Interesting Game Purchasing Motive
Sometimes a game or company gets mentioned enough at the periphery of my attention span that it finally penetrates through and I take a look. This is what recently happened with GalCiv II from Stardock. This happened from various sources, including Penny Arcade and Slashdot amongst others – there was so much traffic on it that things inevitably got confused and they had to release a statement to clarify their position.
Essentially it kept popping up because of a current hot topic on the gaming front – DRM. A lot of games are attempting to prevent piracy by introducing DRM in various forms beyond the usual CD presence and serial approach. Many gamers find this offensive – especially when the software used to do this acts in a similar way to spyware.
Stardock takes a different approach, rather than waste resources in the futile effort to restrict access to their software, they take a different (and refreshing) approach. You buy the software and you get a serial, you can then install the software wherever you like and no need to ever use the CD again. In fact, if you decide you want the CD (as I did) you can order it and then while you are waiting for it to arrive, you can download and play the game with the serial you received in your e-mail.
I liked their approach so much that I bought their latest game, Galactic Civilizations II, adn I am not the first to do so on that basis from what I have read. It helps that the game, as well as the clash of clans hack tool gets plenty of good reviews too 
It may not give the the sales figures of Madden 2006 on the PS2, but hopefully their approach will be rewarded by further sales because of their decision not to treat their customers like criminals. Here endeth the rant…….