This is getting ridiculous.

I explained my situation and never got problem. I also received an email of Stardock letting me know that if the ebay seller was not cooperative, to use a new CD-Key they sent to me by email.

But the seller just didnt liked the game so he switched the email to mine and gave me his password and nickname, so I was able to fully register it under my name.

This is legal, the seller is not using it anymore, he sold it to me, like all every $#%#$% games you can buy aywhere without any problem.

IT IS LEGAL and there is no laws against this, since when you buy a product, it is yours, it is not the property of anyone after that, except yourself. Of course, we are talking about the game and playing the game, for personnal use, not for commercial use.

It's not like I pirated the game, I own a legit copy, legally registered, and the seller was an honest person so he accepted to give me all account information.





40$ to transfert an account to someone else ?

Are you serious or you just laughting at us ?

you dont have any right over something that you sold to someone. There is no laws or contract allowing that legally. Of course, we still talking about playing the game, a legit one.

THIS IS THE BASIC OF FREE MARKET. (I'm not a fan of free market for lot of reasons, but we have to admit the benefits of it for everyone : there is basics things that has to be respected, otherway, a corporation has too much power on your life and can decide what you can do with what you buy and what you own. This is ridiculous.)

I would like to speak english better, so I could explain more what I mean and more clearly. But well, sorry.

I for one will support Stardock on this as I have lost almost all of my games while moving because of so called friends, and probaly been sold. As my grandfather usually says to such a thing I got the rough end of the pineapple. Just to mention there were lot of games in that box and good ones to plus galcivI. It really is bad. put I don't usually register. I believe Stardocks system is lot better than others it means that I could have gotten that game back locking the person who took the the stole the game and he would only play that from the cd. not download any patches, and yes I do have galcivII legit no problems what so ever with it so for who ever said can't remember who said it but then Stardock can swindle me all they want because it is no fun losing a game that you bought and have somebody take a game from you and you have to repay for that

Yes, go ahead and buy an original Space Rangers 2 cd...

The one with starforce protection...

You know, the malware that destroys your cd drives, breaks your computer and prevents you from even playing the game...

Yes, that developer deserves your money a lot more then stardock(which sells the game without the malware...)

Great example of what other companies do...

"You may purchase a valid license key from us at a discount from the MSRP."

So how much is this OH so special discount?

Why is there a need to have a new serial number? Why can't the seller just deactivate the account he created and have the buyer activate a new account? Only 1 account would be active at a time for a given serial number. Why should anyone care who is using a given number?

Accounts cannot be deactivated, however, it is possible for the seller to hand over his account in its entirety. But this generally does not happen because A) he has other SD products registered to it that he wants to keep, he wants to keep the game anyway and sell the discs so he ends up having it free (pirate), C) he's selling a pirated copy to begin with, or D) he just doesn't care.

Ok, so lets assume the seller is on the up and up and its a case of the seller trying the game and simply not liking it. The seller has made no copies of the disk and the buyer now has the only original. The seller also gives the buyer the logon username and password. How does the buyer now change the username to the name he wants? It really should be this simple.

You can change any of your account details just by going to My Account->Stardock Account here on the forum.

I think the overriding point many people are missing or denying is that when you buy Gal Civ II as a used copy you are still buying a COMPLEATE game. The later patches and updates are a BONUS to Stardock’s customers. They are NOT required. The game IS playable as is from the box, IF your system meets the minimums system requirements AND you don’t have a Frankenstein PC. If you buy the game used Stardock makes NO money on it. I don’t work for free. Stardock doesn’t work for free and chances are YOU don’t work for free. Stardock is a business. They are in business to make a profit. If they didn’t make a profit on Gal Civ II, Dark Avatar would not have been made. I hate playing games that require the CD in the drive. I love the fact that I can just hit the start icon for the game and play. I don’t have to look for the CD.

Stardock lets people with the license to the game load it into as many computer’s as they want. I can load it onto every computer in my house if I want. Going on vacation? I can load it onto my laptop and take it with me. In a perfect world things could be done another way. But INMO given the technological restraints of today Stardock has hit just the right balance. Some have mentioned that a warning should be placed on the box. This is impractical for two reasons. One is marketing. If you knew nothing about the product, had never heard of Stardock and just saw the game on the shelf at your local retailer and saw ‘Warning this game receives no further updates or supports unless you purchased the original license.” In the context of this conversation the warning makes sense. As a first time buyer it is confusing and chances are you wouldn’t buy the game. Second, even if you placed a warning on the box most used copies sold in places like EB Games and whatnot are not sold with the box. Normally, it’s just the CD and maybe the manual. An unscrupulous reseller isn’t going to resell his copy with a box if it has that warning on it so again the used copy purchaser gets hosed.

But wait, Stardock says that if you purchase a used copy (a copy they made no money on) and you want to have access to updates and patches you can still buy a license at a reduced cost. This means that they sold a copy at a reduced profit. To this some people have complained. The thought process must be that they have a copy they should get updates and patches for free. Well, guess what. It doesn’t work that way. Stardock has the right to make money on THEIR product. They made their money on the original sell of the game. If you as a new customer want access to BONUS material you have to (shock of shocks) pay for it. The problem seems to me to be one of entitlement. I shouldn’t have to pay for some crappy music CD just to get one song. I should have the right to the good songs for free. (Napster) I bought the game used.

Completely agree. The level of support from Stardock is bar none, better than most (if not all) software vendors today. I would think the gaming community would want to encourage the type of continuing relationship Stardock has with its consumers. It's a win-win, and I say kudos. Keep up the good work!

Stardock has always done fine by me. Heck, I even think they made some of the original patches to GalCiv2 available to download even if you didn't register the game (probably to add the framerate throttle option, since they felt bad about some video cards heating up and crashing the game).

-HM

Hi, to reply to 3/4 Cav: I think YOU are missing the very essence of the point. Lets start with the LEGAL part 1st. There are provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code and other FEDERAL LAW that give the buyer an implied warranty of usability no matter what disclamer the seller/manufacturer tries to claim. This is very much like going to a used car dealer and buying a car. The dealer can say "As Is" all he wants but if the car is sold without passing safety inspection the dealer is guilty of a FELONY. In Stardocks, or any other game manufacturers case, this means that YES, we are entitled to free patches to fix bugs. It of course does not entitle us to get expansion packs like Dark Avatar for free. REASONABLE protection from theft/piracy is that 2 people can't have the same serial number registered at the same time.

Next point of order: Not having to have the disk in the drive is actually a hinderence because I have to suck up that much more hard drive space to load the game. Give me a version that needs the disk in the drive (like almost every other game I play) but takes up 1/2 the hard drive space and I'd be happy.

Why should it matter to Stardock in the least who currently has a disk? Once the game is paid for in the store, stardock has made its money. It makes no difference from that point on who is in posession of the disks, as SOMEBODY will need the patches and updates. It doesn't matter if its the original ownwer, or ten people down the "hand me down" line. As long as no-one has made copies, stardock is not losing anything. I spent years as a merchant. My products came with a lifetime warranty. On many an occasion the person requesting service was not the original buyer. I would have had to do the service if the original purchaser had requested the service so what did I care who entered my shop? It was my product that was bieng serviced and it would need servicing anyways. This was a matter of good customer service, public relations, and just plain out the right thing to do. Not to mention the goodwill it generated towards that person buying more from me in the future.

Oh, and YES !!!! EB often sells used games with the box and often does not label them as used games !!!! Once again, as long as its the original, no copied disks, stardock looses NOTHING !!!! In fact by treating every game owner equally, they would generate more goodwill toward people buying NEW products in the future.

The vast majority of modern games that require a disc in to play, in my experience, don't actually stream anything off said disc during gameplay. It's just there for copy protection, nothing else. All the data is on your hard disk either way.



If you dislike this practice, you should take it up with them--they don't take trade-ins on used PC games anymore, so any used PC games would be returns. If this is a concern to you you could probably just ask for a factory-sealed box from behind the counter, rather than a display box that had the discs removed.

This has just got to be trolling. No one who plays PC games these days wants the CD in the drive at all times to save hard drive space. Maybe at one time when space was expensive, but not these days. With these modern CD/DVD drives the last thing I want to hear is it constantly revving up to warp 10 to access files.

Take it from someone who's had an IBM PC since 1983: no copy protection is a good thing, and having to register the game to get updates is a mild inconvenience (and that's pushing it) compared to the garbage that I've had to deal with copy-protection wise over the last 20+ years of playing PC games.

-HM

Hollow man misses part of the point. To some of us poor working stiffs with 4 year old 60 GIG hard drives filled to the max, hard drive space means something. Not everyone has dual 500 GIG drives with a 3 day old vid card and dual core processors. Do I WANT to play with the disk in the drive? Of course not. Do I want to see copywrite protection on the disk so I can't make a single backup in case the original disk gets damaged? Heck no.Its just an option that would help those of us who only have the min required system. This was NOT Trolling, just consider yourself fortunate that these things are not a consideration for YOU, when for others it is...

My system is 3 years old (going on 4 this summer) and only has 120 GB of total space (granted it's not really an "only", but by today's standards it is). GalCiv2 and the expansion is currently taking up only about 1.4 GB of the drive. This is nothing compared to the amount that other games are taking up. And believe you me, any modern game these days does a full install on the hard drive, and takes up a ton more room.

And your argument is just difficult to accept, considering a quick search on Newegg turns up a Hitachi 80 GB IDE drive as cheap as $43. This is basically the cost of GalCiv2 Gold. So if you can afford to pay for the game, you can afford to buy an extra hard drive. Which will, if you're currently working on a 60 GB one for the last 4 years, last you at least another additional 5 years, so you have somewhere to put any other game you may buy.

I might be crazy, but the number of GalCiv2 players who feel it's important that the game run primarily off the CD has to be infinitely smaller than the number who want multiplayer (also theoretically pretty small).

-HM

It's worth noting that you can install via SDC and exclude the movies and multimedia if you are concerned about space. The base game then takes around 300MB, if I recall correctly.

Hmmm...Thanks for the thought Kryo, I'll have to check it out   

Actually you aint. In the first case, US law considers software to be IP, not goods. You can't buy IP, only licence it (hence they're not actually manufacturers, they're authors). In the second, there's no legal requirement to guarantee you access to updated or altered material obtained by a licence, unless the licence you signed up to makes provision for it.
To give a more relevant example - if you 'buy' a single, and the band then release a new version of that single, you're not entitled to a free copy of the new version of the song simply because you already bought the older version.
Even in the case of bugged software they're under no obligation to patch it. As long as you can install the game (with the caveat that any installation problem isn't a result of your hardware) and launch it then they've fulfilled their licence obligation, even if the game is unplayable or unfinished.

Not since around 1995. Last game I remember playing streaming anything off the CD (apart from audio tracks) was Daggerfall.

How do you prove that you're the owner of that disk? Unless you expect Stardock staff to drive out and physically check that you have the legitimate disk...

Imagine if your product could easily be mass produced by anyone with time to spare. Imagine if there was no way of you knowing, beyond recognising the customer as someone who bought from your shop, that the product you were currently servicing was one that you sold rather than one sold (or copied) by someone else. Would you still offer lifetime service for free? That's pretty much where Stardock are at the moment. They have no way of telling whether you bought the game legitimately or whether you got it illegally, beyond that serial code.

Yes, it's an old trick by the EB group and actually illegal in most countries (over here it's classified as false advertising/representation - the game is being sold as a 'brand new' product and is presented as such. To use your car analogy, it's like blowing a few thousand on a brand new sportscar only to find when you get home that someones ran up a million or so miles on the clock...)

To Archonsod:
At least we agree about EB's "old trick". Nice to agree on at least one point.

I used to play Daggerfall, still have the disk, anyone interested in an old game with a million miles or so on it?? (ok, ok, just trying to lighten things up a bit-though I do still have the disk---wonder if it would make a good coaster?)

Next point: my warrantied products carried a serial number (just like the disks) so being taken in by mass produced copies wasn't an issue. Once again, whoever has an original disk should have equal access to patches, no matter if they are the 1st person to have it or the tenth.

How do you prove you have the original disk? It should be as simple as emailing a photo of it with the serial number on the jewel case clearly visable.



""if you 'buy' a single, and the band then release a new version of that single, you're not entitled to a free copy of the new version of the song simply because you already bought the older version.""

True, but if the first version media was defective and wouldn't play, you would be entitled to mew media. Just like we are ENTITLED to patches, but not Dark Avatar expandion packs.


Ok, on to the part that we will just have to respectfully "agree to disagree".
Using your "authors" example: If you bought a shrinkwrapped new book and there were pages missing, you would be entitled to get a new book or at least the missing pages. Granted putting the missing pages into a book wouldn't be easily doable so you would get a new book---fortunately in the case of software you can just get the missing pages and have it be practical.

To Hollow man: ""So if you can afford to pay for the game, you can afford to buy an extra hard drive. ""
This seems to be a "let them eat cake" type of response.
Unless your a computer tech, paying a tech to swap the drives and then deal with the multitude of software issues that murhys law will bring into play will cost you more than the drive itself.
I'm happy for you if you've never faced real budget issues, but you don't seem to understand "had it then, don't have it now" type of problems.

Ok, on to a techical isssue: It really isn't THAT difficult to have a database that can transfer serial numbers to new owners. If I can gat a car registration tranfered in 5 minutes (ok, this doesn't include the 3 hour wait in line--just the actual punching of computer keys one I get to the counter)--- then Stardock can do it too. It all boils down to "CUSTOMER SATISFACTION". This is something NObusiness can survive without!

Kinda depends really. Do you access the patches as updates to the disk/game, or are they provided as part of the Stardock Central service? If the latter, then requesting a legitimate Stardock account is perfectly valid.

There's no actual obligation beyond moral for a developer to provide patches. In the case of defective media, the obligation is on the provider (in most cases the store) to replace rather than the producer. I doubt the argument would hold water, although if you could prove the store had knowledge that second hand copies wouldn't be supported then you might have an argument for false advertising / misrepresentation.

It depends on how much the key is tied into the Stardock account I suppose. It may well be simple to transfer the key, but I wouldn't be too happy if it also transferred my credit card info alongside it!

Quote: "Umm.... I am a programmer, I'm rather experience in databases, and it surely takes alot more than 10 minutes to code such a thing. It's certainly not as easy as slapping together a transfer screen and writing a SQL update query. For once you need to verify what they entered was indeed tied to the original email. Then you need to update. You also need to perform some audit trails (another insert) since you need to know who entered the change and when. Then you want some mechanism in place since this system can rather easily be abused (like what happenes if someone tries to yank the serial without the original owner's consent, preventing abuse of this thing since it won't take much to share with all your friends in such a manner)
Then you need to pass it through QA which chews up another engineers time trying to run various tests and what not.

It's not as simple as you think, and if I were running a game shop, I wouldn't endorse this either. Given the choice between Starforce, SecuROM, or this, I choose Stardock anyday."


I'm also a programmer very experianced and my man here is absouloty right. Starforce is pure crap. SecuROM is ok. Stardock is just plain awesome. As for ppl reselling the game. Stop because you stupid a*ses according to the License agreement its f****ing Illegal. Have a nice day.  

I think Frogboy summed it up quite nicely:

SO long as you have a game that works out of the box (even with occasional crashes), you can resell the box and the basic game. Stardock is being quite generous allowing them to patch to 1.1 imo.

But nowhere on the box does it say you are entitled ot patches etc.; in fact most companies only do a handful of superficial bug fixes and then move on to the next project; Id say Stardock has done alot more than that and they certainly have the right to require a Serial # for that level of support. I can tell you I def appreciate not having to ahve the CD in the drive; too many games use that prot and eventually the CD scratches or gets lost etc. I also HATE Starforce and will not purchase any game that has it, so Stardocks solution is just fine by me.

Note that this differs from an MMO. In an MMO, you generally cannot continue playing without the latest patch; as such, denying access to said patches would break the game as it could not be played or accessed.

I would not argue a singeplayer game and an MMO being in the same category; one tends to be a product the other is more of an ongoing service or serial product purchases.

Re: EULAs, I would not rely overly much on them. When you have a EULA that a buyer cannot see before buying the game and has no return option (no retailer in the USA that I know of allows software returns once opened) if he installs the game and disagrees with the EULA, I dont think it would hold in court. I am not an attorney, but thats not really a fair relationship imo and I think most Small Claims judges would side with that (based upon my limited exp in small claims); it could even be construed in a rather negative fashion.

You would need to put the EULA somewhere on the box and that hurts in a diff way.

However, Stardocks software appraoch does allow you to play the orig game as it works without patches so you would not have anything on them based on the policy they have taken. In my opinion, Im not an attorney.

My $0.02

I have one problem with all of this:

sometimes you deinstal a program, then later you reinstall it
(or perhaps you update your motherboard or harddrive and have to reinstall and reformat, etc..)

point is, you've already activated your products.. and if you've done that, in some cases it becomes extremely hard to get new legit copies of serials because your old one is registered.

Microsoft is notorious for this and you have to deal with their indian coustomer support to get new codes for windows if you had to reformat or reinstall.

So I actually prefer the license to work with copy-protected CDs but the way Stardock does it, it gives you more flexibility for those not in this field.
It's a 'give - take' thing.

I agree with this because they did *not* buy the game; because it is a license to play the game and Stardock isn't even required to offer any *free* support; but they do and I applaud them for that. If someone buys the game second hand then they are most likely getting it at a discount and should not baulk at paying say a premium to Stardock for the added support.
I can see Stardock point quite well; because it costs them to deactivate the original serial number and then assign a new one and then pin that serial to the new owner. Then to allow the *new* owner of the license to download the game for ever like the original owner just would cost them too much.
That isn't even taken into consideration the propensity for those unscrupulous individuals that will sell their cd and keep playing using a copy.