Paradox Pioneering Stardock's 'GOO' DRM

Stardock's new digital rights management system "GOO" has found its first full-time adopter in strategy publisher Paradox Interactive. The company's upcoming RTS title Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim will be the first of its games to use the DRM.

GOO--which stands for Game Object Obfuscation--makes use of Stardock's Impulse Reactor platform to protect publishers from PC piracy, using a simple EXE encryption and serial key check to verify purchase of a game.

The system is garnering attention because it allows customers to re-sell both retail and digital copies of PC games. Any title that uses the DRM can be put up for sale on the Impulse Marketplace, with the publisher recouping much of the "used" price, minus a Stardock transaction fee.

"In our testing, we found GOO to be very effective in protecting our titles, while at the same time offering a less obtrusive user experience," said Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester. "GOO meets our needs while protecting the rights of our consumers."