Elemental: War of Magic DRM Editorial

CNN has even caught wind of Elemental: War of Magic’s release, as they’ve published an editorial that more-or-less praises the title’s lack of digital rights management. Stardock’s Brad Wardell injects some commentary, as well:

Stardock believes that DRM doesn’t work and refuses to place any DRM copy protection on its games. But they say they still have a process that only allows legitimate customers access to all the game’s features.

Their latest title, “Elemental: War of Magic,” is a turn-based strategy game that contains a role-playing game element. As a ruler, the player creates new cities, researches technology and recruits specialists and champions to do his or her bidding — much like a strategy game. However, the player also works to increase his or her own character’s stats, talents and spells like a role-playing game character.

Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, hopes the combination of play styles will be a hit.

“Unlike some games where you do the quest and if you fail, someone else has to clean up the mess, in our game, you are the one to have to clean up from adventurers who unleashed evil on the world,” Wardell said. “You will be able to literally build your own world with your own quests and monsters.”

Wardell said the game was to be released Tuesday, exclusively for PC, in stores or through Impulse, a digital download platform without any DRM protections.

He noted that the company tends to release lots of free updates for its games.

By doling out the free material after a gamer registers, Wardell said pirates will be discouraged because they won’t want to waste their time with a product that doesn’t have all the features.