I too have the 360 version of Mass Effect. If I didn't then I doubt I'd ever play it; I'm becoming less and less tolerant of this kind of anti-piracy measure. Getting GalCiv2 2 years ago marked a turning point, though I didn't know it at the time and it took the release of Sins of a Solar Empire to make that clear.

Stardock are awesome. I was very sceptical at the start with GalCiv2 but they had me converted by the second patch. You get a good game, you get treated like a valued customer, and you get guaranteed updates and excellent post release support. That's win, win, win. There is but one problem with their model - I find that it makes me reluctant to return to 'normal' PC games. Similar to the way the introduction of all of that unskippable "Don't pirate and now we've hammered that message at you here are some trailers you don't care about or want to watch!" rubbish on the start of DVDs has put me off watching them. It's amazing how such (relatively) small things irritate.

Quote Originally Posted by FactionHeir
Anyone remember in the old days when any game you bought would be in a large box complete with a manual of a hundred or more pages, a color map, and generally nice layout of the box that you could be happy about each time you looked at it?
Yup, and I still have my favourite games' boxes. I ran out of space and so had to get rid of the rest. Heartbreaking. I did keep all of the manuals and such, and filed them inside the boxes I kept. The present day DVD boxes are more practical and a lot easier to store and yet I do miss my chunky boxes.

I remember that one of the games I got came with a free proper 600+ page history book on the beginnings of human civilisation in addition to the usual 100 page manual, tech tree, poster, and keycard. That wasn't a super special edition either.




[Mod's note: let's not have anything about pirating the games instead, or about applying cracks to a legitimate copy of the game. The org rules do not support discussion of either. Thanks]