Demigod crippled by over 100,000 pirates
Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, comments on the challenges of weeding out illegitimate users
Real-time strategy title Demigod has been crippled by over 100,000 pirates flooding the online game and overwhelming the support network, according to Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, who complained of "near MMO user connections".
According to Wardell, 120,000 connections have taken place for Demigod, with only 18,000 coming from legitimate users who actually purchased the game. This "sheer number of people" has caused "horrific results" that the company was unprepared for.
"Sadly, most of the 120,000 connections are not customers but via warez," he wrote in his blog. "About 18,000 are legitimate… We spent a lot of time today trying to isolate out the warez users from the legitimate users."
Users found themselves unable to logon to the online service or the Demigod forums, and even running the game became a challenge as online checks for updated versions would result in a blank screen - Wardell described this as the "stuff of nightmares".
Wardell concluded: "As annoying as this issue is, it's not something that's going to be an ongoing issue, it's something that is likely to be taken care of in the next day or two. So this time next week, players will be happily playing."