Why no anti-piracy?

There's no DRM for the simple reason that Stardock, the publisher of Sins, published the Gamer's Bill of Rights and they basically said "we don't put DRM on our games".

OTOH, the "DRM" is that a cracked version cannot access future patches or online multiplayer functionality.

Oh, but there is some DRM.  If you want to play anything other than the version that was released back in 2008, 1.05, you need a legitimate copy.  The current version of vanilla Sins is 1.19.  I don't think the expansions can be pirated.  Also, to play it in online multiplayer over Ironclad Online (which is where the real game is at) you need a legit CD key.

I think they have a good model for their DRM.  They know that people are going to pirate the game no matter what DRM is implemented, but at least what they have doesn't disadvantage legitimate paying customers and they won't feel like chumps.

Let's see the options:

A. Spend hundreds of man hours (translating to thousands of dollars) developing a system that will be cracked within hours of release, resulting in torrents available the same day.

B. Spend nothing and just accept that torrents will be available the same day.

Seems to be a no-brainer.  If the end result is the same, why spend time and effort on something that won't help (and may do harm if there is collateral damage to the paying customer's experience).

You actually can get all the expanions.

On a side note, is your first name Jake, DirtySanchezz? Lol

But not the patches. Only what came with trinity is available, and since most mods and multiplayer rely on the updated versions, people who really want to get the most out of the game will have to buy it.

What Darvin3 said.

Fact Sins has minimal DRM. Sins made the devs tons of money. Hence Piracy had little impact.

My 5 cents.

I know some people who pirated this game at first but with all patches and the fact they loved game they decided to purchase the game. Some purchased more than 1 copy even.

You could treat no serious anti piracy protection as a demo or teaser. Yes you do get whole game but a game that is not really balanced and/or have some problems. So you get in love/addicted to the game so you see the game is worth buying and therefore buy it.

I spend 30+ £ for some games when they came out that I load once played for 30 minutes and uninstall afterwards. Never installed again.

So for me year on year on support of the game from developers and no need to be connected to developers server while playing game lets not forget awesome games earns definite loyalty to developer.

All the games with anti-piracy measures have torrents up for download too. Why spend money on something that's never been shown to work and tends to annoy a lot of customers?

Nobody condones piracy, but it is a fact of life in PC gaming... Its gonna happen regardless of what protection you use. The DRM while meant to stop the pirates (and fails) also punishes the honest person/s who purchased the game legitimately. Many times the DRM causes more issues than it solves. Games are going to be pirated no matter what you do. So as what Psycloak said why waste money for DRM that is not going to work, and will more than likely ruin the game ether by bugs, crashes, lag etc. etc.. Why punish the honest people. That is why SD chose not to use DRM.

You actually just mentioned the reason. Putting anti-piracy on the game would likely just annoy the legitimate players, while, as you said, not actually stopping piracy. There's no upside.

I pirated the game a couple years ago and liked it so much that I bought it, along with the two expansions. I have greatly appreciated lhe lack of DRM and the general openness of Sins, allowing players to very easily extract whatever they want (to, for instance, listen to some of the music, or look directly at technical specs of units).

There have actually been several releases, which have included vanilla, and also Entrenchment, and also Diplomacy. Of course, they're single-player only, and can't be upgraded.

They can... I know from experience...

Agree 100%.

Well, i was one of these "people"... when the game was released, i have read about it in some computer magazine but it was not yet released in Europe... so, i have download it via torrent... 2 first download was filled with crap ( virus, trojan, etc )... third was a good one...

Several month after, Kalypso have release a European version that i have buy... later, with Impulse, i have buy maybe 30 copy of Entrenchment ( gift for people from our modding group )... have buy Diplomacy too...

Unfortunaly, i don't think that people who pirate first and buy after are in the majority... if it was the case, piracy will be something good for the game company... people with somehow valid reason ( no worldwide release by example ) are a minority in the amount of people who pirate games...

If you seek in the right place, like on some private torrent site, you can find full patched version... but they are very rare and several of them are filled with virus/trojan... be carefull with torrent having "sins fully cracked" for description since there is nothing to crack in sins !!! By the way, if i good remember, online play is possible using Hamachi in place of Ico...

Well, for hacker, the fun is to crack something... if there is nothing to crack, there is no fun... i believe that adding piracy protection will only increase the amount of torrent who can be found...

In my case, it happen that i buy a game and download a pirate/cracked version in the same time... reason is in fact the piracy protection... with my desktop at home, no problem with legal version... but outside home, with my laptop, i don't always have the internet connection ( poor or no wifi ) for play the game that i have buy, so a cracked/hacked version is the only choice...

A lot of people using pirated version will never buy a official version... reason is related to local economy... with country having low minimum wage ( like Russia at 109$/month, Zambia at 39$/month, Uzbekistan at 10.35$/month, Ukraine at 81$/month ), piracy is the only way to have some game...

In fact, the well know monster called "Microsoft" have understand the problem... around 2000, Linux was become popular in China, and almost all version of windows ( 92% ) was pirated... around 2004, Microsoft have begin adapt their price in function of local economic... since, Microsoft Windows is number one in China... and China economic factor have increase and slowly, price of Microsoft Windows have increase too...

Point is that piracy protection is not the right tool for fight worldwide piracy... piracy exist because some people have no choice... pushing user to buy legal version by adapting selling price is one of the numerous way for reduce piracy... worldwide release is a other way ( by example, i always discover interesting game on Impulse but they are mainly "US only"... so, i buy on Steam when they exist there... in rare case, pirate version is the only way for have the game )... as today, you have not a US market, a European market, etc... you have a worldmarket... the world will not adapt to the wish of a company, it is the company who need to adapt...

Well, piracy is a complex thing... from my experience, more protected is a software piece, more it is pirated... in fact, in the last 10 year, complexity of protection have increase in almost the same way that the amount of pirated software... seem to me that piracy protection is not the way to reduce piracy...

Don't misunderstand. We do not accept or condone piracy under any circumstances; we make demos available and games are an entertainment product, so "would never be able to play it otherwise" is no excuse either. We may not all be able to afford Lamborghinis, but we do without those just as well. There are plenty of legitimately free or low-cost alternatives that serve the same purpose--entertainment is no different.

We just don't think it's worth inconveniencing the people who actually do buy the game with onerous DRM schemes. If you're buying the game, you deserve to be able to play without being hassled.

I love you guys.

No anti-piracy?

What?

I was so looking forward to a constant stream of BS that prevents me from playing the game that I gained through legitimate means.

In all seriousness, DRM just encourages piracy. 

Lol I did that. It wasn't even a great game, I sorta like the fact it is the first strategy game to be in full 3d, but the only that drew me was the ability to mod, and the Star Trek mod drove me to get the game.