital rights management) is one of the real hot button issues in the gaming industry right now. From the Spore brouhaha to developers hanging poor sales of their games on bittorrent hubs. Then there's Michigan-based Stardock. With their 4X title Sins of a Solar Empire they managed to buck the conventional wisdom. They released a DRM-free title, and still managed to maintain enough sales to more than float the game's development.

Now, according to CEO Brad Wardell, some of the movers and shakers in the industry have approached Stardock about creating a DRM package that would protect their investment while at the same time pleasing gamers who actually do buy the game. Wardell said, "While Stardock doesn't put copy protection on its retail games, the fact is that most publishers are never going to agree to do that.
"So the publishers are telling us, 'Put your money where your mouth is. Why don't you guys develop something that you think is suitable that would protect our IP, but would be more acceptable to users?'
"We're investigating what would make users happy to protect their needs, but also provide some security for the publishers. ... We're actually developing a technology that would do that."
--
He did say that one goal of Stardock's security solution would be when a consumer buys a PC game, that game, or technically the license to play it, belongs to the consumer. Often, DRM methods only allow a certain amount of installs on a certain amount of machines. "We want that license to be yours, not per machine. ... It's not your machine buying the game. It's you."This attitude - that gamers who buy the game shouldn't be undully burdened by the copy protection on a game - is one of the tenets of Stardock's 'Gamer's Bill of Rights', and as a gamer all I can say is: Bravo. It makes no sense that consumers who actually buy the product should be more burdened than the ones who pirate the game. It still remains to be seen if this consumer friendly copy protection will ever find it's way into other publishers' products, but the fact that they're at least investigating the possibility is a positive for gamers.

Source - Edge-Online (http://www.edge-online.com/features/stardocks-copyright-security-solution).

[Telefrog]

Brad Wardell is my man-crush.

[boratika]

This news story, this is what I like to call "good news"*

Definitely intrigued to see how they tackle the issue.


*should probably be accompanied by picture of Hubert Farnsworth.

[President Fred]

Yeah this is pretty great. I wonder what they will come up with. So far I have been pretty happy with the steam method, but it's always good to have alternatives.

[GigaFuzz]

Yeah this is pretty great. I wonder what they will come up with. So far I have been pretty happy with the steam method, but it's always good to have alternatives.

Steam does it pretty well, and is one of my preferred methods, but it has major downsides when you lose an internet connection. We recently had a weekend-long LAN party, and we lost connection on the Sunday. Some people couldn't get Steam working in offline mode, which ruled out a number of multiplayer games.

[H.Bogard]

I live in a city where pirated DVD stores are all over the place that have shitloads of popular and niche games, and I have never seen a single copy of Galactic Civ 2 or Sins of a Solar Empire in ANY ONE of them... ever.

[Ancalagon]

"So the publishers are telling us, 'Put your money where your mouth is. Why don't you guys develop something that you think is suitable that would protect our IP, but would be more acceptable to users?'

They already have put their money where their mouth is - they released some of their biggest titles without any DRM at all.

[Johan]

As a pessimist, let me just say that this could potentially be a very bad thing. They are being asked, to some degree, to put up or shut up. If they fail, DRM will have lost one of its major opponents.

[DangerousDaze]

I can't help feeling that this is doomed to failure. Stardock's reputation is built on trust, not just a "nicer" form of DRM. Anything they develop will be cracked, so they'll tighten it up further and further until they'll be in the same shit pool that the rest of DRM is in.

[Raen]

As a pessimist, let me just say that this could potentially be a very bad thing. They are being asked, to some degree, to put up or shut up. If they fail, DRM will have lost one of its major opponents.

I dunno. I think they'd take a very Benjamin Franklin approach to failure from what I've read of their thinking etc...

[Morangie]

As a pessimist, let me just say that this could potentially be a very bad thing. They are being asked, to some degree, to put up or shut up. If they fail, DRM will have lost one of its major opponents.

Not really, its more win-win for Stardock. If they can make a DRM system that doesn't penalize customers then great, though it will be cracked just as quickly as all the rest. If they cannot make user friendly DRM then they just say "We tried, but it isn't possible. DRM always screws over the legimate customer more than it stops piracy".

The worst outcome is that they'll just keep on saying what they have for years, that DRM is always more of a problem than a solution.

[bean]

I can't help feeling that this is doomed to failure. Stardock's reputation is built on trust, not just a "nicer" form of DRM. Anything they develop will be cracked, so they'll tighten it up further and further until they'll be in the same shit pool that the rest of DRM is in.

Right. For instance, Spore has obnoxious DRM that many of us resented and thus cost Firaxis some sales, but there were tons of news stories about how it was being pirated anyway.

So if even really restrictive and predatory DRM is unsuccessful, how is Stardock going to be successful while also respecting legitimate consumers?

They could go the Steam route, of course, but why would publishers ask them to create "DRM" that is already existent?

[c0m3d14n]

nice to hear them try, i recently did not buy far cry 2 because of their drm

but an interesting point, which wasnt obvious, to me at least, that was brought up in one of the many negative reviews for fc2 on amazon that i read, was, that drm isnt really targeted against pirating of games, because it obviously fails, its targeted against reselling of the game...

[rein]

I can't help feeling that this is doomed to failure. Stardock's reputation is built on trust, not just a "nicer" form of DRM. Anything they develop will be cracked, so they'll tighten it up further and further until they'll be in the same shit pool that the rest of DRM is in.

Stardocks stance has always been anti-stupid DRM and copy protection, not anti DRM and copy protection.

How long has Stardock been working on a DRM solution? I'm curious if it is about the same time they were doing all of the surveys regarding piracy and DRM. Is this the result of the information they gathered during the surveys? Or, was the information for the surveys being gathered for creating a DRM solution? It doesn't matter much, just curious if this is a result of the surveys and they found a solution that will appease both sides of the DRM dilemma.

As you said though, I hope by creating a DRM solution they do not lose sight of their consumer friendly approach and tighten things further and further to satisfy publishers.

[Johan]

Stardocks stance has always been anti-stupid DRM and copy protection, not anti DRM and copy protection.

Which is why this is such a risk. They could very well release a DRM method that is seen as stupid by consumers/gamers, or that just doesn't work.

PC games should just go Steam and be done with it. Forget disk-based releases for the PC.

[DangerousDaze]

Their major games have no copy protection mechanisms at all but the game must be registered to a an email address. The same is true for their non-game products.

Stardock's rationale is that if they offer enough ongoing compelling content that can only be used with a registered version of that product then that should be enough to keep people honest. They figure that this is probably acceptable to most; it's certainly acceptable to me because I've been licensing Object Desktop from them for nine years now!

[rein]

Which is why this is such a risk. They could very well release a DRM method that is seen as stupid by consumers/gamers, or that just doesn't work.

PC games should just go Steam and be done with it. Forget disk-based releases for the PC.

I absolutely agree that it is risky for Stardock to become a provider of DRM and copy protection since they have the reputation of being the "good guys" when it comes to the issue. I may have misunderstood DD, but I think some people are under the impression that Stardock is anti DRM. They are not, they have said before that they are not anti DRM, they are anti stupid DRM

Heck, I already have doubts creeping in my mind of what all of those surveys were really about.

Their major games have no copy protection mechanisms at all but the game must be registered to a an email address. The same is true for their non-game products.

Stardock's rationale is that if they offer enough ongoing compelling content that can only be used with a registered version of that product then that should be enough to keep people honest. They figure that this is probably acceptable to most; it's certainly acceptable to me because I've been licensing Object Desktop from them for nine years now!

I know that Stardock does not incorporate DRM in their games, but that doesn't mean that they are anti DRM. As I said above, it was them that said they were not anti DRM, just anti stupid DRM. It makes me wonder if they will incorporate their DRM scheme into their own product or if they will continue using their current method of copy protection.

[MagGnome]

I prefer Stardock's current method of copy protection above all others. Keep out DRM, and provide updates to registered users to reward those who have bought legit software. It's worked very well for Sins, and I will continue to support the company in the future because of their great, consumer friendly approach.

[agentgray]

This is great with all of Stardock's talk on DRM there, but now...

http://uncov.com/assets/2007/6/29/fry-see-what-you-did-there-scaled.jpg

(I've been using the image too much. Too much subversion by companies lately...)

[J Arcane]

I prefer Stardock's current method of copy protection above all others. Keep out DRM, and provide updates to registered users to reward those who have bought legit software. It's worked very well for Sins, and I will continue to support the company in the future because of their great, consumer friendly approach.
And it actually works better as a piracy hindrance I think than any DRM scheme. It sure worked on me. I pirated GalCivII back in the day to check it out, and wound up just wanting the damn retail version, so I could get the expansions and the patches.

[TKO]

Yup, that's the real way to get around piracy: offer stuff that makes the gamer want to buy it. Infocom learned that way back with the trinkets that would come with their games (letters, maps, trinkets, pocket-fluff, etc.) I think extra content through an online conduit is the way to do it.

I don't think they'll eventually tighten it up and become just like the rest of the DRM solutions out there .. they have a better attitude to it than most of the big companies, and can appreciate that no matter what they do pirating will happen anyway. (heard a good interview with them on In Game Chat radio)

[Rilav]

instead of challenging stardock they should actually listen to stardock

I bought both Sins and Gal Civ2, for 2 reasons 1) I love Space 4x games and 2) no intrusive DRM.

I still play Sins every so often cause it's a great game.

I hope that stardock succeeds, if only so the other companies can go "oh.. so that's what we have been doing wrong"

[PathMaster]

Stardock's current method of attaching an email to a game IS DRM, at least from what I understand about DRM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management):

Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. The term is used to describe any technology which makes the unauthorized use of media or devices technically formidable, and generally doesn't include other forms of copy protection which can be circumvented without modifying the media or device, such as serial numbers or keyfiles. It can also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices.

So Stardock wants to create a platform for third parties to take advantage of? Count me as interested.

[Johan]

So Stardock wants to create a platform for third parties to take advantage of? Count me as interested.

There is one already, and it does as good a job as can probably be expected...Steam.

[PathMaster]

There is one already, and it does as good a job as can probably be expected...Steam.

Huh, I did not know that Stardock created that. Damn, I AM behind the times. ;)
I hope there is plenty of room for innovation in this area, and I think Stardock might be able to come up with something that does a better job for both parties, consumers AND developers/publishers.

[TKO]

I'm on Steam ..it's what I used first, and will probably keep as my main games store. But I want Stardock to be around, and I want them to become popular. ..Look at what the presence of Windows Live did for Steam as they competed for features. If Stardock wanna champion relaxed DRM, ooooh, and lets say maybe better offline use of their games, that will make Valve improve their service even more.

Saying "there's already a service like this, and it's good enough" just gives us crap like Word, or other such monopoly products. If they're the only game, why do they need to improve? Internet Explorer was a perfect example of that. Microsoft killed Netscape, then didn't know where to take IE, so they just stopped developing it. (They killed it entirely on the Mac ..if Windows IE wasn't important to MS, they would have that too.)

Steam being good relies on Valve being nice (which we can't guarantee forever) or a competitor or two to keep them honest. Stardock should help keep them on their toes.

[Slack3r78]

I had to crack the copy of Stalker: Clear Sky that I bought on Steam because it came with an activation system I wasn't aware of when I made the purchase.

The Tages activation system, apparently uses a system level driver. That can blue screen Windows.

I upgraded once after my system died. Then I ate through the rest of my activations when their fucking activation software kept crashing my system.

There's no kind of system in place to really deal with this.

So fuck it. A trip to one of the friendly No-CD sites later and I'm happily running the game THAT I FUCKING PAID FOR again.

I'm totally okay with Steam as DRM, but stacking additional bullshit on top of that is completely fucking ridiculous. If I didn't know how to crack the damn game I'd be out of $40 right now with no recourse.

[TKO]

Yeah, Steam itself is pretty good.. Don't know why companies are trying to stack additional stuff on top of that. I think the limited-installs DRM is stupid and will only piss-off customers. Tie it to steam, stardock, greenhouse, whatever, and a particular *user* on that service. Limiting it to a number of installs is arbitrary and stupid.