Stardock throws GOO on DRM
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
Stardock announced today that the forthcoming update to its digital distribution platform, Impulse, will include a new technology aimed to pave the way to solving some of the common complaints of digital distribution.
The new technology, known as Game Object Obfuscation (Goo), is a tool that allows developers to encapsulate their game executable into a container that includes the original executable plus Impulse Reactor, Stardock’s virtual platform, into a single encrypted file.
When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo’d program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.
Goo has a number of unique advantages that developer Stardock believes both gamers and developers will appreciate:
- There is no third-party client required. This means a developer can use this as a universal solution since it is not tied to any particular digital distributor.
- It paves the way to letting users validate their game on any digital distribution service that supports that game. One common concern of gamers is if the company they purchased a game from exits the market, their game library may disappear too. Games that use Goo would be able to be validated anywhere.
- It opens the door to gamers being able to resell their games because users can voluntarily disable their game access and transfer their license ownership to another user.
“One of our primary goals for Impulse Reactor is to create a solution that will appeal to game developers while adhering to the Gamers Bill of Rights,” said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock. “Publishers want to be able to sell their games in as many channels as possible but don’t want to have to implement a half-dozen ‘copy protection’ schemes. Game Object Obfuscation lets the developer have a single game build that can be distributed everywhere while letting gamers potentially be able to re-download their game later from any digital service. Plus, it finally makes possible a way for gamers and publishers to transfer game licenses to players in a secure and reliable fashion.”
Because Goo ties the game to a user’s account instead of the hardware, gamers can install their game to multiple computers without hassle.
Goo will be released on April 7 as part of the upcoming Impulse: Phase 3 release. Stardock also expects to be able to announce multiple major publishers making use of Goo in April as well as adding their libraries to Impulse.
Impulse is poised to exceed one million customers in the next week despite only being launched nine months ago.
To learn more about Impulse, visit www.impulsedriven.com .
 |
|
Page 2 of 3 | |
|
|---|
Reply #22 Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:55 AM
Oh, I'm assuming this is what they're responding to.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/2372/
Reply #23 Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:57 AM
Oh. Somebody already saw that. Shoulda read page 2 first...
Why does this forum never work right under Firefox. With adblock. And noscript. (standard internet operating procedure for those that care). Can't edit my comments or I wouldn't be spamming. Sigh.
Reply #24 Thursday, March 26, 2009 6:11 AM
This forum seems to barely work under IE!
I think it is going through an overhaul though, so we have to wait...since it isn't high on priority atm.
Reply #25 Thursday, March 26, 2009 7:17 AM
I think it's coincidence, more than anything, especially given that the GDC is going on, which is the time to "announce" stuff for a whole lot of companies. SD at least has been working on their protection solution for many months probably without knowing about Steam's (it hasn't been widely publicized that Steamworks was changing, at least).
So yeah, I'm chalking it up to coincidence.
Reply #26 Thursday, March 26, 2009 2:12 PM
If I copy an activated game to a different computer with no internet connection, what happen?
- If I need to be online so it is activated again (or ask the DRM vendor to generate an authorisation code from a machine hash), it's DRM as usual being rebranded. Nothing new to see here, move along.
- If the game works, it's a watermark, and I don't really see how efficient it is against piracy, while exposing me to serious legal threats if my copy get stolen for whatever reason.
Reply #27 Thursday, March 26, 2009 10:19 PM
Sounds nice!!! 
Reply #29 Friday, March 27, 2009 11:42 AM
- If I need to be online so it is activated again (or ask the DRM vendor to generate an authorisation code from a machine hash), it's DRM as usual being rebranded. Nothing new to see here, move along.
- If the game works, it's a watermark, and I don't really see how efficient it is against piracy, while exposing me to serious legal threats if my copy get stolen for whatever reason.
It would be unusual considering how you got the game in the first place and activated it. Stardock(or which ever company you bought the software from) would expect the customer to be installing the software on their own computers and would seem weird to not have internet on all of them if you have internet of at least 1.
Reply #30 Friday, March 27, 2009 12:25 PM
Why do you think Stardock will release Impulse Anywhere, allowing to download the game on one computer with High speed in order to install the game on a gaming rig that isn't connected to Internet?
Reply #31 Friday, March 27, 2009 1:16 PM
That's still an incredible minority of the gaming populace to have no connection to the Internet at their primary gaming machine. Even a simple dialup connection would suffice.
Developers who want to use GOO or whatever Valve released will simply accept that this minority will not be able to play their games.
Reply #32 Friday, March 27, 2009 1:53 PM
For activating, yes. But for downloading 2 Gigas of data, this is another thing.
Reply #33 Friday, March 27, 2009 2:23 PM
Again, if you're making your game available for download only, you're accepting that only people with internet connections that can download your game will be able to play it.
For store-bought games, GOO/Valve equivalent only need a one-time activation. A dialup connection is all they need, and they only need it once. From there, you can just copy the game from place to place.
Compare this to, for example, SecureROM. Not only do you need an internet connection anytime you want to run the game, but you're limited in the number of activations you get too.
Reply #34 Friday, March 27, 2009 3:26 PM
It depends about the delivery method. It could be a downloadable installer than can be copied to an USB drive.
Reply #35 Friday, March 27, 2009 3:58 PM
Most of the game run good when you dissable the heuristic anti virus... more, windows have so much security hole that before Stardock use Impulse, i was always upgrading my games via Linux ( Stardock central waqs working on Linux )...
Before Sins, my windows OS was never allowed to connect to the internet... 20 years of computer knowledge and monthly reinstall of windows was the lesson... on my work, computer are using windows but the server who connect to the externe world are using Linux for security reason... ( Linux is not the best, Unix is better )...
Don't read me wrong... i like windows ( Vista is better and i have a lot of hope in Windows 7 )... but it is a good system that I don't trust when internet connection is needed... to much risk...
About people not having a internet connection, they are not a minority but a majority... almost all people from Africa, almost all people of China, the majority of Russian ( unless you life in a big city )... this together is already more that the half of the world population !!!
In the Linux world, Ubuntu/Kubuntu are one of the top distro... Do you know why ? Not because they are beter that other distro but because they have the ship-it thing... not internet connection, you receive the CD via post !!!
I know... African, Chinesse, and Russian people are poor... but what is the best business solution : earn 100 time 10$ or earn 10000 time 1$ ?
The real thing is to see if Stardock target the short term ( a lot of money now ) or the long term ( 100 time a lot of money in a periode of 10 year )... i understand ( but not accept ) the actual strategy of Stardock... they are a minor player in the business now, they need all money now for survive tomorrow... it is not really a Stardock problem but more a problem of rich people who invest in Stardock who wish a fast return... long term investering is really what hurt the quality game distributor now... Stardock is not really responsible because they don't control everything... but being a usual user, i complain against them ( because i cannot complain against people who have invest in Stardock )
Reply #36 Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:20 PM
Stardock has no outside investors. Only current for former employees have any stock or stock options in the company.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make actually.
A person who buys GalCiv or Sins or Demigod at the store doesn't need an Internet connection at all to play the game. There's no copy protection, no DRM, no disk check.
However, if they want to get updates, they obviously have to get them off the Internet and all our games have always required a user to create some sort of account with us with their serial # so that we can verify that they're a customer before providing them updates. The creation of that account, known as activation, has worked pretty extremely well.
Reply #37 Sunday, March 29, 2009 4:31 AM
I have a GOO question that deals with multi-platform games. 
I'm sitting here with a PC copy of Call of Duty 4. If I wanted to play CoD4 with my friends on Xbox Live; I'd have to fork over another 60$ for the Xbox 360 version. 
Could GOO alleviate this issue in the future by allowing me to buy one game license I can transfer between platforms?
Reply #38 Sunday, March 29, 2009 4:42 AM
This is impressive, of cousre I'm sure it'll be cracked quickly like all other modes of DRM, but the time, effort and risk to your hardware wouldn't be worth it.
Overall, this seems like a great help to Developers while greatly limiting the burden to players, of course I'd have to get my hands on a GOO protected game first to make the call at how friendly it is, but seriously there is nowhere to go but forward with current DRM protection on games. And sadly it is a nescessity for the developers to protect their hard work since less reputable characters have no qualms about stealing software. I guess since you don't have to walk out of a store with it? (in most cases, lol)
Reply #40 Sunday, March 29, 2009 7:07 AM
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
|
|
Page 2 of 3 | |
|
|---|
Reply #21 Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:53 AM
Ah, satire. For someone that keeps claiming Steam isn't the be all and end all of digital distribution, you sure go out of your way to comment on them.