I read this from stardocks released PDF.
"For Stardock, the more significant shock of Demigod has been the discovery of the low number
of PC gamers who play strategy games online. Demigod’s single player experience, while decent, did
not get anywhere near the care that the Internet multiplayer experience did. Despite this, only 23% of
people who have purchased Demigod have ever even attempted to logon to play Internet multiplayer."
In Ye old days (Diablo, etc) game developers USED TO allow more then one person to play off the same account with multiple copies in multiplayer FOR FREE. The original Warcraft, Warcraft 2 (via kali in the early internet days), doom, Descent, descent2, etc... This is why Doom, Duke 3D, descent, Warcraft, etc, got so popular. When game developers got stingy and starting doing CD-Authentication then pirate servers started showing up. Instead since demigod is peer 2 peer, allowing pirates to play loses you nothing (didn't pay anyway) but gives a net gain for the game community as a whole. I think game developers by using cd key auth is one of the main reasons why GPG/stardock is seeing these crap #'s. FPS games and MMO's can get away with being anal retentive with CD keys. FPS games because everyone plays them, and MMO's because it's pay to play with online security/auth billing.
For a game like demigod IMHO, you should be doing the OPPOSITE of what everyone in the industry is doing and take us back to the sane times pre 1997/98 where people could play "pirated" versions with one another because they wanted to use one copy, mirror it and play with their friends. I remember doing this for LAN's back in the day with Doom 2, descent and duke nukem 3D for wild times. IMHO with internet online, I think CD-key auth and the false pirate witchhunts are in fact killing the online success of smaller games. I think this is another "game developer got greedy" thing where corporate thinking was not the solution, but rather game developers own shortsightedness (gpg/stardock) by not studying the history of why games got popular over Kali (back when it was free and anyone could play).
http://www.kali.net/
The counter-intuitive solution is to enable pirated versions to get updates and to play online with legit players. IMHO not only will you boost the amount of players online you also perform what I call "the microsoft strategy" - i.e. piracy HELPS because it creates a positive feedback loop (more people on the game, faster the amount of games can be made, less people have to wait before getting a game).
Lets also face it, the reason DOS and windows of microsoft became such a powerhouse was because everyone used them and they became widely known much of it because of piracy. I think companies need to start facing reality, that they've been doing this to themselves and that there was a lot of multiplayer legit and pirate action on those previously mentioned games (duke, doom, warcraft, descent, etc)