But something must be done to prevent serial Id stealing. So it must be the current owner of a serial id that should initiate the transfer. Currently the problem is that all your serial id are linked in the same account. If the owner of a Stardock account could transfer one of his serial ids to another Stardock account that may respond to some requests about using second hand copies. And the serial Id will always be linked to a single e-mail.

But this requires 2 things:

- that Stardock changes their policy about second hand copy and implements to mechanism to allow a user to transfer as serial id to another user

- more important, that the original owner of the serial id uses this mechanism to transfer the serial id to the new owner

And I am pretty sure that there are lots of nasty and tricky details (about security and others) to have something reliable working.

if you guys read this month's issue of PC Gamer where it has the picture of a starcraft 2 marine on the cover, it has an article that talks about how to return open box games/software. It has to do with whether if you agress with the EULA liscence before installing the game.

I think the threat of a lawsuit would do it. Or at least a serious discussion and complaint that they are allowing illegal activity, which technically, they are.

But you all are probably too nice, and likely too poor, to resort to such heavy-handed tactics. Which leaves us where we were before.

I'll just lay the blame on ebay here, expecially as it looks like you guys have already made some effort along these lines, and move on.

Why? BTW, the activation in GC2 means that your serial id and your e-mail are registred on SDC servers. And this allows you to still be able to get the game even if you lost your serial id, as long as you still have your e-mail.

 

 

Ah too funny. I just bought a used copy at EB. Now I find this out. I hold EB to blame for this don't worry. I also plan on taking this up the director chain of command to EB so they pull all used copies of Galciv2 off their shelves, because obviously they are ripping people off.

But if I were the EB CEO your new copies would also be pulled from the shelves and shipped back.

Seriously tho, Have you folks ever thought of sending a notice out to the big retailers explaining the limitations of purchasing a galactic civ used copy?

I'm in the process of taking this up with EB marketing. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

aamazingmon,
did anyone mention somewhere in the parts of this thread that you have viewed, that in your situation you are supposed to be able to contact sales@stardock.com (or maybe it is support@stardock .com) and purchase a renewed/replacement serial/license for a discount from the boxed price?

drrider

Let's say you buy a used car...a Ford for instance.
When you get it, the engine is missing.
Why would Ford have any responsibility for the situation?

If the person who sold you the game rips you off, rip that *seller's* throat, not StarDocks.

Hi, actually, for this discussion a better example can be given. Think of "CRAFTSMAN" tools: "Warranteed forever." Get a replacement at any time if not 100% satisfied. No receipt required. The brand word “Craftsman” stamped on the tool is sufficient. It does not matter who you are, or when, or where you bought it. It does not matter if you bought the tool personally or if it was bought by your grandmother literally100 years ago. It is a genuine “Craftsman” tool in your physical possession, which makes you the legitimate owner of the tool and entitled to ALL benefits available. In realty, only a very small percentage of tools ever get traded back to the store for a replacement/ upgrade; but the fact that you CAN do this generates such good will that the average person will be a lifelong repeat customer. That the customer will buy 20 more “craftsman” tools generates far more than enough profit to offset the cost of the one tool under warrantee. For the store’s part, it doesn’t matter to them who has possession of the tool because the warrantee applies to the tool itself, not a person. “X” many tools in existence equals “X” many transactions. It is a successful business model emulated by countless other manufacturers.

Relate this model to the way “Stardock” SHOULD do business in regards to GAL CIV. “X” number of game disks are physically manufactured. “Y” numbers of games are downloaded from the website. This translates into “Z” number of serial numbers, which is the primary focus for discussion. Stardock makes its money from the initial purchase. If a purchaser keeps the game for a year and Stardock puts out one update every 4 months, then 3 update downloads will occur. If that person kept the game 8 months, updated 2 times, then gave the game to someone else for 4 months who did 1 update, then the same 3 updates would still occur. “Z” number of serial numbers equals “Z” number of patch downloads. The number of times the serial numbers change hands is IRRELAVENT to the number of requests for service to the product. It costs no more to service the product no matter how many times the product changed physical possession from one person to another. It would take less time to change a serial number registration from one person to another than the amount of time its taking me to type this rather lengthy posting . An email with a photo of the disks with the serial number on the jewel case should be sufficient to establish possession of a legit copy. The small amount of time (i.e. labor cost) to do the change will be much more than offset by the goodwill it will generate because goodwill usually translates into future purchases (read: future revenue $$$) not only by that person, but by others who hear of the product and the “good service” associated with it.

Stardock: PLEASE HEED THE MASSES!!!!!

PS. If this policy is ever changed for the benefit of the user, I would probably then spend more money on Dark Avatar and other Stardock products.

Here is a question... Is it possible for someone who has bought a used copy of Galactic Civ II to call Stardock and purchase a new license for the game? I bought my used copy from a friend, original box and all, and would love to be able to play online...I love the game...but I can't do it with the original license serial that the game came with because it has been used. Can I purchase a new license? and if so, how much do they cost?

What you are looking for to protect Stardock IP, is the VeRO program. I'm not sure of the process to get into it, but start from here:

Ebay Vero program help page

I believe you actually have to be employed by the rights owner in order to use it.
[edit: link fixed]

Actually, that is a terrible example to use as an analogy for software/IP. The Craftsman tool is a physical item. You cannot "make copies" of it. There is no way to "crack" it so that more than one person can use the product simultaneously. And you certainly can't get it off a torrent. The car analogies are just as flawed. In the U.S., a PC game is Intellectual Property, while cars and tools and other physical objects are not. You can say that the CD-ROM is a physical item, but then you are only talking about the disc, not any information contained on it, which is IP. If the CD-ROM is physically damaged/defective, you are entitled to a replacement that will work (i.e.: allows you access to the IP encoded on the disc in accordance with the license agreement). I think much of the emotional response comes from people unknowingly conflating one type of property law with another, which can cause things to seem unfair or unbalanced to those not versed in the differences.



You miss a major point here, because you are looking at GalCiv2 as if it were a socket wrench or an automobile. It is IP -- it is entertainment. Consider a movie theatre that sells tickets for $10. After the movie starts, say half the seats are still empty. Well, it won't cost the theatre a dime to let people in for free to fill up the empty seats, will it? Why should they force people who don't want to spend $10 to stand outside instead of letting them in at least up to the number of empty seats? What kind of greedy, draconian policy is that?

From Stardock's perspective, if you buy GalCiv2, play it, beat it, then uninstall it and sell it to someone else, they have essentially lost a sale (assuming the person who buys it second-hand wanted to play it, which is a fair assumption). Notice that there is no piracy or theft involved here, since the original owner has uninstalled the game, yet the loss is just as real as if you paid for a ticket to get into the theatre, then opened the rear door from the inside to let your friend in. Your friend is only taking up an empty seat anyway, so his free view of the movie does not hurt anyone else's experience of the movie. And hey, since you bought the full price ticket, it's only fair that your buddy offset some of your cost by paying you a bit for letting him in, right? And when your friend gives you $5, they certainly feel entitled to something for their money, even if the theatre was not involved in that private transaction. (Yes, this is illegal in a movie theatre. Then again, Stardock does not allow resale of GalCiv2 in their EULA, yet clearly many people are reselling it anyway, so here we are.)

You can complain that those empty seats are just collecting dust, that it doesn't cost the business any extra to present the show with those seats filled as opposed to being left void, that they got their money from the half that paid anyway, and it's bad for the environment to regulate the temperature of a large room only half-filled... establishing a moral obligation for the theatre to let some people in for free. Of course, if that were to happen, then those who paid full price for their tickets would feel rather silly, and next time they would try to be in the "lucky" group that didn't have to pay full price. The theatre's business is in real jeopardy when people start to realize that they can just split the cost with a friend instead of buying their own ticket. And it spirals out of control when people go from being willing to sneak into a theatre to feeling entitled to do so. (Empty seats! The bastards!)



The goodwill generated by the generous movie theatre above would be considerable. They would have packed houses every night! But the movie-going public would not benefit when the theatre goes out of business. If a significant proportion of their customers started "sharing" their ticket access with their friends so that the net result is a sharp drop in ticket sales, even as the audience grows, then the theatre will surely fail. (They could try to survive the new policy by doubling the price of each ticket, but this move would undoubtedly alienate many customers, resulting in even greater revenue loss.)

In any event, the lack of "good service" you are complaining about is to those who choose not to buy their own ticket, but to pick up a used one for less money -- money that Stardock never saw. (And still, they are allowed to install and play the game anyway, just not get updates beyond 1.1) As it is now, Stardock has an exemplary customer service record and tremendous goodwill from all their customers who buy tickets.

Like most here, I applaud Stardock for eschewing DRM on the CD-ROMs and just keeping their rein on the Registration Code. This is very friendly to end-users, since StarForce, SecuROM, SafeDisc, et al, treat all customers as if they were criminals by default, relieve you of your Fair Use backup rights, and can even cause intractable problems with your PC. The actual (and only) problem with Stardock's policy, IMHO, is that their exists a legitimate PC game aftermarket, catered to by such businesses as Half.com, Amazon Marketplaces, eBay, and many others. Since this second-hand business is (often) legal as well as pervasive, I am most concerned that a law-abiding individual does not know about the resale policy on GalCiv2, and will unwittingly be scammed by unscrupulous or careless resellers more easily with this title than with other titles. It seems a real shame that many people buy a second-hand copy of this game in good faith, only to discover the registration restrictions after they come to this site and read this thread. That is seriously unfortunate. To my mind, the way to deal with that is full, obvious disclosure -- not buried in the EULA, but displayed prominently on the box and the CD-ROMs (as they are often separated) and accompanied by concerted efforts to get the word out to any and all who do business in second-hand software that GalCiv2 cannot be updated unless purchased NEW.

That is the only part of this affair that could use some fine-tuning: mitigating the chances of buyers taken completely by surprise by Stardock's resale policy.

Well, I'm completely happy with Stardock licensing policy. I actually love it. But then, I was perfectly aware of it *before* buying their software, and nobody forced me to buy if I didn’t like the deal. I can understand why those that didn’t have a way to know about resale would be a little unhappy.
Anyhow, as much as I like the analogy with the theatre, it is a bit flawed too, so I doubt it will be very convincing for those that don’t agree. You are totally right about it being an IP matter, so the theatre setting is good. But Stardock isn’t selling the right to play GalCiv *one* time. They are selling the right to play as much as you like.
So the correct comparison with the theatre would be a lifetime subscription allowing you to see the same movie as often as you want. That the theatre would make the subscription nominative is in no way shocking I think. But whether leaving the subscription nameless and allowing people to resale theirs would put them out of business or not is, I think, a matter still open for discussion.
I can see two or three things to consider there:
- First, if the theatre tell you the subscription is nominative before you buy, it’s not very fair to complain after buying it
- But allowing resales can generate an interesting goodwill, especially when one remember that the theatre is selling drinks and snacks too
- Finally, what would happen if the subscriptions were nominatives, but each subscriber decided to come to every projection, and bought nothing at that occasion? If the theatre could keep its business up in that situation, all and well. But if they couldn’t then how come exactly they did make such an offer? Yeah, that last one is very flawed as Stardock does not give its customers any right that would allow them to forbid further sales. But still interesting in the theatre case I think. Anyway, in Stardock case, it’s not totally dumb to ask what would be the problem for them when there do not seem to be a problem for other software companies. It might be DRM related, but it’s not obvious at first.

That said, the conclusion still stands. As long as reasonable steps to make you aware of the whole deal have been taken before you agree to the deal, deciding to complain afterwards when non one forced the deal on you, or complaining to a third party when someone else cheated you, like by not telling you they didn’t have the right to resale their copy is not exactly the most fair thing you can do.