..A long time ago Stardock developed a game for OS/2 called Galactic Civilizations. It was published by a small company called "Advanced Idea Machines". Stardock never saw a penny of royalties from the retail release of the game.  Learning from history, for Galactic Civilizations 2 on OS/2, Stardock decided to self-publish it.  To get to retail, it worked with a distributor called Micro Central.  Micro Central filed for bankruptcy and never paid a cent in royalties.  Years later, in 2003, Stardock developed Galactic Civilizations for Windows and went with an "established" publisher called Strategy First.  Strategy First soon after filed for bankruptcy without paying the bulk of its royalty payments.  It remains Stardock's goal to one day get paid for retail purchases for a Galactic Civilizations game.

But 2003 wasn't the same as 1993 (when the game was written for IBM's OS/2 operating system).  Now we have the Internet in mass, Broadband access.  And so Stardock's response was to create something called TotalGaming.net.  The idea being that users would be able to buy and download Stardock's games.  This system was up in its basic for when Galactic Civilizations I was released and thanks to it, there's still a Stardock's game team since nearly all the revenue Stardock collected from Galactic Civilizations was because of electronic purchases.

Last year (2004), Stardock decided to expand TotalGaming.net and bring on other games.  Nearly a dozen games were added to TotalGaming.net as of Spring 2005.  The challenge going forward was how to bring on more games in a way that was fair to game developers.  And that's where TotalGaming.net: Phase 2 comes in.

With TotalGaming.net Phase 2, people can purchase games individually and then immediately download them.  Because Stardock has been doing electronic distribution of software for years with its popular Object Desktop series of products, it has long since migrated away from digital rights management (DRM) techniques.  Simply put, a user who pays $40 a video game expects to be able to download it and install it on their computer without any hassle.  They expect to be able to put it on their laptop and be able to play the game on the plane.  They expect to not have to worry about whether they installed it on "4" machines over the past 5 years sometime in the future.  In short, they want to be treated as a customer and not as a potential thief. 

Stardock's technology revolves around a technology called Secure Software Delivery (SSD) that it has developed over the past several years.  It works on a basic assumption -- the piracy to really worry about is not about some guy giving their friend a copy of their game but rather someone putting a game up for download on a warez site or a peer to peer file sharing mechanism.  Stardock Central, which is its practical application of SSD, works in a manner similar to iTunes -- users install the software via Stardock Central.  But once it's actually installed, the user can use it whether they're connected to the Internet or not.  They can play their game on the plane or install it to other machines in their home.  It's designed to provide a balance between piracy resistance and customer convenience. And unlike most DRM schemes available, SSD has a proven 6 year track record with Stardock's own software.  It's not any more secure than DRM, but it's a heck of a lot more convenience for gamers which, Stardock believes, is the key to success for wide distribution of electronic content.

In addition to being able to purchase games individually, they can also get a TotalGaming.net membership for $69.95 which provides 10 tokens.  Essentially, users who think they'll be buying a lot of games have the ability to pre-purchase in exchange for a steep discount on the games.  For instance, a user could pre-order Galactic Civilizations II for 5 tokens.  Where the final game is expected to list for $49.95, TotalGaming.net members would effectively be paying $35 (half of the 10 tokens which cost $70 for all 10).

Armed with the new royalty system for game developers, Stardock has been able to attract a lot of independent game developers to put their games on TotalGaming.net. In fact, presently, the limit on getting new games is essentially a matter of how fast they can be reviewed and processed by Stardock's Brian Clair (formerly editor-in-chief of Avault.com).  Moreover, TotalGaming.net is not going for quantity of games.  While some emerging electronic distribution "stores" are boasting the sheer number of games they carry, TotalGaming.net games go through a very strict quality process (hence bringing in professional game reviewers such as Brian Clair to look at submissions).

Meanwhile, Stardock is also negotiating with large publishers who have libraries of excellent games that are just gathering dust due to not being available on retail shelves.  Many of these games are just as good today as they were 2 or 3 years ago but have no real way of purchasing them.

Here are just a few of the new games on TotalGaming.net:

Astral Masters is one of the most addicting games on the net today. In the same spirit as card games such as Magic the Gathering, Astral Masters was designed from scratch to exist on-line.

Breakout, Arkanoid, yes, there are many Break-out type games out there.  However, imagine a break-out style game with a real physics engine. That's what BreakQuest brings to the table. It's incredibly cool. Try it for yourself.

Geom is so addictve that it actually caused Stardock some internal..."issues" due to excessive "play testing" of it in the development lab. It's one of the most addictive games out there today.

Gish is..well he's a hero.  Well, not exactly. He's..well...okay he's a big ball of tar.  But that hasn't stopped him from getting a girlfriend who has been kidnapped and needs rescuing. This game has already won a bunch of awards for its fun, creativity, and incredibly clever gameplay.

Jets'N'Guns has also taken its share of gaming awards. It brings classic arcade action into the 21st century.  If you've ever gone back and wished someone who really "got it" would recreate some of your favorite games of the past with today's technology, then this game is for you.

These are just a few of the games in there.  We'll highlight more in the coming weeks.  This just gives you a small taste of some of the cool stuff.  Not only are there other awesome games in there from independent developers but Stardock has its own slew of new games that we'll be talking about more soon as well.

You can either purchase games individually or purchase a TotalGaming.net member ship.  To learn more, go HERE.