Stardock Entertainment, best known for its award-winning PC strategy games such as The Political Machine and Galactic Civilizations has released TotalGaming.net: Phase 2. TotalGaming.net is an electronic distribution network in which users can pick a game, press a button to buy it, and then immediately download it. Users download their games through Stardock's Secure Software Delivery system, Stardock Central.
Stardock has already lined up agreements with companies such as Ubi Soft, Take 2, Strategy First, and others to put their games on to TotalGaming.net. In addition, Stardock is working with numerous independent game developers to get the best Indie titles onto the service. Phase 2 of TotalGaming.net represents the latest expansion of the gaming network to include a host of new indie game titles and additional purchase options.
"We have two distinct goals for TotalGaming.net," said Brian Clair, Director of TotalGaming.net at Stardock. "First, we want to provide a proven electronic distribution channel for publishers who want to leverage their classic game assets. Second, we want to provide an outlet to independent game developers to get their games out there."
In addition to having titles developed by Stardock such as Galactic Civilizations, The Political Machine, LightWeight Ninja, and others, better known offerings such as Robin Hood, O-R-B, and Disciples II: Ultimate Edition are also available. Independent games such as Chronic Logic's Gish, BreakQuest by Nurium, Jets’n'Guns by Rake in Grass, Astral Masters by Apus Software, Xeno Assault II by Jagged Blade Software and more have been added as well.
Users can either purchase games individually or they can purchase a TotalGaming.net membership which provides them with tokens that can be used buy the available titles at a discounted rate.
What makes TotalGaming.net stand out is that rather than relying on Digital Rights Management (DRM), it has a model that is more akin to iTunes. Customers use a secure client called Stardock Central to download the games where they are "activated" via the program at the server. The technology, called Secure Software Delivery (SSD), was developed and used for Stardock's corporate software products for several years. Once the game is downloaded, gamers can burn their titles to CD for use on all their personal computers (similar to how users can burn their iTunes purchased music to CD). Stardock believes that this increased convenience to users far outweighs any theoretical benefit that the heavy use of DRM provides.
"As game developers, we are intimately familiar with software piracy," said BradWardell, President & CEO of Stardock. "Over the years, we have concluded that the best way to combat piracy is to reward your customers with greater value. Our system makes it more convenient to play by the rules than to pirate the games."
Stardock hopes the combination of server-side security and client side convenience will give TotalGaming.net a technological edge over other electronic distribution networks. The system was first used with Galactic Civilizations in 2003 whose retail version was publisher Strategy First's best selling retail game of all time.
"Gamers want to know that when they purchase a game, it's theirs – forever. They don't want to have to worry whether the company they purchased the game from is still around 3 years from now. They don't want to have to worry about losing serial numbers or whether they can install it on their new computer," said Wardell. "We believe that electronic distribution of games can be a great boon to first-tier publishers and Indies alike if gamers feel secure in what they are buying."
Individual games on TotalGaming.net vary in price and can be purchased individually. Alternatively, users can purchase a TotalGaming.net membership for $69.95 and receive tokens to purchase games at a substantial discount.