Zydor has a good point. This seems to be too much angst when we're talking about a $50 game. If you were spending $16M to install JDEdwards, you'd have a lawyer review all the contracts before you agreed to buy it. If I'm spending $50 for a game, or just about anything for that matter, and it doesn't work out, I take it as a lesson learned and move on.

Interesting discussion. I may even be able to contribute something meaningful.

I'm a bit surprised at how certain some Stardock officials seem to be about the validity of EULA's. As far as I know, EULA's are not valid in Europe, and I'm certain that they aren't valid here in Germany. The reasoning is the following:

1. With your purchase, you already acquired (by German law) any rights that the EULA could grant you.
2. Therefore, users are not required to agree to the EULA to use the product.
3. Even clicking on an "I agree" button cannot be seen as agreeing to the conditions listed in the EULA, because from the perspective of the law, the EULA is trying to take rights away from the customer that are guaranteed to him by law. This voids the EULA, and due to this, the user (who has to click on on "I agree" before he can use the program, as he is entitled to due to his purchase) can click on that button without any consequences.

If you like, I can easily find some sources where this is explained in more legal terms, the problem is that most of these sources are in German.

In any case, the usual recommendation for software publishers is not to *rely* on a EULA. Of course, there are other laws in effect which partly overlap with the contents of many EULAs, and which are still valid - e.g., copyright infringement is still illegal, no matter if EULAs are valid or not, because that's covered by a specific law.

Another question is whether users should be allowed to transfer their licenses. Personally, I fully support the road Stardock has taken (*very* good support, but no transfer of licenses), because I think it's a very good solution. However, I'm not entirely sure whether this stance is in accordance with local law here. I've never bothered to check though. Actually I'm a bit anxious that it might turn out to be incompatible to local law, because I want Stardock's system to *work*.

A third point that has been raised is the necessity of online validation to use a product. This will actually be important for my own decisions of whether or not I'm buying a game. One of the reasons I subscribed to Totalgaming.net was that it enabled me to register and download the games once, and then install them in the far future without any need of online validation. If that's different in Impulse, then Impulse will have a substantially harder time of winning me over. This is one of the main reasons why I have never subscribed to Steam, Direct2Drive, or similar services. As a collector of games, I simply don't want the possibility that some of my purchased products will be unusable in the future to exist - no matter how much I trust Stardock that *they* will do everything they can to prevent that.

You can download, install, and archive through Impulse.  you still have control.  And I read on the forums that Stardock can set a flag to "open" so no validation is necessary in the case of something catastrophic.

As usual, Stardock seems to be looking at the situation as much as users than as producers.  Games made by gamers and apps made by users rocks.

You raise a valid issue. The decision to purchase anything, low or high value goods and services depends on the perception of the individual concerned - reality is irrelevant. Too many times businesses and vendors get this wrong, their own personal view is irrelevant. What matters is their Customer's perception - whether that perception is perfectly "correct" or hidiously stupid is not relevant. Ok over time one might try to correct greatly exagerated perceptions, thats for sure, but meanwhile deal with reality. The latter differentiates a successfull business from the also rans, listening and acting on information gleened, not galloping alongside the herd.

Its why I am very attracted to Stardock's pragmatic real world approach to their activities and decisions. To set a "flag" to open up software as their "last act", I do honestly believe they would do that - not that they are going anywhere. In fact some other Vendors might want to listen to that increasing rumbling over their shoulder, its Stardock about to run them over   

Regards
Zy

Very interesting article here WWW Link with many of the commenters commending Stardock on doing things "the right way".

Here
is another link on the topic of "own" versus "licensed" .
While this time I can understand Blizzard's position here - the Glider bot gives unfair advantage to it's users, I do not think Blizzard attack from correct point.