Well that's actually a good news that is uses DRM, one more reason not to buy it. Honestly if the game was released here one day 1 fully DRM-free I would have been sad to have to buy it.

Between Bard Wardell industrial grad BS spouting and Stardock actions in the recent years, it's definitely not a company I want to support and give any money to.

And reading their FAQs... seriously...:

Q: Will it have any copy protection?

A: No. Unless you consider requiring a user account copy protection (which we do require as it’s necessary to allow users to be able to re-download the entire game and receive updates and support).

Yeah right, you need to register and activate the game on Steam to be able to play it, but no it's not copy protection nor DRMs... If you want to use DRM on your games fine, but at least have the honesty to admit it and don't lie pretending it is not.

Stardock have always been very "hypocritical" (sometime borderline lying) on their stance on DRM. They often boasted that their retail versions of their games being DRM-free, on how DRM were useless, but strangely forgetting to mention that yes, the retail version (i.e. the version on the DVD) was indeed DRM-free, but as soon as you patched it once you ended up with a version requiring an on-line activation.

And no I am not talking about "you have to logon to download a patch therefor it is DRM", I am talking about, as soon as you patch the game, you have to re-activate it online to be able to play it in case you move it to another computer or change your hardware.

And the worse is that it changed from version to version, you had no guarantee; V1.0 was DRM-free but V1.1 had DRMs while V1.2 was again DRM-free but V1.4 added back DRMs, etc...

Like I said earlier I prefer companies that are honest and have a clear stance on their usage of DRMs rather than those that use shoddy logic to pretend they don't.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure I never activated GalCiv 2 DA, but maybe I just never patched it. I remember them as being strong advocates of DRM free but you may be right, maybe they were just against some forms of DRM (copy protection for example). Let's say it like this: my impression was that they act on fundamental principles but in the end they just did what everybody else did, so I saw it as 180 degree change of direction, but maybe just the explanations changed and the real course was more or less the same all the years. But the explanations have definitely changed. It should be fun looking at some of their old official news and compare them to what they did later and what we know about DRM and everything today. It's their decision. I cannot do more than offer $30 bugs as pre-order for a DRM free GalCiv 3. I would pay because GalCiv2 was good. Buit if this is not profitable, so may be it. I cannot change it.

Regarding the turning off of achievements and other stuff that supossedly is a tedious task. I thought about this from a programming perspective and I think it actually shouldn't be that much work. What you would ideally do is adding an additional layer between the Steam API and your own programm that contains a switch. If switched on, all calls are redirected to Steam to do their job there, if switched off just nothing is done and a status is changed. For achievements this should work wonders right away, for multiplayer you would have to make sure at least that once your programm doesn't get a connection it still behaves in a meaningful way.

Of course there will be more things to take care of and an alternative non Steam MP mode would be nice too and the additional revenue of publishing a non Steam version might make it not worth (although some people would surely pay money upfront if needed, so one could just make the calculation beforehand and give hard, solid answers about the profitability).

Of course it's their decision to not to it but still I think if done right it doesn't have to be an incredible additional amount of effort.

Strategy Informer released an interview with Brad Wardell about GalCiv 3.

PC Gamer has posted a preview/ of GalCiv 3, along with the first screen-shots.

Really promising article.
That Boyer guy definitely sounds like someone crazy enough (in positive manner) to pull this through.

It has DRM, so it's a no buy. Good luck with your crappy game on Steam.

I think you meant to say "It has DRM, so it's a no buy. Good luck with your possibly great game on crappy Steam."

Unless you were purposely trying to delude yourself that the game was crappy so you wouldn't feel as bad about missing out on it because you want to avoid Steam.

Awesome! I played the hell out of some GalCiv II a few years back. Cannot find my codes to reinstall so I'm kinda SOL at this point I guess, but I can wait until GalCiv III

Sweet! I tried to get them again a year or two ago and was told that I would have to go to some other site since they owned the site or something or other. At the time he seemed like a hastle. Appears as though they got their "ish" together and fixed their site this time! +1 to you sir!

PCGamesN just posted a preview.

Here is an excerpt:

While Stardock aren’t going in a Master of Orion-style direction, they are definitely trying to add a little more nuance to ship design. Weapons no longer automatically hit, which introduces new complications for commanders trying to choose their weapons systems, and opens new opportunities for countermeasures and more evasive designs. Wardell hopes this creates a lot more counterplay at the ship design and fleet-composition levels.

“If one player has gone down the road of having let’s say a really nasty, short range ships that are heavily armored and really tough but slow, the other guy can then focus on and can try to counter that by having nimble, long range ships that try to nibble at them as they stay away,” Wardell says. “You need to keep an eye on what other players are doing. In a lot of these games you just go to war with everybody. ‘Hey, I'm the toughest guy in the block, right? I'm tough. I will just go conquer everyone.’ You can't do that in GalCiv 3, because you need to pick and choose who your enemies are.”

Hey, anyone got an email from Stardock about preordering the game. It's $10 cheaper and I think you get beta access as well. Anyone getting?

Just a note that the discount will be discontinued on March 2nd, so if you were holding out you only have a couple more days left. :)