OK, I’m curious to see peoples opinion about copy protection for GAMES. As I feel people have different standards that they apply to games then to other software. For instance I don’t care that my copy of Maya is locked to one machine only. But it seems people take it as a bit of a personal attack when one locks a game to one machine.
Cheers.
This helps limits the number of installs
because the buyer knows that his/her name
will be on every install. Yet it is
flexible enough that the owner can install
on what ever machine he/she wishes. Not
to mention the customer management side is
almost nil.
Cheers,
i like my lightwave license a lot with the exception that it requires a dongle (which doesn’t bother me. just not appropriate for games). basically the software is licensed to me not the computer. i can use it on any machine anywhere, anytime. the dongle restricts it to only one instance ever running. don’t know how you’d apply that to games without say requiring a web connection (which would turn people off) or a CD (ugh).
victom’s suggestion is pretty good and it’s simple. only keeps honest people honest though. still that’s most of the world and the dishonest people aren’t going to pay you anyway. so it’s a valid approach.
in haste, i voted serial number only but now, i don’t know, maybe an install limit then contact us after that makes sense. i don’t see any reason game devs should get ripped off any more than other software makers. honest people shouldn’t have a problem with it. only one machine is pretty restrictive but i guess justifiable at maya’s seat cost. 3 sounds pretty good to me for games.
i really wanted to vote that all games should be free though ducks 
Free games are profitable too!
I personaly wonder if any kind of protection realy helps. Because lets face it, if people are honest they will pay. The Hackers will hack a way around your protection no matter what system you use, and the pirates will download the hackers hacks. I almost feel that all copy protection acomplishes is hurt the paying customer.
Besides I’m sick of DRM. Things like DHCP make watching HD video off BD or HD-DVD’s on my perfectly capable apple cinema display imposible. Forcing me to purchase a new display, if I want that funcinality; yet hackers are still able to rip off of ether format so the paying customers end up being hurt (forced to buy a new display in my case). This was just to give an example in another industry.
Jeff McArthur
This is a tough one and one I’ve had a conversation with recently with a well-known Mac game publisher. My theory is that if something as expensive as Maya is easily cracked, then any hope we have of completely protecting a $20 shareware title is meaningless. And I want to make my games as easily accessible to end-users (especially those who paid) and as painless and transparent as possible. At what point does any DRM or protection scheme bother paying customers … wouldn’t want to cross that line.
But I voted for something like Victom said … Serial Generated via the owners name. That way if your game does get out into the wilds of places like the very popular Mac pirate boards (which I’m finding out a lot about recently through friends whose job it is to watch these places) you can at least know how it got there.
[An aside for those interested … shareware games apparently make it onto these places cracked or a working serial number made available within a day (or sometimes hours) of release. My friend R______ tells me that the full Adobe Creative CS3 Design Premium Suite with working enterprise serial number that doesn’t call home to Adobe was loose only one day after it was announced. My game will be too most likely. :x ]
DRM has to be painless for the buyers. And I have to face the fact that pirates will inevitably spread your game around. The Illusionist will have a single and multi-player component so even if it somehow gets hacked/pirated at least those folks won’t be able to use it in the online version as that will be tied into a user name and password to access the game server.
But if we could get someone at least creating a simple plugin registration solutions that’d be nice.
Back to my almost ready to launch website now 
(just a few more days).
Well, there’s honesty, and there’s laziness. “Hey, I like this game! I’ll pay for it tomorrow.” And then tomorrow somehow never actually arrives…
There has to be something. Otherwise the sheer inertia of even honest people will result in fewer sales. But yes, it should be painless, and spending too much time trying to create an “uncrackable” system is pointless.
–Eric
Free games CAN generate income, but can’t support a developer, artists and infrastructure. Free games CANT make profit. Game portals can, but not the games.
Unless you are talking about free games that are 5% content of what BBBG or TW wars are… sure if it can be made by one person in 2 weeks, with average graphics and no substance, then maybe you can live off Google ad sense, or banner ad revenue.
You cant support a business with free games.
Free games CAN BE profitable even for games the size of TW BBBG. Actually, there is more than just one business model for free games. Banner/Google ad is just one model.
Another business model is a virtual arcade where players use virtual tokens to play your game. The tokens are sold to large corporations like Coca~Cola who then give away the tokens in the form of physical tokens that have ids on them. The player loads the id into their virtual arcade and they get a roll of virtual tokens. The developer sets the price per play of the game. You can set it to be 1 or 5 tokens to play your game or what ever the market will bear.
Just think you could be making money on your free demo
Cheers
well i don’t know if i want to think about all that. i just want free games ducks again :lol:
Serial number only works for me, would love to know what key program to use on the Mac, I got junk for the PC that helps but nothing for the Mac.
Honest people make our day, Pirates we hate. But, why does the average user need to be able to play a game on 3 machines or more? Yes, most of us have more than 1 machine, but why does that mean you should be entitled to use it on more than 1? If the game is good enough for you to be playing it on 1 machine, while your kid is playing it on another, and your wife is playing it too… isn’t it then good enough to support us by buying more licenses?
Our problem is in this justification. You buy a game that can be put on more than 1 machine… what’s stopping you from sharing with a mate? Honesty? Crap… We would like to think everyone is honest…… but most people will take advantage of any opportunity. It’s human nature.
So, where should that leave us? A company that wants to survive making games?
Lets ignore the ideal world where we don’t need to pay bills or wages for a sec… why is it unfair for a company to want to be financially rewarded for their hard work? Everyone thinks money is an evil topic, and companies are greedy…. But we all want a pay rise, and we all want to earn more and buy cool things.
BTW… this is not a whine… it’s an honest request for a serious discussion:
It’s important to me to be able to game on my main desktop–AND on the road on my laptop, without having to constantly remember to fire up both machines and de-activate and re-activate lots of individual apps every time I walk out the door. (And without having to transfer CDs/DVDs to my laptop bag to be broken.)
I do realize that it’s the pirates, not the software companies, who are to blame for the problem. Abd I’m guilty of laziness: there’s a whole batch of little apps (including games) that I WILL sit down and pay for, but haven’t done so yet.
(I also like to be able to play 1v1 on LAN occasionally–which is not worth a second license for all my games in my case since it’s something I’d do a couple times a year. Some games permit this use, some don’t.)
a) Personalised serial number, so that it’s encoded on the users profile. This won’t stop all (especially people in countries like russia) but it will stop those people who are afraid of that their name/nick might show up somewhere.
b) There should be no limitation where and how often the game is beeing installed.
c) Also make it a crosslicence and don’t milk those people who are honest enough to buy a copy on top for win and osx versions. After all the user bought the content for him and not for his computer.
d) Concentrate on the game and not on DRM. If your game sucks, you can have as much DRM as you want, still no one will buy it.
e) Try to learn from others and look what it takes to offer in a succesfull indy game in the $20 range and don’t release more or less unfinished beta versions. You’re ruining your reputation. It takes a lot of effort to make people open their wallets.
f) Maybe think about that $20 aren’t $20 all over the world.
g) Make sure your game is available and get’s noticed. But also don’t make too much fuzz as this also can scare people away. Less is often more.
Aren’t the most pirated softwares also just HAPPEN to be the most successful softwares?
And IF you were ever to be SO LUCKY to have the whole world pirate your game OR use your search engine or post videos on your site for free (hint hint, cough google cough youTube).
I say if they want to pirate my software let them, I’ll give them free upgrades too! I’m not going to make dead easy for them though, people want to support what they like. When they visit my site for the free upgrades I’ll show them other products I have for sale and then I’ll sell them a T-shirt. I would love to have that problem.
One man’s no good soft yellow metal is another man’s Gold. Fear is a paralyzer.
Have you ever sold a game? It hasn’t ever worked that way.
If they have pirated your software, they have no respect for you… no way will they buy your t-shirt.
Fear? I don’t see any fear here… we have a game for sale, a game in production, and we are about to release an update for our first game… no fear here.
whoa I wasn’t trying to start any flames, not even close, just open free discussions. -sorry
[edits 1 2]
Adults who pirate The Rolling Stones mp3’s will buy the bands T-shirt, go to the concerts. And sooner or later they will buy the cd. That’s my point.
[/edits 1 2]
[edit 3]
For the record:
I own my software…
2 Indy Copies of Unity - plans for upgrade
ZBrush 2.0
Maya 8.0 Unlimited
Adobe CS CS2 Professional
Silo 1.0
Cheetah3D 4.0
I own my hardware…
Dual 2.7 G5 8 Gigs RAM
17" Mac Book Pro
multiple PC laptops
I don’t appreciates the backhanded accusations. I feel this topic is no longer leading a professional
discussion and I retire this thread. Good Day.
[/edit 3]
We need to keep this in perspective. I’m not saying there are not other business models to work in to generate income from games. I’m saying Sector3 as a company cant see a clearer path than what we are on.
There is no getting rich scheme with games… we aren’t looking for one. We are looking for a long term sustainable business model that we are in control of.
Ultimately, it’s our assets, our concepts and our IP we are selling and the hobbiest/free mentality in EVERY industry always undervalues those items. We aren’t prepared to.
Victom: No need to be sorry. Not a flaming war… its all constructive discussion.
Victom, true… but indie game developers are not the rolling stones. The games developers are mostly unknown, and its just their games that get seen.
People don’t become indie game developer groupies.
It’s a nice thought, and someone might have a list of developers that they like to pirate software from, but that doesn’t make them a groupie… just an even worse pirate.