It is a DRM like any other, a Digital Restrictions Management, designed to take choice away from the user. This farce about "oh we don't do a DRM" is just silly.

Exactly, and that is what matters. If you start in the business of pissing off your customers, you end like the RIAA/MPAA, a cynical bunch of scumbags spewing bile and hatred and destroying their business model.

My suggestion for pyalot and the ones like him (and for which I'd not suggest to hold their breaths while they wait for their desired solution) would be to stop buying any games at all. That's the only way to avoid any kind of DRM. That, or make your own games and make sure they don't use any kind of said DRM. After all, videogames are not as vital to one's life as, lets say, food, water, air... And "fun" can be achieved by other means different to videogames. As far as I know, books don't need a disk on the drive so you can read them, a serial before you can open it,... or anything like that (yet).

As costumer, I must care about my rights but in this matter I'm not alone. Publishers/Developers are also there and without them I get no games. So I must care about them too.

As publishers/developer, I must care about my right but in this matter I'm not alone. Customers are also there and without them I get no money. So I must care about them too.

I won't be able to receive anything if I'm not ready to give something in return. Goo is a good step in the right direction.

unfortunatly, there's not enough people thinking like you do,  not buying games only works to keep your wallet fat..

companies barely get scratched by it

i do agree with you >.>  but as soon as  there's something fun... "or you THINK is fun"  its hard not to buy...

escpecially knowing that it's having little effect not buying "everyone else doesnt care"

maybe pirating... but that's just be cheating... and for the wrong reason

Well, I'm certainly not buying any Stardock or Impulse powered game, that's for sure.

I'm very fond of books, but you're sadly mistaken. Most e-books come defective with DRM systems.

When I buy a game, I give my money for the game in return. I'm not inclined to give away my rights too. I expect a game in return and not be treated as a criminal.

No it is not. Like any other digital restrictions system it is a step in the wrong direction, because it goes against consumers.

As others would be quick to point out, a few DRM antagonists here and there won't hurt a company much (I make myself no illusion about that)

Yet the number of people unhappy about any DRM at all is growing, but granted not significant. There's something you make yourself illusions about. Impulse/Goo is a Digital Restrictions Management. It restricts your rights in some or another way. If it wouldn't restrict your rights, then there would be no need for obfuscation/encryption.

Digital restrictions my be dressed up pleasantly like with Impulse, but make no mistake, the day they come around to bite you, it will hurt. This is the *real* dammage stardock is doing to themselves. They decided not to trust you, why should you trust them? And when they finally come around to act on this distrust, it'll explode in their face and cost them a good deal of revenue. Stardock is setting themselves up for a consumer fail, and I'm merely pointing the stupidity out.

They are, just highly improbable. There's nothing stopping it, short of people with the power to make such decisions.

Selling software generally doesn't work too well on the honor system.

The difference is that your car is not welded shut so no mechanic can pop up the hood, and they key isn't fingerprinted to you so you're the only one who can drive it.

Goo compromises your wish there because it requires to connect to a server to activate and in order to transfer ownership.

You compare DRM to the law, which is a very missguided comparision.

• DRM is no law, its rules are coded in software and not in legal documents.
• the Law allows you a recurse and has proper safeguards to give you a chance to defend yourself
  
• If the law was like DRM, everybody would exercise his own brand of justice made from arbitary rules conjured up out of thin air.

DRM is a rights landgrab by content holders who're not happy with the current copyright and go about inventing their own justice. If they can invent their own justice (which gives me no recurse whatsoever), then so can I, and brandmark them as evil scumbags destined to go extinct as the digital revolution rolls over them.

May be I am wrong but isn't the GOO scheme (not the code the scheme) sounds too easy to crack ?

I mean fake the activation server or just change the authentication DLL and all the GOO destributed games are "wild open" at once.

Am I wrong ?

You're still completely missing the point of the whole thing, and your logic is mostly self-defeating.

It cannot be a "step in the wrong direction" because it does not do *anything* that's worse than what any existing DRM scheme does. However, it does many things *better*, which is what makes it a step in the right direction. Certainly DRM is DRM and thus there are restrictions on the user. But compare Goo with SecuROM, and tell me Goo is not better. That's what this is about.

And, at the same time, Frogboy already posted that Stardock will continue the same policy on their games that they've always had. Goo is not what Stardock is going to use themselves. It is something they are offering other publishers to use that's more user friendly than anything else currently on the market. How does this damage themselves, then? Stardock games will remain the same as they've always been, but now the other publishers have a more user-friendly alternative than something like SecuROM.

Obviously Goo has its own restrictions, but the goal is to loosen those as much as possible in comparison with existing schemes, and that's exactly what it does.

More like the first time you want to use your car but Frogboy hasn't really stated when GOO phone home. Sure it happens the first time, when entering the e-mail and serial id, but I don't see any mention about latter runs. But since Frogboy is adept of one time activation and due to item in the Gamer's Bill of Right about playing single player game without being required to be online, I doubt that GOO phone home every time it runs

I'm afraid it is you who misses the point of the whole thing. And logic that argues that artificial consumer restrictions are a hindrance to the consumer is, I'm afraid, not self defating.

No, this is about yet another DRM designed to take rights away from you.

It is pretty defeatist to choose the lesser of two evils just because you're too short sighted to see that there's a better more user friendly way, which is no DRM at all.

The matter of the fact is

• Goo is a DRM
• DRMs are not consumer friendly
• DRMs take rights away from you
• I'm opposed to any kind of DRM (mind you, I've worked for a company that did DRM (sdc, Packet Video, go look it up) and I know fully well what I talk about)
• At best a DRM isn't a hindrance. However that can quickly change as soon as the one forcing the DRM on you changes his mind or the system breaks or companies go bust (precedence for all of this is easy to find)
• No matter what you DRM apologists say, I'm not ok with compromising the rights of the consumer and letting a company easely off the hook for doing it.