Piracy...

[Bakunine]

AvP2?

What´s the full name of the game?

[Moral Hazard]

Edit: The original method might be considered to invasive, not by me but by legitimate customers.

Simplest and least invasive solution I've come up with is requiring registration to download and install patches. Of course like always there are ways around it but, it does raise the bar which is all you can hope for.

Oh and the Q3A method of requiring a unique key to play online is good as well.

[Venger]

Over here...

Originally posted by Bakunine
AvP2?

What´s the full name of the game?

Aliens vs. Predator II

Venger

[Rasbelin]

I have already been offered an illegal copy of Civ III, but I didn't want to have it because...

1. ...I have the game.
2. ...it was an illegal copy.

So I just suggest that everyone would just buy the game, and ignore any piracy deals or Civ III warez downloads.

[Evil Robot]

Re: Shiver me timbers...

Nothing is uncrackable. If you release a product that requires registration, someone will release a program that defeats it. It's just that simple.

Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Pirates can remove registration (a) because they got a leaked copy and have some or all of the source code; (b) because it's at the very beginning of the .exe file and can be edited out; or (c) somebody (on the team or in the know) let a method to defeat it be known.

Now if your source code and people are secure and your game literally will not run without its online registration (deeply embedded in the code), you're pretty much free from the hackers for the first few months it takes to sell most of your product. They may get it after that...but after 3 months on the game market a game is old news. Windows XP is a different story; Microsoft released betas years before it came out and pirates had plenty of time to come out with cracks. Another reason to keep your beta testing with a trustworthy company.

I believe NoCD cracks are in another category altogether than registration avoiding cracks, but I'll keep that thought to myself for now...

[Kc7mxo]

The no cd cracks, which both avp2 and civ3 are succeptiable to, rely on all the game inforamtion being installed on the hard drive. If game makers don't do that . . . . . then standard iso method doesn't work. but there's work arounds for that as well, as most standard cd burners can create similar errors on the cd to get around the other major protection. you just need the right kind of program.

While I wouldn't say that I've bought all the game's i pirated, i have bought just about all the one's i pirated that i liked.

[Earthling7]

Re: Piracy...

Originally posted by Evil Robot
My suggestion would be forced online registration for all products.

Yes, like M$ did with WinXP. There were Registration Cracks online on Release Day! I think the only answer is lowered prices, if there is an answer.

[yin26]

If the music industry is any indication, delivery of content on-line for a much cheaper price will be the wave of the future. And if we can cut out these blood-sucking publishers, we might actually see developers making some immensely good games that more than justify their $10 price.

As I understand it, developers now only get pennies on the dollar of every unit sold. Therein lies the evil. Kill the middle man, I say.

[Dev]

Nothing is uncrackable unless you work/play up against a central server in which case the reg keys can still be cracked but it's traceable.

You simply can't protect a piece of software which has offline ability.

Even if it needs you to go online and register your copy "all" you need to do is trick the software into believing it's online doing the registration.....


/dev

[Zanzin]

Well, there's no easy answers people.

Entire games online? How? Broadband is quick, but it's not that quick. And how many people have broadband. Downloading entire games off the net wil have to wait until everyone has a T3 connection in their house I think!

[Evil Robot]

Re: Re: Piracy...

Originally posted by Earthling7


Yes, like M$ did with WinXP. There were Registration Cracks online on Release Day! I think the only answer is lowered prices, if there is an answer.

Windows XP is a different story; Microsoft released betas years before it came out and pirates had plenty of time to come out with cracks. Another reason to keep your beta testing with a trustworthy company.

Read->Comprehend->Post.

[Evil Robot]

..."all" you need to do...

If your source code is well protected, and the actual code for the registration check is encrypted with 256-bit encryption, there isn't any way anyone can crack it with today's computers.

Mind you, I'm speaking of online registration here.

[Dire Wolf]

OK Firstly, being a software developer I dislike piracy as well. I *will* try a pirated game/app before I buy it but I *will* buy it. On the other hand, AvP2 and Civ3 are two games that I bought with trying them first, just because of their past history/content. Civ3 has been a great game so far but it does have some serious flaws/oversights.

I also agree with people here that games shouldn't be released with so many bugs. Bugs are expected; no software is bug free. Unfortunately, game developers are either being pushed into releasing a product early or suffer from poor beta-testing.

On the flipside, the one point I'd like to bring up is that no grade "A" game would be profitable if developers only charged $10.

For instance:

a) Most dev houses have approximately 5 - 10 ppl that they need. Art guys, PR, administration, programmers, documentation writers etc. These people need to make a living. They expect benefits etc. Let us assume that each person makes at least $30,000 a year (which is WELL under what a programmer expects to be paid.)

b) Most games take at least 2 years or more to develop. Most games take longer (3 years or more.)

Let us stop there for a moment. Assuming these are the ONLY two factors involved, that would be 10 ppl x 30,000 x 2 years = $600,000. That means at a minimum, you'd have to sell at least 60,000 copies @ $10 just to break even. If you are delivering the software electronically, you now have to factor in costs for an Versign registration, website, DS3 access ($7,500/mo) etc. This doesn't even factor in the costs to rent office space, electricity, benefits for your employees, computer equipment, graphics software (3DSMax), advertising etc. What about beta testers? They cost money too etc.

Considering you people want games that are absolutely mind blowing and totally worth your money I'd hardly expect that a company could sell a grade "A" game for $10 online. You people want something for nothing; you fail to see the big picture.

Feel free to voice your opinion. Just stop with all the whining that Firaxis ripped you off. If you feel that way you can *always* return software one way or another. If they "lied" to you, you can take legal action. The more simplistic approach is to purchase your software from a store (or e-shop) that allows for returns. Be a smart consumer. Research your purchase. You don't ever *have* to buy a game as soon as it comes out. Wait a few days, listen to the reviews and make an informed decision.

----------------------------

On the other topic of piracy:

Source code can never be well protected. There will always be someone, somewhere with enough time on their hands to crack virtually any registration scheme. Those of you who say "Encrypt the registration check code..." don't know what you are talking about. Computers can't run encrypted code, therefore at some point or another you will have to decrypt that code in memory to execute it. If you've ever written even the most trivial piece of software you will know that you can easily exam a process' memory and watch the CPU registers. Then it is a matter of patience to figure out the algorithm (which is easy if you know x86 assembly language.)

[RichM]

I really wonder if piracy is really all that damaging. Most of the people I know will buy a game they like. People who pirate games are usually students who don't have any money, so they couldn't buy the game anyway. I suppose if the culture of piracy got worse, so that everyone expected to get games for free, it could be bad, but right now I wonder if pirated games pay for themselves with the extra exposure they generate. It works for shareware, right?

[Zakalwe]

Piracy is not an easy issue to address. I'm probably a fairly representative example of a computer gamer (and Civ-gamer in particular), at least as Northern Europe is concerned.

--rant mode on--

I have never bought any pirated software, and I have no plans to do so. Indeed, I consider people who sell pirated games and other software to be rather despicable. However, I have copied, loaned, and used commercial software I have not bought myself. And here's where we enter the grey area.

I do buy games - in fact, during the last 12 months I've bought four-and-a-half computer games. It is pretty much standard procedure to buy a game together with a friend or two, split the costs, and then make copies for each. (I'm taking about two or three people). The reason for this is quite simple - the cost. Let's say a certain computer game costs around €50. That's a sizeable chunk (in my case around a third) of your disposable income for the month. Hell, I could get seven or eight bottles of half-decent red wine for the price... So, buying a game is not something you undertake lightly or at a whim (usually). And if I didn't spilt the cost with a friend, neither of us would buy the game - not now, nor the next month, so instead of four-and-a-half games, I would perhaps buy a single game a year... If the prices were a bit more reasonable, I would buy more games. I know I did back in the days when games were more affordable.

Likewise, I'm very ambivalent about the protection of 'intellectual property' (I consider the expression to be somewhat of an oxymoron). I have a certain vested interest in the subject, and I'm all for decent compensation (though not necessarily monetary) for authors of any creative works. When this is turned to defend the rights of corporate machines to extend and expand their cynical money-grabbing, I take exception. (Anyone noticed how certain cartoon characters are about to become public domain, BTW.)

I think one reason why computer games are so vulnerable to piracy and copying is their ephemeral nature. Most games are played a few weeks, a few months if you're lucky, and the consigned to the depths of the closet. If you consider games a form of art, as I do (mostly rather poor art, but anyway...), they have a staggeringly short life-span. Hmm, let's see... While I'm writing this, I'm listening to record I bought n 1987, last night I re-read a book I bought in 1989, there's a board wargame from 1986 set up on a nearby table, just a few days ago I went to see a movie made in 1948... What computer games did I buy in 1992...? Very few games can be enjoyed for even two or three years. There are exceptions, of course. In all likelihood I'll be playing King of Dragon Pass in 2005 (the graphics will not age a bit), just as I've been playing Clash of Steel lately. Most games however, are not built to last. I feel that it is not in my interest to spend such a large part of my disposable income on something so... disposable.

What does all this have to do with Civ3? Well, I've played the game now for a week on a friend's machine, and I'm still undecided whether I'm going to get for myself. If it is patched properly, and given enough support, I think I will. I first played with a copied SMAC, but when it became obvious that Firaxis supported the game properly, I bought the game & the expansion. However, the manual, one of the main selling points for me (e.g. I just had to get Operational Art of War for the manual), is very disappointing, and the whole game seems like an unfinished canvas, or a brilliant novel with a few chapters missing, so I'll reserve my judgement...

Z
--rant mode off--