Stardock’s “Goo” DRM Makes Steamworks Obsolete
Stardock’s “Goo” DRM Makes Steamworks Obsolete
Posted 03/26/2009 at 12:11am
| by Nathan Grayson
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Remember when Stardock outlined its plan to breed a half-DRM, half-helpful hybrid in order to violently obliterate DRM once and for all? We’re a bit foggy on it, to be honest, but we’re pretty sure the press release starred Wesley Snipes.
Well, anyway, the publisher recently unveiled the fruits of its labor, and amazingly, this slow starter just rocketed to the head of the class. Sorry, Steamworks – the second row isn’t so bad.
The stipulations of the DRM, known as Game Object Obfuscation (or “Goo” for short), are as follows:
- There is no third-party client required. This means a developer can use this as a universal solution since it is not tied to any particular digital distributor.
- It paves the way to letting users validate their game on any digital distribution service that supports that game. One common concern of gamers is if the company they purchased a game from exits the market, their game library may disappear too. Games that use Goo would be able to be validated anywhere.
- It opens the door to gamers being able to resell their games because users can voluntarily disable their game access and transfer their license ownership to another user.
True ownership of your game library – as opposed to paying for the right to play your games until their distributor shuts down? We really can’t find anything to complain about here. How about you?
Goo launches on April 7 with Stardock’s Impulse distribution platform’s next release.
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inout
January 06, 2011 at 2:31pm
body, div, table, thead, tbody, tfoot, tr, th, td, p { font-family: "Arial"; font-size: x-small; }
i enjoy your article. great job. <a rel="follow" href="http://timedraft.com">keep it simple</a>
Tekzel
March 31, 2009 at 12:39pm
Stardock has my respect for doing lots of neat and different things, and for their stance against the DRM invasion. But, while it took me a really, really long time to finally get on the Steam bandwagon, as created my first account around October I think and bought The Orange Box, I am really a big fan of Steam now. Sure its DRM, but its DRM that actually gives me a TON of benefits. It gives me a reach around, if you will. In fact it, goes out of its way to pleasure me in many sordid and nasty ways. Ok, I am going a bit far, but I do like it.
Lord Omega
March 26, 2009 at 1:23pm
It really is about time that they did something like this. It will make it easier on all of us who game because it will allow us all to see our old games :D
windbane
March 26, 2009 at 10:19am
About time! I hated the fact that I had to install Steam in order to play Dawn of War 2. I never noticed that stipulation when I bought the game, and only after I opened the box. I don't want to install anything other than the game I purchased.
It's like "negative billing" forcing you to buy a bunch of things just to get the one thing you want, a la the cable companies. In this case you have to install some ohter companies software to get the software you want just to run. I'm not into the whole digital distribution thing yet, I like to have my physical media still. Anyway forcing people to jump on the Steam bandwagon by tying software you don't buy from Steam is ridiculous and unfair. The only positive thing to Steam is the automatic game updates. I think this "GOO" idea is way better!
nekollx
March 26, 2009 at 9:36am
True ownership of your game library – as opposed to paying for the right to play your games until their distributor shuts down?
GaSP you mean i can own the games i buy? Is this a drug halucination? How is such a dream posible?
malebolgia
March 26, 2009 at 8:24am
While this sounds really great, I fear it might not succeed as Stardock isn't that big of a player. Sure they released a few good games and UI modifying software... in the end I think they'll have a hard time lining companies up.
jwalch.hawk
March 26, 2009 at 6:53am
Well, I'm glad Stardock knows the way DRM *should* be, but I don't understand how they're planning on doing this from the article. I read from the linked origin, which wasn't much more specific but it did say they were planning on putting the putting the Impulse Reactor and the game into a single executable container. This would seem to be tied to the Impulse platform then. What's really going on here?
Velcrow
March 26, 2009 at 7:08am
Yeah, I'm a bit confused myself how exactly this works. Great to know WHAT it should do, but even better to know HOW it's doing it.
AntiHero
March 26, 2009 at 7:11am
I second this, if i don't know how, why will i buy it? I won't...I happen to like steam anyhow, not like it's a program that bothers me. Just like me having Xfire on all day, which i do. (Both of those need a linux native client....)
Vahn16
March 26, 2009 at 10:24am
Stardock is expected to make an announcement about that next month.
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