To the world Stardock promotes DRM free gaming, just do a search and you will see multiple results that state this. The problem is, I have come to learn that the games really are not DRM free.
Over the weekend I lost my internet connection due to a faulty router. An annoyance, but something I could easily fix on Monday. In the mean time I figured i would play Elemental, and that is where the DRM issues started.
I currently have patched to 1.19 for all the great updates it has brought, but it also requires an internet connection to get to the main menu. On previous officially released versions (1.10, 1.09), I could start up the game, and eventually the attempts to connect to the net would time out and the menu would come up (I dislike programs calling home so have it blocked through firewall). This time out was usually a couple minutes (5 tops) which while very annoying, was tolerable. For some reason, possibly because it is beta, 1.19 never times out, even after 40+ minutes.
Thinking the issue was tied to the build being beta, I decided to use archives of previous builds I had, and roll back to 1.10. I start up Impulse in offline mode, load up the old archive and start the rollback. A short time later it is done and I think I am ready to play. I start up the Elemental exe, and to my surprise, up pops an activation window. Weird I think, but I put in my email and the product serial number (which I have stored), with a growing sense of dread that it is going to try to connect to the net. I click submit and I am promptly informed that the data cannot be validated as it is not able to connect to the net.
DRM has successfully stopped me from enjoying a game I have paid for. I am sad to say that Stardock and Impulse has let me down.
