Paradox Pioneering Stardock's 'GOO' DRM

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Stardock's new digital rights management system "GOO" has found its first full-time adopter in strategy publisher Paradox Interactive. The company's upcoming RTS title Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim will be the first of its games to use the DRM.

GOO--which stands for Game Object Obfuscation--makes use of Stardock's Impulse Reactor platform to protect publishers from PC piracy, using a simple EXE encryption and serial key check to verify purchase of a game.

The system is garnering attention because it allows customers to re-sell both retail and digital copies of PC games. Any title that uses the DRM can be put up for sale on the Impulse Marketplace, with the publisher recouping much of the "used" price, minus a Stardock transaction fee.

"In our testing, we found GOO to be very effective in protecting our titles, while at the same time offering a less obtrusive user experience," said Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester. "GOO meets our needs while protecting the rights of our consumers."

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 24, 2009 11:48 AM

    [deleted]

    • reply
      June 24, 2009 12:01 PM

      It can use GOO and still be sold on Steam. GOO is not tied to Impulse.

      • reply
        June 24, 2009 12:04 PM

        Does Steam allow games to be sold without the Steam DRM? If not then you end up with the most restrictive combination of the two DRM systems and lose all benefit of GOO that I can see.

        • reply
          June 24, 2009 12:13 PM

          I think they all come with Steam DRM, not sure how they'd work together.

          Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor uses GOO, apparently.
          http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=1220

          I'm not sure how that works either, since CoH expansions are basically the entire CoH collection, with different armies/features enabled.

        • reply
          June 24, 2009 12:24 PM

          don't be silly. steam is theft and severe drm. only fanbois love it.
          the proof is clear:
          http://mariosworld.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=240

          • reply
            June 24, 2009 1:08 PM

            I guess there are 20+ Million "fanbois" out there.

            Your argument is silly and biased and full of spelling errors. Nobody is going to take you seriously.

            People use Steam because it adds value and ease of use. Easy content delivery, good weekend deals, auto-updating, integrated community and friends list with one-click joining, anti-cheat, play your games anywhere without discs, etc. etc. etc.

            Just a quick look at your headings in that post and you can see how silly your argument is

            Account banning: If you cheat, you deserved to be banned. There is a steeper penalty if you cheat on Steam and that is a good thing.
            Download quota: It's not Valve's fault that internet service in Australia sucks.
            Download time: Once again, it's not Valve's fault. However, some games offer pre-loading before the release date and most of the time it's still faster than waiting for shipping.
            DRM Plus: Steam's DRM is a lot more user-friendly than most forms of DRM. You can install your games unlimited times on an unlimited number of PCs.
            Discriminatory cost: Your example talks about COD4. Valve does not set the prices of 3rd party games on Steam, the publishers do. Your gripe is against Activision.
            Inflated cost: Same as before, Valve does not set these prices.

            I'm not saying Steam is perfect, it definitely has some flaws but overall it is an excellent system and that's why it has over 20 million users.

            • reply
              June 25, 2009 4:03 AM

              Yea. Valve generally has VERY fair prices for their games, especially if you watch for deals.

            • reply
              June 25, 2009 5:21 AM

              Valve forcing (inflated) Euro prices with a virtual global VAT onto most European customers is definitely their own fault...

      • reply
        June 24, 2009 12:13 PM

        lol what that makes no sense since Steam is the drm.

        • reply
          June 24, 2009 12:16 PM

          Many games on Steam use a third party DRM as well.

      • reply
        June 24, 2009 12:42 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          June 24, 2009 1:06 PM

          If this catches on it may force Valve to make Steam more resell friendly.

        • reply
          June 24, 2009 1:07 PM

          If this works (and I have no idea if it will or not) I would assume selling the license allows the buyer to download it on Impulse. The seller would probably still be able to download the game from Steam, but the protection would probably not recognize his copy as valid.

          No deactivating from Steam, just the exe checks on load that you're the guy who owns the license.

          Dunno though. That's the only way I can imagine it working.

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