Demigod is a team-based action game with RTS and RPG elements. Players take control of a massive Demigod with the goal of annihilating their opponent's position in a given arena while preventing the opponent's Demigod from doing the same to them. Although the game supports superb one-on-one duels, the title will truly shine in team play either with other human-controlled Demigods or with ones controlled by a sophisticated computer AI. As the game progresses, the player's Demigod will acquire items, attributes and experience.

To fully support a public beta that will launch this summer, the launch date for Demigod has been moved to February 2009. This will give the development team sufficient time to incorporate feedback from the beta players while polishing the game. Like Stardock's other games, Demigod will be released without any on-disc copy protection and has been budgeted to receive many months of free post-release feature updates.

There are some people who just play for free.

BW: Right. But it's a win-win for gamers and a win-win for developers, because the current PC game model is just not that stable. The whole "spend millions of dollars on a game and then one expansion pack..." Even if it's a hit, it's really hard to recoup it, especially in an age with World of Warcraft and things like that.

There's been a lot of discussion lately about piracy and how that affects the market.

BW: Yeah, I wrote an article on it.

I'm familiar with it. I see it both ways, kind of. Obviously, I agree that not putting in the aggressive copy protection is better for everybody, because it's cracked anyway, and it just creates a really unpleasant experience for people who actually pay, rather than creating a barrier for pirates.

BW: Exactly. Not to mention that an increasing percentage of PC users have laptops, and if I can't play a game on my laptop, I'm not buying it. And if I'm going on a trip like this, I'm not taking a bunch of DVDs with me and my games. Every little bit matters to me.

You just want to install on your laptop, and your desktop, and just...

BW: Play it whenever I feel like it. If I'm paying $40, $50, or $60 for a game, don't treat me like a criminal.