The license restricts how and how many you can use. This isn't a buffet. You don't get to 'pick n choose' what parts of the licesnse you want to adhere to. Any more than you can pick and choose what laws you want to obey. If Microsoft's license for Office 2013 is one computer, then that's the license. You don't get to pretend that's not true. You violate the license. That's stealing.

And the license from Office 2013 states that you get to install it on ONE computer. Guess what you just broke the law because you voilated the license agreement and committed copyright infringement. It doesn't matter that it's 'in your home'. As all those people who get copyright notices from bit torrent cases will attest to. any more than murdering your family 'in your home' somehow would mysically make that legal. The act of making the copy is illegal. You infringe upon the copyrights of the rights holder the second you do that. It is NOT like the examples you provide.

Want to install Office Pro on 5 computers. get Office 365 whihc allows for installation on 5 computers.

Want Office 2013 on 5 computers, you have to buy 5 license.

Want to play a game on 5 systems, buy 5 copies.

You don't get to pretend that making multiple copies when the license doesnt allow that, and not call it 'stealing' just because it 'doesnt leave your house' That logic is sheer stupidity. THe law is clear, you violate the license, that's a copyright infringement. Period.

@satoru1: "That poster" attempted to demonstrate that GOG.com will permit you to play the games you legally purchased and downloaded from GOG.com regardless of the GOG.com Web Site Terms and Conditions of Use. Steam, on the other hand, will not (try not agreeing with the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement the next time and see what happens...you will lose the games in your Steam account).

Well, I wouldn't care if it went of GOG, but it would be a nice business model for somebody who wants a non steam platform.

And don't forget, Frogboy said that GOG does not provide the sales accountability developers need. That was in reply # 176 of thread https://forums.galciv3.com/449009. 

After seeing that reply again I am definitely voting NO on GOG.

I did try to contact them.  They never replied.  I know I have an account because I noted down a username and password!

I could annoy them about it again but if they can't answer the first ticket, I don't hold out much hope for them answering a second one.

So I have my GOG version of Master of Orion 1 & 2 but if I ever need to download it again I'm sadly out of luck.

Edit: So I decided to annoy them anyway.  I did get at least an automated reply back this time.

If you download via Steam or Stardock, you still have to download it. That criteria does not mystically disappear, and you're still going to have the same bandwidth limitations. 

I got an option, give us an option for a hard copy of the game??  A way to play the game, even if it had limited features when not online...  Just don't be like SimCity and require a constant Internet connection to play the game, even though I am online 99% of the time, I do like to play games on the road when I have no Internet access, as I don't have a mobile hotspot, or mobile Internet of any sort.

From a user's perspective they may seem ok, but Brad has to look at their track record of how accountable they have been to the software development companies. How often the reports are is beside the point if the reports are not accurate. As he said:

"GOG has a number of issues for developers. It doesn't provide retail-time reports. Instead, every quarter we get a report on how many units they say they sold. We just take their word on it that they sold that many since there's no activation or any other way to tell how many copies they sold.

And companies make.."mistakes" on accounting all the time.  Atari claimed to have sold only around 1,500 copies of Demigod in Europe back in the day. But because we had activations, we knew we had actually sold around 40,000 copies during that period and made them correct their 'error'."

He is saying he doesn't trust them to pay SD what SD is due.

AND, he is the one that has to evaluate the delivery companies and make the decision.

I think in principle that GOG is great for games which have gone out of circulation, but it's not so hot for games which are still selling in other outlets.  Your mileage may vary (mine appears to suck).

Game piracy hurts future game development and may lead to price inflation or more draconian measures, neither of which are good for the honest game consumer.

There is a case for making games less reliant on an internet connection, or more tolerant of an offline status.  Maybe there's a hardware solution coming in the next decade.  For now we're just going to have to make the best of the situation, and I'd say that GC3 being in development is a pretty damn good situation to be in.

First off I'd like to thank Frogboy for replying on a Saturday night ,

I've always been for giving the publisher/developer what's do, whether it's the film, music, or, game industry.  With that being said even though there are multiple ways to get around DRM's I respect it and pay for those products.  Isn't there a way for an alternate option?

I understand that there may not be, or at least may not be a viable option, I'm not even really open to the GOG option, this post just gave an opening for the discussion.  All I'm asking is this not require online access to play the game, I only have a few games on steam, unlike the hundreds that others have, none of these games require me to be online to play as steam still launches and still allows me to play, if Galactic Civilizations III is the same way I'm fine with it.

My largest concern is not what I have to download or have on my computer to play the game as I know Stardock has always has it's fans in mind when producing a game but instead what happens if Valve (Steam) has issues? Where do I go to play the game I purchased the right to play?  That is the only reason I support the alternate options.

As far as being the same as objecting to Direct X that isn't the same, as Windows doesn't make the end user be online to continue to use my Windows PC, to get updates and support yes, or even to register the product and have it work initially, yes, simular to the way Galactic Civilizations II was, you want support you need to be registered and you get your updates ad support.

Now times change, to survive as a company I understand you need to invest wisely, so by having a large global digital distribution company on your side like Valve (Steam) to assist in this process, with no hard copy, helps the company financially by getting it front of people that would otherwise not see it and cutting overhead in hard copies.  I agree that is a smart choice.

Now with all that being said let me rephrase my concern, can Stardock say that this will not require you to be online to play? and if you don't need to be online to play or start the game, does the company have a plan in place, even if they can't say what publicly should Valve (Steam) run into problems?

(I tried to search for always online and could not fine a specific post answering this, so I apologize if this has been answered)