Sins of DRM lead to Sins of a Solar Empire Review - PAGE 1

"The heaviest DRM Possible will lead to highest number of sales."

This statement is patently false -- and Stardock Entertainment gets it!

DRM -- digital rights management -- can be a thorn in the proverbial gamers' backside. Copy protection for PC gaming is nothing new, but the methods have changed drastically over the last few years. While back in the early days of PC gaming, printing a manual on red paper so that can not be easily photocopied (the original Simcity) may have thwarted piracy, now, with countless dollars on the line, the stakes have risen. Companies such as Protection Company (makers of the unpopular StarForce anti-piracy software) solely exist to help game companies recover some of their 'losses' due to piracy.

But is using DRM the best way to maximize profit from games? Maybe there is another way. At least one developer thinks so. In a recent posting by "Draginol" of Stardock Corporation, in the forum for the surprise hit new strategy game Sins of a Solar Empire, the reasoning behind choosing only minimal DRM was clearly laid out.

Basically Stardock has not bought into the argument that every pirated copy of a game is a lost sale, and decided to address the needs of legitimate customers instead of trying ever more restrictive measures -- measures that will be bypassed by pirates anyway. Stardock started out by writing very popular desktop enhancement products. Draginol points out that Winblinds, a popular desktop enhancer, was downloaded over 14 million times just from Download.com - but he is not really interested in that figure. Instead, he is interested in another number: the million users who registered it (paid for it).

This is a refreshingly logical approach. Organizations such as the MPAA or RIAA would have us believe that all fourteen million downloaders should have paid the $19.95 Stardock charges for Winblinds, otherwise they would be suffering a "loss" of $260,000,000 due to piracy. I can see the legal teams assembling now: they might start with sending a subpoena to Download.com for their records, then file John Doe copyright infringement cases... etc...etc... ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

But Stardock gets it. They realize that the majority of people who downloaded it were interested enough to try it, but may not have found it useful enough to pay $20 for it. Or they may not have had a spare $20 that week (think students).

But the 1M people who registered it coughed up $20,000,000 - probably making a nice profit for Stardock.

Sins of a Solar Empire apparently sold around 200,000 copies in its first month of release, generating about $8,000,000 of (retail) revenue - and it is now the highest rated PC game of 2008.

And it did all this without having any CD copy protection. If postings in forums are to be believed, you can install it on 2-3 computers. You don't need the CD in the drive to play.

Yes, it does have a "CD Key" - basically a serial number - and you can only download patches and extensions from Stardock's site if you have a "valid" installation - i.e one of the 2-3 copies allowed per key.

But you can back up your CD. And you can re-install it if your drive needs to be re-installed without being in phone-tree hell with some third world country, convincing some poorly paid non-techie with poor english skills that you are not a pirate.

They are counting on building a great game, and continually enhancing it - for the users who paid for it.