The Stardock Central Connection
Stardock Central is a program that consolidates software updates, chat, message boards, documentation, and more into a single easy to use interface. It enables Stardock to keep providing updates of its software while giving users seamless access to those updates.
For instance, on the day Galactic Civilization ships, Stardock will have available a free BonusPak to all users of GalCiv. The BonusPak is a collection of extra features and content for new GalCiv players. It includes additional ships, technologies, star base modules, events, and much more. It also includes Stardock Central.
The idea behind the BonusPak is to thank new GalCiv players for purchasing the game. Stardock is best known for its desktop environment software known as Object Desktop. Stardock has found that the best way to keep customers and decrease piracy is to reward people for supporting you rather than punish people by having to go through copy protection. For instance, GalCiv doesn't require the CD to be in the drive to play.
Each GalCiv user has their own unique serial number that is verified on our server as being a valid serial number. When a user enters this serial number into our server, they get a Stardock.net account which lets them instantly gain access to all sorts of extra goodies including the BonusPak.
All of this is handled by Stardock Central.
Stardock Central is a program that uses the player's Stardock.net account to gain access to additional content, chat with other players, visit the message boards, and obtain updates to the game.
Additional modules and demos for other Stardock games (or direct access if you have purchase those games either individually or through Stardock's gaming subscription network TotalGaming.net) are available via Stardock Central.
Players can chat with other Stardock users and developers using the built in chat client.
The GalCiv message boards can be accessed this way as well. By accessing the database directly, performance is much faster and it is much easier to see which messages have new responses.
Smaller developers like Stardock have to work harder. For games like GalCiv to be successful, they have to sell well over a long period of time. Most games are released and within 90 days are considered "old". Stardock's strategy is to try to keep its games new and fresh for as long as possible. By providing new, meaningful, free updates to its software, it keeps its software fresh and new.
For more information, visit http://www.galciv1.com