Can you go into some details on how this works?  You have indicated that any distributor (Impulse, Steam, Direct2Drive, etc.) can authenticate a product but the fact that someone can disable their access indicates that there is a central repository of licenses.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but this still leaves a single point of failure in terms of a company going out of business or stopping licensing, it's just no longer the distributor.

Again, I may not fully understand it so I would be curious to hear how license revokation is done without a central database.

Edit: It appears this was answered in another thread and that answer is that the publisher is the one in charge of the central database.  From the sound of it, if the publisher goes under or stops supporting a game then that game can no longer be sold/transferred/purchased (with GOO) but you can still authenticate using any distributor assuming the distributors have a cache of licenses (from before the publisher went under) and they also don't stop supporting authentication for that game.

So again, it sounds like it's an improvement on DRM, but still falls short of selling a product and letting users install/uninstall when/where they want.  Obviously, it's not going to stop pirating so from a macro perspective it is still not a profitable venture but from a micro perspective it is.  Stardock can make some money off of paranoid publishers who still think that DRM does any good.  Stardock can gain customers who think activation at install time is OK but phone home at game launch is not.  Publishers that traditionally used other forms of DRM can at least take a step in the right direction towards DRM-Free.

As a consumer, I don't like it.  As an businessman, it makes sense for Stardock to build and sell it as a solution.  As an economist, it's wasteful (as is all DRM) at a macro scale.

It is a DRM like any other, a Digital Restrictions Management, designed to take choice away from the user. This farce about "oh we don't do a DRM" is just silly.

Exactly, and that is what matters. If you start in the business of pissing off your customers, you end like the RIAA/MPAA, a cynical bunch of scumbags spewing bile and hatred and destroying their business model.

Well, with the possibility to download the game from any digital provider or te be able to transfer the game to someone else (rights given to end user), the R is more for Rights (for producer and consumer) than Restriction

My suggestion for pyalot and the ones like him (and for which I'd not suggest to hold their breaths while they wait for their desired solution) would be to stop buying any games at all. That's the only way to avoid any kind of DRM. That, or make your own games and make sure they don't use any kind of said DRM. After all, videogames are not as vital to one's life as, lets say, food, water, air... And "fun" can be achieved by other means different to videogames. As far as I know, books don't need a disk on the drive so you can read them, a serial before you can open it,... or anything like that (yet).

As costumer, I must care about my rights but in this matter I'm not alone. Publishers/Developers are also there and without them I get no games. So I must care about them too.

As publishers/developer, I must care about my right but in this matter I'm not alone. Customers are also there and without them I get no money. So I must care about them too.

I won't be able to receive anything if I'm not ready to give something in return. Goo is a good step in the right direction.

That's exactly what I did for the last 2 years (exception being GalCivII).

unfortunatly, there's not enough people thinking like you do,  not buying games only works to keep your wallet fat..

companies barely get scratched by it

i do agree with you >.>  but as soon as  there's something fun... "or you THINK is fun"  its hard not to buy...

escpecially knowing that it's having little effect not buying "everyone else doesnt care"

maybe pirating... but that's just be cheating... and for the wrong reason

Which is what not many seem to understand.

Of course this is DRM. And of course some publishers will keep using DRM on their games. But now instead of the option being between SecuROM and Starforce and Steamworks,  Goo will be in the mix.

And nobody can say with a straight face Goo is not better than any of those. It's way better than SecuROM and Starfoce, and has its advantages over Steam though there the leap isn't quite so huge.

Insisting on completely DRM-free games is an idealistic dream that ranks up there with world peace and no hunger. It isn't going to happen like that. The only way it can is with gradual progress, and Goo is a good step in that direction. As I said in another thread, the gamers/customers have to be willing to compromise a bit as well if we want the publishers to.

Absolute idealists will never be satisfied and refuse to tolerate any right step, which is rather ironic since they're just hurting their own cause. A big publisher is like a big angry dog. You yell at it and try to push it, and see what you get. If publishers who start using Goo keep getting crap because they use anything short of unprotected games, they'll just say "screw it, we tried, this isn't worth it" and the idealists will be the ones to ultimately lose.

Well, I'm certainly not buying any Stardock or Impulse powered game, that's for sure.

I'm very fond of books, but you're sadly mistaken. Most e-books come defective with DRM systems.

When I buy a game, I give my money for the game in return. I'm not inclined to give away my rights too. I expect a game in return and not be treated as a criminal.

No it is not. Like any other digital restrictions system it is a step in the wrong direction, because it goes against consumers.

As others would be quick to point out, a few DRM antagonists here and there won't hurt a company much (I make myself no illusion about that)

Yet the number of people unhappy about any DRM at all is growing, but granted not significant. There's something you make yourself illusions about. Impulse/Goo is a Digital Restrictions Management. It restricts your rights in some or another way. If it wouldn't restrict your rights, then there would be no need for obfuscation/encryption.

Digital restrictions my be dressed up pleasantly like with Impulse, but make no mistake, the day they come around to bite you, it will hurt. This is the *real* dammage stardock is doing to themselves. They decided not to trust you, why should you trust them? And when they finally come around to act on this distrust, it'll explode in their face and cost them a good deal of revenue. Stardock is setting themselves up for a consumer fail, and I'm merely pointing the stupidity out.

funny you use the world peace and no hunger as an example,   i  dont think you can call that idealistic, becuase things like that are not impossible

"tough...with the average brain power of a human.... maybe in the next 2...3 thousand years"

EDIT:

unfortunatly.. that is idealistic, a customer will always be treated with suspicion, even tough it's the  companies that are acting like criminals, the perfect example being... ofcourse DRM,  why else would it exist?

They are, just highly improbable. There's nothing stopping it, short of people with the power to make such decisions.

Well, when you buy a car, it comes with the keys to be able to start it. What is the difference with GOO?

Selling software generally doesn't work too well on the honor system.

You do not seem to realize that this is a free market and nobody is really "in power" except the ones who wield market share. If Stardock chooses to position themselves in the way of the digital revolution, then that is entirely their own choice. When they start to loose profits because of their broken philosophy, that too, is their own choice. If you want to know what it looks like to treat your customers as criminals and make your product defective with Digital Restrictions then look no further then the RIAA/MPAA and their clients.

The difference is that your car is not welded shut so no mechanic can pop up the hood, and they key isn't fingerprinted to you so you're the only one who can drive it.

I was talking about real books. I do not read e-books.

When you buy a game, you pay for the right of owning the box, the manual, the disk and the right to play the game in it(NOT to own the game per se, as if you had created it). I want to buy a game, install it without online activations, serials,... and that as long as I have the proper hardware (computer) and software (drivers and OS), I can play the game as long as I want (be it months, years or centuries if my descedants inherit it) without worries of companies going down, servers exploding or any other disaster that would prevent my game from being able to install and/or run. And be able to download patches whenever I need them without registering or anything like that because Publisher/Developer needs to make sure that I'm a legit owner.

Yet, only naive or very good willed companies would release a game like that. As only a very naive or good willed country would stop using police and hope for their citizens to behave and be good people. The comparison is extreme but both DRM and police exist for a reason. If I have to choose between a brutal police and a more humanized one, I'd choose the later, mind you.

Goo compromises your wish there because it requires to connect to a server to activate and in order to transfer ownership.

You compare DRM to the law, which is a very missguided comparision.

• DRM is no law, its rules are coded in software and not in legal documents.
• the Law allows you a recurse and has proper safeguards to give you a chance to defend yourself
  
• If the law was like DRM, everybody would exercise his own brand of justice made from arbitary rules conjured up out of thin air.

DRM is a rights landgrab by content holders who're not happy with the current copyright and go about inventing their own justice. If they can invent their own justice (which gives me no recurse whatsoever), then so can I, and brandmark them as evil scumbags destined to go extinct as the digital revolution rolls over them.

Well, if you aren't using the correct key, you won't generally be able to enter in the car.

And generally a car is registred with its owner. Goo is just doing the same thing.

May be I am wrong but isn't the GOO scheme (not the code the scheme) sounds too easy to crack ?

I mean fake the activation server or just change the authentication DLL and all the GOO destributed games are "wild open" at once.

Am I wrong ?

With a car, at least you have the key yourself. With Goo, the key is hidden from you and you trust the system to lend it to you whenever you want to enter and start your car. That's all fine and dandy, unless the system decides that it'll not really give you the key.

You're still completely missing the point of the whole thing, and your logic is mostly self-defeating.

It cannot be a "step in the wrong direction" because it does not do *anything* that's worse than what any existing DRM scheme does. However, it does many things *better*, which is what makes it a step in the right direction. Certainly DRM is DRM and thus there are restrictions on the user. But compare Goo with SecuROM, and tell me Goo is not better. That's what this is about.

And, at the same time, Frogboy already posted that Stardock will continue the same policy on their games that they've always had. Goo is not what Stardock is going to use themselves. It is something they are offering other publishers to use that's more user friendly than anything else currently on the market. How does this damage themselves, then? Stardock games will remain the same as they've always been, but now the other publishers have a more user-friendly alternative than something like SecuROM.

Obviously Goo has its own restrictions, but the goal is to loosen those as much as possible in comparison with existing schemes, and that's exactly what it does.

or  if a problem occurs, wich requires fixing before you can get the key...

More like the first time you want to use your car but Frogboy hasn't really stated when GOO phone home. Sure it happens the first time, when entering the e-mail and serial id, but I don't see any mention about latter runs. But since Frogboy is adept of one time activation and due to item in the Gamer's Bill of Right about playing single player game without being required to be online, I doubt that GOO phone home every time it runs

Every DRM system is crackable, even hardware driven ones.  If there is code and an end-user can run that code, someone will figure out a way to run that code whenever/wherever they want.  It is impossible to make a DRM system that is uncrackable.

I'm afraid it is you who misses the point of the whole thing. And logic that argues that artificial consumer restrictions are a hindrance to the consumer is, I'm afraid, not self defating.

No, this is about yet another DRM designed to take rights away from you.

It is pretty defeatist to choose the lesser of two evils just because you're too short sighted to see that there's a better more user friendly way, which is no DRM at all.

The matter of the fact is

• Goo is a DRM
• DRMs are not consumer friendly
• DRMs take rights away from you
• I'm opposed to any kind of DRM (mind you, I've worked for a company that did DRM (sdc, Packet Video, go look it up) and I know fully well what I talk about)
• At best a DRM isn't a hindrance. However that can quickly change as soon as the one forcing the DRM on you changes his mind or the system breaks or companies go bust (precedence for all of this is easy to find)
• No matter what you DRM apologists say, I'm not ok with compromising the rights of the consumer and letting a company easely off the hook for doing it.

This is correct, it will only phone-home on activation and ownership transfer.  Though it hasn't been explicitly stated that I have seen, my guess is that it will also phone home when you try and patch it with an official update.