http://www.galciv.com/sdcentral.html
In a nutshell, the game has no copy protection whatsoever. Instead, we've
taken the route of providing long term feature support (i.e. updating the
game with new stuff). But to get to these new features you go through
"Stardock Central" which uses the serial # that comes with the game. The
serial # is authenticated on the server so even if someone cranked out a
serial # generator or passed out serial numbers on the net, the server would
be able to detect serial #'s that aren't in the retail list or serial #'s
getting a lot of differnet IP's downloading the entire game.
But my favorite feature, as a TA player who had to buy multiple copies
because my kids...did things with the CD, you can download the whole
latest/greatest version as long as you have that serial #. And that applies
no matter whether you bought the game at CompUSA or EB or direct.
Combine that with a demo that lets people get a feel for the game and we're
hoping piracy will be pretty minimal.
Anyway, sorry to gush on it, I didn't have anything to do with the coding on
SDCentral, I just like the idea of being able to download my full game years
after buying it even if I've lost my original CD and be able to chat with
other people and such.
