Yeah, I second this post.

If you are ridiculously impatient like me, buy two copies and give / sell the other one.

Thing is, if nothing is done, they/people/GS/Stardock/whoever will continue to do it. If someone is not happy, there is one thing you can do to hurt where it really hurts: the money. Cancel your preorder. Stardock gets pissed. They sue GS. GS won't do it anymore.

Exactly. It's the same as buying an EA game with activation limits. By purchasing that and giving them money, you're telling them that it is ok to keep doing it.

It's pathetic.

Gamestop screws Stardock/GPG and we have preordering beta testers canceling to screw them even more over a few days. Anybody canceling their preorder over a matter of 3 days is a poster child for narcissistic douchebaggery.

I'll tell you what I'm doing about this.  I'm taking myself off Gamestop's mailing list and blacklisting their stores if it turns out this was in any way intentional or malicious on their part.

Actually because of the early release at Gamstop SD has made more money off me than what they would have originally...

I kept the pre-order and also the store bought copy....giving the other copy to my son...

So everyone is happy

I get to play and practice earlier and SD gets 2 sales...

Nope, they can update and play pantheon/etc online. I even see some of them playing custom games right now.

-Drexion/Ragarth

forthed (i didnt see anyone 4th it lol) SD is way more deserving of more profits than GS will ever be. if your really that impatient, then dont come crying when your copy suddenly loses its serial from unknown causes. but srsly, GS must be a bt desperate to pull something like that, so, more power to SD for all they have accomplish and will accomplish with demigod and future titles, like an expansion?

huzzah!  

"GS won't do it anymore" HA! Unless they are contractually bound, and I have yet to hear of a single case of a game company suing a distributor because of the release date. To make things worse SD will lose more money by not having GS distribute for them then a few canceled pre-orders. Where is the gain? Now lets say GS, and EBGames do it, and SD sues, the two biggest distributors won't sell your game anymore? Where do you make money?

Microsoft is doing the smart thing. All games shipped pre-release will be encrypted. After release date online decryption will happen and you can play the game. That only solves the pre-release issue, nobody gets sued, and the customer loses since now they must be online to install a game they bought pre-release and it is not really that big a deal.

You're going to have to do a full reinstall anyways when the release version comes out, so just uninstall.

Um...

For stardock this makes perfect sense. Impulse = online. Games like Gal Civ, Gal Civ 2, Sins, and Demigod are ALL games centered around multiplayer. If they lose 1 or 2 sales due to people not having internet connection the money they lose from lost pre-sales justifies it finanically. Didn't Frogboy say it himself that that is why they don't really care about people pirating the games? Because those people will want to buy the games for the main part of the game, the multiplayer, or they wont so its really not a lost sale.

Same goes for any game that focuses on multiplayer. Would you buy Dawn of War 2 if u could not play multiplayer? I don't think so, so it does not matter that their DRM requires you to be online to install.

Cake will solve any problem at any place.

Even if Gamestop doesn't do anything to compensate Stardock, I wouldn't be surprised if they got fewer sales in the future because of angry Stardock fans