It will be through Steam, and unless someone corrects me, I don't believe there will be a physical version.

Awesome Very happy to see that.

Yeah, great.  No DRM free version.

I always wonder in what way they think of Steam as DRM? DRM based on what? Every Steam game I have I can play on any of my computers. I just log in and download it. That seems pretty awesome to me. What is the objection?

Gotta have some kind of physical edition. I'd hate for my other GC2 titles to be all lonely on the shelf.
Island Dog, maybe some kind of jewel case artwork like was done for Twilight?

I'm doubtful, they were touting the fact that Sins had done extremely well WITHOUT retail release. Thus it seems logical they'd extend that to GalCiv3 and forgo retail for much better flexibilty in terms of release dates and making the game more awesome.

Steam is popular with devs because its FREE middleware. With game budgets exploding, timelines shrinking, etc anything 'FREE' and stable is a god send. Sure I could code my own lobby sysetm and create matchmaking and my own patch management distribution, and my own beta channels, my own achieveement infrastructure.

OR

I could spend zero bucks and have Steam do it all for me.

Game development is a zero sum game. Money/time/effort spent on A is something not being done on B/C/D/E/F. Sure we could make a new race, or we have to create the achievement server infrasctucture. I could add more AI for diplomacy... or spend time on the lobby system.

I'd love to see at the end of development of a Stardock game, for physical versions to be made to order that are 100% DRM-free via flash drive or  disc.

That said, MP will require Steam (it's probably the reason we're getting MP in GalCiv III at all)

I've seen it consume hundreds of MB, and it propagates through Windows various network support services as well.  My point is there are digital distribution platforms (like Impulse and GOG) that don't require any third party client to run, so don't consume any at all.  I prefer Impulse or GOG.  I would hope that, even if you don't care because you have infinite resources on your computer that no game you ever play could take advantage of and even if you hated all the alternatives, that at least having viable alternatives would force Steam to be just a bit better to stay competitive.

Not that he can't do it himself, but in his defense: From an economical perspective, a developer or publisher of PC games can't really ignore Steam. It's just too popular, which of course doesn't help the concerns. Plus, from a developmental point of view, Steam/Steamworks comes with a lot of neat stuff that removes overhead and reduces costs (both money and time).

I buy most of my games on Steam, though I'm not always entirely comfortable with a quasi-monopoly that emerges more and more. All eggs in the same basket make it riskier the more eggs are at stake. For example, if there is ever a dispute with Valve, e.g. over a payment, access to the account may be disabled at least temporarily. For instance, when I had pre-ordered the Civ5 expansion (with a 10% discount as the only bonus), Steam sold it at 30% off on the EU release date and refused to compensate for the difference. I wanted to charge back the payment and buy the product at 30% off, but I couldn't. That incident was really the turning point where my enthusiasm for Steam started to cool off.

However, it's super convenient and I like having my games in the same place, not worry about manually downloading updates, and the community features make it is easy to stay in touch. I guess those things come at a price. Can't have it all, and perfect freedom, it seems.

Just diable teh steam overlay if you're not going to use the community stuff anyway

Steam IS DRM. Some may not find it obtrusive, but it is a system designed to limit the use of the content on it to those who have signed up for the Steam service. Previously, Stardock games could be played by simply installing the game from the cd/dvd and no other action had to be taken. If a user wanted, they COULD install Impulse (another form of DRM) and get patches for their game, but they didn't have to. 

Steam is not optional. You must install it to play GalCiv3. Thus, it's DRM. 

-HM

Now you're just putting your head in the sand. I already explained that Dragon Commaner is DRM free. ANd that once you use steam to download the game, it is no longer necessary to play.

Your assertion is like calling GoG's installer 'drm' because you have to download the game to install it.

Now youre just making up stuff to justify your steam hatred and that just makes you look silly.