Registering your stardock account

A guide on how to go about activating your product through stardock account.

The point of this guide.

When you first open up your game, you will be greeted with a popup asking for your stardock account email, password and your product key. Annoyingly, you have to register your account, otherwise you will not be able to play, even in single player. Many people, especially those leaving negative reviews, seemed to have a lot of trouble at this step so here is a short guide hoping it helps at least a few people.

How to register: if you don't have an account

If you don't have an account, you could create an account in the popup window that appears after you turn on the game. However, I would recommend against this, as I have seen people say that it is generally unresponsive, fails to tell you that your password was too short, and other annoying and idiotic issues.

Regardless, you have to go to stardock's website anyways at some point, so go to stardock.com/accounts/createaccount. There, you enter your email address, your username and password. Your name is optional. Then, after this, an email will be sent to the address you put in, and if you click on the link, you can verify your account.

Once your account is verified, many people will obviously open up the game again, and then put in your account info and the steam cd-key. However, this will not work, because steam-cd key is different from the product key that stardock gives you.

Go to stardock and log into your account. Then, you have to register your product by clicking on that tab. There, you will put in the game (sins of a solar empire:trinity) and then your steam-cd-key. This will register your steam game to your stardock account. Then, you have to click on a place saying get product key, and then they will send an email to your linked email address containing your product key. Another way of doing so would be to go to downloads and billing section on stardock.com/accounts, and then going to my downloads. Your product key should be underneath the name of the game.

Finally, put in your stardock account info and the product key, and you should be able to play the game. If you ever lose steam, or your steam account, as long as you can log into your stardock account, you are capable of downloading sins of a solar empire through their website.

How to register: if you have an account

If you have an account, then good for you, this is going to be much easier.

First, go to your account at stardock.com, and then go to register products. Find sins of a solar empire: trinity and then put in your steam cd-key. (Which you can get by right clicking on the game in your steam library, or when you turn the game on).

Then, get your product key by requesting it (it will be sent to the email address you signed up under), or by going to downloads & billing then to my downloads.

Then, put in your account info and the product key and you should be able to play the game.

How to register: F*&$ these guys, I am not signing up for this

If you have (perfectly legitimate in my opinion) issues against having to make yet another stupid account for a game, there is a way for you to still play the game.

As a word of warning, if you use this method, make sure you write down all your information. And even then, because this method uses a throwaway email account, you could lose your ability to re-download the game if anything goes wrong with your stardock account.

This method uses a website called 10minutemail.com, which creates 10 minute long throwaway accounts. So, make sure you have everything ready so you do not waste time, and go over that time limit.

1) have you CD keys ready (from steam library)
2) know which stardock products besides sins you want to register (if any, such as galactic civ series)
3) have stardock.com/accounts/createaccount open
4) have a notepad or some way to write down this information

First, go to 10minutemail.com. Write down your email address, then do not close out of this window. Then, go to the stardock.com/accounts/createaccount page, and then create an account with any password and account name (write these down as well). You will be sent a verification email. Go back to 10minutemail.com and open up that mail, and click to verify. Then, go to stardock.com/accounts. Click register products, and choose your product, and put in your steam cd-key. Finally, request product key from stardock (which will send an email to your 10 minute mail). Another way is to go to the downloads&billing tab of the stardock.com/accounts, then to go to my downloads. Here you will find your product key. Write down the product key.

Open up your game, and when the popup shows up, input your login information for stardock, as well as your product key. You should now be able to play.

Concluding thoughts/rant

I hope this helps some of you, as this process is unnecessarily frustrating and obnoxious in my personal opinion. As great as the game seems, having to make an account even if you want to just play single player feels like all the paying customers are being treated like potential pirates (and it's not as if actual pirates can't get around this easily). To the producers/developers, please knock this off. The fact that your games most helpful review section are all negative reviews by people who either could not or did not want to deal with this registration crap is shameful. The fact that your registration procedure is annoyin to the point that I felt the desire to make a guide for how to turn on and play your game is pathetic. Anyways, sorry for the rant, I hope this has helped some people actually play the game.

(If these methods don't work, I don't really know how to help, this is just mostly based on my experiences)

[Threat Level Omega]

I remember dumping dozens of hours into this with my friends, it was EPIC, but can't play it for shit now.

[WhoDat?]

i am pretty livid that i bought the game and the extras years earlier only to get the stupid nag screen. this is unacceptable and STEAM is ultimately responsible

[Sapharanth]

Worked just fine with the Steam window.

[Hapax Legomenon]

thanks for the guide. The game is great but is fucking ridiculous this register thing, and serial key shit. I have this game in my library for quite some time, got surprised by this when I reinstalled.

Terrible. They turned me from a faithful costumer to a hater of everything they do.