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StarDock's Unified DRM Dream

Added by Dave Snider on March 31, 2009

35 comments

How high does your rogue need to be to open up GOO?

As a PC gamer worried about the death of his platform, one of the bigger announcements that came out of GDC last week for me was the unveiling of StarDock's Game Object Obfuscation (GOO) DRM solution for PC games. While I know DRMs aren't exactly the most popular additions to your games these days I think StarDock -- maker of Galactic Civilizations II as well as the Impulse digital distribution service -- seems to have their heart in the right place with GOO. The service, in a nutshell, takes the DRM away from the physical game and ties it to a simple email address. The goal is to allow an owner of the software to be able to use their game on any computer, as many times as possible, as long as they can authenticate against that email address and serial number. Since the serial number and email address are independent this would allow for a couple pretty cool ideas.

Once purchased you could potentially download the game from the service of your choice, be it Direct2Drive, Steam or StarDock's own Impulse service. This would help remove the fear of any one of the services going out of business and you losing your game catalog.
Since the email address and key are independent, owners could potentially resell their keys. This would open up a digital second hand market and even possibly a way to rent PC games.
If adopted, this would mean you wouldn't need a half-dozen copy protection systems on your computer.

While the first point is significant, it requires a whole lot of co-operation from the industry as a whole. First, all of the major digital distributors would have to agree to this set standard. Then they'd have to allow others to download games purchased on one service from another. Do we really think it's possible that Valve will let its users re-download a game on Steam that was purchased on Direct2Drive? Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if they did, but with the price fluctuation of digital-only games, I don't see it as likely.

It's the second point, though, that I think is more interesting to PC gamers. Second hand digital-distribution is a BIG DEAL. Imagine if you could take your entire Steam catalog of games and sell it to your buddy for less than it cost on Steam at today's prices. Remember, there's no packaging or limited figurines here, this is just the buying and reselling of code. And really, why should you not be able to do something like that? It could potentially open up a whole new market in the game industry and allow games to see the kind of long-term lifespan that console games currently enjoy.

While the best answer to the DRM solution may continue to simply be to not include it, if I'm going to have to use one I think GOO looks like the best option at the moment. One thing I'm worried about, though, is if StarDock is a big enough company to pull it off. While popular with the hardcore audience, GalCiv II and Sins of a Solar Empire aren't exactly equivalent to the Half-Life 2 release that got Steam off the ground. Still, you can't fault a brother for trying.

For those looking to dig deeper, there's a great read from Spiderweb's Jeff Vogel on PC game piracy over on IGN. It's not tied to GOO, but gives you an idea of what it's like to be an independent developer trying to release your games digitally in today's market.

Filed under : Galactic Civilizations II, Jeff Vogel, Stardock Corporation

35 Comments

Coltonio7
on March 31, 2009

(( Snide is on NEWS DUTY ))

I can see this working...and I can totally see this falling on it's face.

snide
on March 31, 2009

Oh yeah, it more then likely will fall on its face. I very much doubt it'll get used by anyone other then StarDock, but like I said, at least these guys are trying to be smart about it and not create another Spore-like DRM solution.

MattyFTM
on March 31, 2009

I can't see this becoming the norm anytime soon, but its nice to dream about it.

ZombiePie
on March 31, 2009

It sounds good enough, but Stardock is going to have to fight an uphill battle convincing publishers to adopt their DRM. Most of publishers want to either develop their own form of DRM or simply use Steamworks. Also Stardocks download service has always been the alternative of the alternative of Steam, meaning they don't have that many users to entice publishers or have publishers take them seriously.

Coltonio7
on March 31, 2009

Spore DRM Story: My little brother got great marks this term so I gave him my copy of Spore because I was totally done with it. He tries installing it on his computer and can't. he wa sreally excited to play before he headed out to Thunder Bay, but he couldn't because of the DRM. I tried explaining DRM to him and he wasn't having it.

DRM makes 7 year olds cry.

Al3xand3r
on March 31, 2009

As a PC gamer I've had enough of people talking about the death of the platform for the past 20 years... If a nobody that makes stupid desktop applications for a living can raise to the spotlight thanks to a most excellent 4X TBS game and on top of that grow enough to become a digital publisher of Stardock's caliber, the platform's doing just fine, and the more room left for such developers by the fledging big name companies the better.

DeavonW
on March 31, 2009

Oh brother, more DRM. At least this one sounds less invasive than most. I would like to see PC gaming thrive again.

TheBeast
on March 31, 2009

I really can't see how this would work without some client tie-in - the serial/e-mail combo has never worked to deter piracy without some sort of online key verification server, even then people work around it.

Valve's Customer Executable Generation sounds like a promising and relatively decent solution to the problem - it seems like it would be significantly harder to crack without replicating the system.

Lunarbunny
on March 31, 2009

Actually Steam allows UT3 and Defense Grid keys from D2D to be activated. It's more a question of the publisher or developer of the game making the keys available to be authenticated against.

And that is the entire thing right there - those keys can be activated because those devs/publishers decided to voluntarily cooperate with Steam.

The amount of cooperation a system like GOO would require is kind of staggering and while I like Stardock, their idea sounds like another "great in theory, terrible in practice."

Snapstacle
on March 31, 2009

PC gaming will never die; maybe the "Games For Windows" platform, but not PC gaming.

Ghostin
on March 31, 2009

It's cool that these guys are trying... the more people looking for the solution, the more likely one will succeed.

Celios
on March 31, 2009

Steam has been pretty good about letting people add their retail-bought CD keys to the service. From what I understand, you can actually buy games like UT3 in a store and put them on your Steam account as if you had bought them there.

I imagine Valve would be the least resistant to something like this.

TheClap
on March 31, 2009

Awesome use of the Mimic picture.

Al3xand3r
on March 31, 2009

Only happens in games like UT3 because the last update REQUIRES Steam, even if you didn't buy it through Steam. Same for Total War, minus the "update" bit.

Games that run independently to Steam aren't 100% certain to be addable in it, the publisher has to provide the existing CD keys to Steam or something.

snide
on March 31, 2009

@celios

Oh you definitely can. My boxed copy of Empire Earth tied directly into steam and can be re-downloaded at any time.

Hamz
on March 31, 2009

Nice write up Snide. I have to admit though I can't see this being used by the industry as a whole. It wasn't long ago Stardock created their own "bill of rights" which outline some key issues the industry must resolve when making a game. Infact it was a pretty damn well written piece but no one paid any attention to it other than Stardock themselves. Thats what I can see happening here, everyone will nod their head and agree it is a good idea. But no one will willingly take the first step to carry it out.

A pity really. As like you said there is some huge potential for the PC playerbase to get some love from the industry when all we seem to get is contempt and hate.

Media_Master
on March 31, 2009

its nice to dream

Jayzilla
on March 31, 2009

too logical. it will never work. companies don't want logical and convenient for their consumers. they want to fill their coffers with your phat lewtz.

CitizenKane
on March 31, 2009

It sounds like a nice idea, but for it too succeed it would have to be endorsed by one of the major players in the industry like Activision/Blizzard.

BiggerBomb
on March 31, 2009

CitizenKane said:

"It sounds like a nice idea, but for it too succeed it would have to be endorsed by one of the major players in the industry like Activision/Blizzard."

Or if Valve said developers had to use GOO instead of DRM if they want to get their games on Steam. I think developers are becoming dependent enough, on this pariticular digital distribution service, to the point that they wouldn't want to try calling bluff.

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