Do you HONESTLY think that pirating a game like this is hard?

[Parogar]

I pay for every game I play, I always have, and I always will. Nothing will change that. But this game has been nothing short of aggravating to activate, and as a consumer there should be zero hassle for me, but that's not the case.

I was born with poor eyesight. No one is perfect, no one ever will be. It's not TERRIBLE eyesight, but it is hard for me to hone in on small letters or numbers.

I bought the complete pack of this game on Steam, including all the expansions. I was then brought to a screen where I had to place the serial key for the game, and all three expansions into the tiny box. Steam does not allow you to have open the screen that shows your serial at the same time as the box that you enter the numbers in. Thankfully the game requires you to have four separate keys for everything, what a lovely decision.

So right off the bat I knew I had to do that thing where you memorize a little bit, and then copy it in the box, memorize a litlle more copy in the box.

I tried activating the first game -> Failed. Why? Because like I said my eyesight isn't the best, and those tiny, tiny, numbers are very hard to see. Especially the "8"s.

So I knew I would have to write down the information. The problem? I don't have a pen or paper. We are in a digital world. I obviously can't write it down in notepad, because then I would be back in the same situation as needing to alt tab, or bounce between screens.

So I ran to my local CVS, grabbed some paper and pens, and accidentally closed the car door on my finger on the way out. That hurts (Thank you Arcen games)

Ran back to my computer, copied down the information. Got 2/4 on the first try. All the while I am squinting at the tiny little box that has my numbers, and screaming to myself "WHAT THE @#*( DOES THAT SAY."

First and foremost, I am going to make a blanket statement here, which is something I rarely do. While I generally don't make generalizations because generally you can't speak for 100% of cases of anything, I am going to put aside my normal reluctance to do so and proceed despite that.

Not one person, who has ever had the intention of pirating this game, was delayed, postponed, or in any other way inconvenienced by your myriad of codes, and numbers.

If a pirate and a consumer both installed this game at the same time, on equivalent computers. Who plays first? The pirate, of course, because even if you have superman's eyes you need to stop and enter the nonsense cd key information, that exists for the sole reason of stopping pirates but will never EVER do so. It's an unnecessary hassle that only costs YOU money in development time, and I promise you is not protecting your assets.

Hell, even registering for this forum was a chore. "Sorry, the catcha you entered is wrong."  "Sorry, your password did not contain at least one uppercase" "Sorry, NOW your password has the uppercase, but is missing a number." "Sorry, you got all that correct, but now your captcha is wrong again."

God, who the hell is going to try and hack an arcen account anyway?

Anyway, I'm sure I will be flamed and ridiculed for this post, but I don't care. I said what I wanted to.

Thank you for reading anyone who did.

[eRe4s3r]

I bought the complete pack of this game on Steam, including all the expansions. I was then brought to a screen where I had to place the serial key for the game, and all three expansions into the tiny box. Steam does not allow you to have open the screen that shows your serial at the same time as the box that you enter the numbers in. Thankfully the game requires you to have four separate keys for everything, what a lovely decision.

Ok i am gonna ignore everything else and just poke at you ;p
Right click on the AI WAR: Fleet command thingy in your Steam Library
Show CDKEYS
Copy key 1 to clipboard
Paste it in a word document, or txt file, or whatever

Repeat for all 4 codes

Now that you have everything in a text file, you can copy and paste things into the key thing of AI War...

Also, you could just hit ALT+Enter to make AI War windowed and do this copy paste thingy just straight from steam cdkey tab to ai war.. i know that works because just yesterday i had to do it.. just saying

Edit: The only way you could have a problem is if you tried to use the in-game steam overlay, what i am talking about is tha actual steam client (whos cdkey window is even its own application and thus not only can be switched to but is actually able to copy paste data into AI War code boxes ;p )

[x4000]

Answer: no, we don't think so at all.

Why are there codes, then?  So that we can use a "shareware" model to have the demo files be the same as the full version.  Simple as that.  People don't have to keep track of "secret" files for the game, nor do we have to host them, nor do we have to do separate demo builds.

Sorry to hear that you're frustrated, but I'm not sure why you didn't just copy and paste the numbers.  Also, you can change the screen resolution to make the numbers larger -- if you can't read them for the registration code, you won't be able to read them in the game either, until you down the screen resolution.

And in answer to your last question about Arcen's forums being hard to register for -- this is the same forum software used on millions of websites.  It's one of the two largest forum types around, and we have mostly the default options.  Regarding captchas, we tend to get about 3 spam accounts per day on average even with those.  Without, it was more like twenty per day.

TLDR: Sorry to hear that you're frustrated, but everything you're complaining about is either really common or really reasonable for us to be doing, and we've got over 200,000 customers now who have generally been very happy with our no-DRM stance.  Our license codes aren't about DRM, they're about public access to the full game files rather than relying on us having them somewhere in secret.  Copy-pasting a code is incredibly easy, and you can even do it right from in the Steam overlay itself with shift tab, copy, shift tab, paste, repeat.  The whole process can literally take 20 seconds.

Anyway, welcome to the forums, we're not the Bad Guys you seem to think.  Hopefully you enjoy the game.

[eRe4s3r]

@x4000 copy and paste of codes doesn't work in the in-game steam overlay..  only in the actual steam application (and thus via alt-tab ,p)

[x4000]

Interesting, it used to for me.  That's a shame, but alt-tabbing out to the main steam client it lets you do the copy still, right?

[Parogar]

Answer: no, we don't think so at all.

Why are there codes, then?  So that we can use a "shareware" model to have the demo files be the same as the full version.  Simple as that.  People don't have to keep track of "secret" files for the game, nor do we have to host them, nor do we have to do separate demo builds.

Sorry to hear that you're frustrated, but I'm not sure why you didn't just copy and paste the numbers.  Also, you can change the screen resolution to make the numbers larger -- if you can't read them for the registration code, you won't be able to read them in the game either, until you down the screen resolution.

And in answer to your last question about Arcen's forums being hard to register for -- this is the same forum software used on millions of websites.  It's one of the two largest forum types around, and we have mostly the default options.  Regarding captchas, we tend to get about 3 spam accounts per day on average even with those.  Without, it was more like twenty per day.

TLDR: Sorry to hear that you're frustrated, but everything you're complaining about is either really common or really reasonable for us to be doing, and we've got over 200,000 customers now who have generally been very happy with our no-DRM stance.  Our license codes aren't about DRM, they're about public access to the full game files rather than relying on us having them somewhere in secret.  Copy-pasting a code is incredibly easy, and you can even do it right from in the Steam overlay itself with shift tab, copy, shift tab, paste, repeat.  The whole process can literally take 20 seconds.

Anyway, welcome to the forums, we're not the Bad Guys you seem to think.  Hopefully you enjoy the game.

I don't think you are bad guys at all. I just don't like cd-keys. And sorry, I never considered the shareware point of view. I am just frustrated that the gaming world has evovled to the point where people can't be trusted to do the right thing and pay for games they own, and as a result things like cd-keys are needed. That and the fact that I slammed a car door on my hand.

The game is phenominal, but my eyes aren't. It took me longer than normal to activate it, so I got annoyed. I don't mean to sound like a mean guy.

[x4000]

No worries, and sorry to hear about your hand -- yikes!  Anyway, like I said, welcome to the forums.  And glad you're enjoying the game!

[eRe4s3r]

@x4000

yeah 

Just yesterday had to re-enter all my codes and there is simply no copy and paste option in the overlay "CD KEY" thingy. For some reason its even a different window than the one you get when you use the actual steam "View Game CDKEY" window. But anyway, as i have all my codes in a text file on my encrypted usbstick this was easily solved ;p

[Parogar]

@x4000

yeah 

Just yesterday had to re-enter all my codes and there is simply no copy and paste option in the overlay "CD KEY" thingy. For some reason its even a different window than the one you get when you use the actual steam "View Game CDKEY" window. But anyway, as i have all my codes in a text file on my encrypted usbstick this was easily solved ;p

Well I must say I am truly relieved to know I am not the only person who at the very least took "notice" of the problem with Steam. I am probably the most frustrated about it, I think I can say that hands down lol. I should deliver more of the blame to Steam in hindsight, since it is after all their system that makes it so difficult to enter the series of codes.

But to be honest, and lets all be fair here. We have a better chance of convincing every single game developer in the world to stop using CD-keys, then we do of convincing Steam to  change one small thing we don't like.

Also, let me say I am somewhat flattered. I didn't think to get a response from the "founder of Arcen" games himself. That is better customer service then I have ever received anywhere else on anything. When I finally decide to give in and buy an overpriced-EA game, if I have a problem all I get is a robot with automated responses, that in no way understands, or is capable of understanding my issue.

[x4000]

That's really bizzare, but hopefully steam will add that later.   You never know with that.

And in terms of CD keys, I think they are the best system in the world for consumers -- and I say that as a consumer as well as a developer.  Think about it:

1. You the consumer have one tiny bit of secret information (the CD key) that you can keep track of in a single cell in a spreadsheet, or anywhere else.  It's very small as an amount of data, and can even be written down by hand quite straightforwardly.

2. Meanwhile, we the developer plaster the internet with the full game files, which work in a demo mode until activated with a key.  There is simply no way you could ever lose access to AI War, even if Steam bans your account or we go out of business, or whatever.

3. And, meanwhile, anyone who wants to try a demo of our game can always get the very latest version, even the betas.  Even for the expansions!  I can't think of any other game that does this, honestly, and I think it's a really really cool system.


And that's it, that's the whole system.  In exchange we're asking players to type in about 10ish digits per game or expansion, once, and then hang onto that key in some fashion.  I think it's the system that all developers should be using.  The alternatives, as I see them, are:

1. The developer could use platforms like Steam and Impulse exclusively, and have it locked to them.  Meaning you can't play the game if their client is offline or your account gets banned or whatever.  None of that is true with AI War (you can even launch it from outside the Steam client, or just ditch Steam and download a non-Steam version with the key you got from them.  Steam is great, but my point is that then you're not locked in).

2. The developer could put in nasty DRM, with all the many downsides that go with that.  Central servers for authorizing new installs = yuck.  Our license keys are algorithmic, and get checked by the game itself, meaning it's super duper ultra easy to pirate (and does happen quite a lot).

3. The developer could just use no DRM at all, but attempt to keep the game files themselves a secret.  This is what, for instance, World of Goo did.  No DRM, but if you lose your game file you have to get it from them again.  And the demo was a separate beast all together, which is fine in their case since their game didn't evolve so much over time, but would be a disaster for us.

4. The developer could just put the entire game, for free, out on the Internet and then hope that people pay them.  And that does work for Dwarf Fortress and some other games, but really it's a much smaller living and a much harder thing to sustain.


And there are a few other permutations of the above, too.  But they all have pretty severe drawbacks.  I think that the CD keys approach is absolutely fantastic for developers and consumers, and that's why.

[Parogar]

That's really bizzare, but hopefully steam will add that later.   You never know with that.

And in terms of CD keys, I think they are the best system in the world for consumers -- and I say that as a consumer as well as a developer.  Think about it:

1. You the consumer have one tiny bit of secret information (the CD key) that you can keep track of in a single cell in a spreadsheet, or anywhere else.  It's very small as an amount of data, and can even be written down by hand quite straightforwardly.

2. Meanwhile, we the developer plaster the internet with the full game files, which work in a demo mode until activated with a key.  There is simply no way you could ever lose access to AI War, even if Steam bans your account or we go out of business, or whatever.

3. And, meanwhile, anyone who wants to try a demo of our game can always get the very latest version, even the betas.  Even for the expansions!  I can't think of any other game that does this, honestly, and I think it's a really really cool system.


And that's it, that's the whole system.  In exchange we're asking players to type in about 10ish digits per game or expansion, once, and then hang onto that key in some fashion.  I think it's the system that all developers should be using.  The alternatives, as I see them, are:

1. The developer could use platforms like Steam and Impulse exclusively, and have it locked to them.  Meaning you can't play the game if their client is offline or your account gets banned or whatever.  None of that is true with AI War (you can even launch it from outside the Steam client, or just ditch Steam and download a non-Steam version with the key you got from them.  Steam is great, but my point is that then you're not locked in).

2. The developer could put in nasty DRM, with all the many downsides that go with that.  Central servers for authorizing new installs = yuck.  Our license keys are algorithmic, and get checked by the game itself, meaning it's super duper ultra easy to pirate (and does happen quite a lot).

3. The developer could just use no DRM at all, but attempt to keep the game files themselves a secret.  This is what, for instance, World of Goo did.  No DRM, but if you lose your game file you have to get it from them again.  And the demo was a separate beast all together, which is fine in their case since their game didn't evolve so much over time, but would be a disaster for us.

4. The developer could just put the entire game, for free, out on the Internet and then hope that people pay them.  And that does work for Dwarf Fortress and some other games, but really it's a much smaller living and a much harder thing to sustain.


And there are a few other permutations of the above, too.  But they all have pretty severe drawbacks.  I think that the CD keys approach is absolutely fantastic for developers and consumers, and that's why.

It's an interesting side of it. I admit I didn't think of it that way. I thought developers just used them to stop pirates, which, if truth can be told doesn't work. Nothing in the world stops pirates.

Just curous though, what do you think of the approach made by Witcher 2. They have a basically DRM-free game, but they have a system (which they claim) proves 100% that  someone downloaded the game illegally.

If it is true, and someone can be shown 100% to have downloaded a title without paying, do you agree with the developers decision to pursue legal action? Honestly, if they can prove, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT, beyond any reasonable doubt (AND ONLY IF) then I think they should sue the hell out of them. The biggest fear with people is that developers will target innocent people, but if they can back up their claims, I can't see anyone but pirates getting hurt.

[x4000]

I thought developers just used them to stop pirates, which, if truth can be told doesn't work. Nothing in the world stops pirates.

I think most do.  And yes, I'm well aware that nothing stops the real pirates.  But there's a difference between trying to make fort knox, and in not putting a door on your house, too, I'd argue.

Just curous though, what do you think of the approach made by Witcher 2. They have a basically DRM-free game, but they have a system (which they claim) proves 100% that  someone downloaded the game illegally.

I don't see how such a system could possibly exist, so I can't really comment.  The nature of piracy is that if I have something and I copy it exactly and give it to you, then it's identical.  I guess what they could be doing is having a unique hash in each copy of the game, but that's basically just embedding the license key into the game itself and then using central servers to check it.  They're being very mysterious about their system, but I think that ultimately whatever they are doing is pretty prosaic, unless they've really thought of something out of left field.  I don't think that they really have, though, personally.

If it is true, and someone can be shown 100% to have downloaded a title without paying, do you agree with the developers decision to pursue legal action? Honestly, if they can prove, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT, beyond any reasonable doubt (AND ONLY IF) then I think they should sue the hell out of them. The biggest fear with people is that developers will target innocent people, but if they can back up their claims, I can't see anyone but pirates getting hurt.

That's hard to say.  On the one hand, the legal system is there so that folks can protect themselves from other folks.  And that includes companies, though companies != people.  You have to have a certain amount of size as a company to really go around suing everyone, though.  And even if you miss and hit an innocent person once, that's too many times.  At the end of the day, there is no clean, right answer, which is why everyone argues about this all the time and nobody comes to any sort of agreement.

If you're curious, I wrote this a couple of years ago and it was on slashdot: http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2009/07/thoughts-on-piracy-and-drm.html

My thoughts haven't changed substantially since then, but the general TLDR is: it pretty much sucks when some folks don't hold up their end of the societal contract.  If someone doesn't like how much a company or individual is charging, then don't buy that thing!  If nobody bought CDs, then prices would have fallen.  But pirates want it both ways, where they don't pay but they still get all the stuff for free.  It's like they forget that just because something has a near-zero cost of distribution, that there were lots of costs that went into making the thing in the first place.  If nobody paid for labor, and only ever paid for materials on everything they bought, I don't think society would really work, heh.

Not that you were advocating any of that, but since you asked, those are my thoughts on the matter.  We don't plan on suing anybody, either way.

[Parogar]

It's very interesting you mention that point on pirates, because I agree with you one hundred million percent! The biggest issue I have with pirates, is that they do in fact want things both ways. On the one hand, they want stuff for free, without paying. But they also want to sue  and go after companies that take steps to prevent them. The result? It only hurts the honest gamers.

PC gaming is very, very important to me. I love it more than most things, and I hate when people destroy it. Recently I made a poll on one o the most popular file-sharing forums, asking people what type of pirate they were. I defined them as follows:

Type A: This type of pirate pirates many things, but pays for most, if not all of them. He pirates for reasons of beating DRM, trying out games to ensure he/she likes before buying, or simply gaining access to a game earlier then it is slated to be release.

Type B: Does buy games that he/she enjoys, but only the ones he/she enjoys the MOST. Everything else gets pirated.

Type C: Pirates just about everything, either because he/she can't afford it, or he/she just wants something for free.

The results I received were staggering. I had many votes, and  only 27% of people claimed they pirated everything, with many bluntly stating they do it because hey, why pay for something that they can get free right?
 
But surprisingly, they weren't the ones that angered me the most. The ones I had the biggest issue with were the ones that said the following.

"I only pay for games that force me to pay if  I want to play online, the rest I pirate."

Why does that anger me so much? The reason is simple. The people with that mentality, are the #1 reason for crippling, draconian DRM. Companies see that these are people who ARE WILLING to buy games, IFF the game forces them to in order to get the complete experience.

It is then I believe that game developers say to themselves, "Wait a minute, these guys have money, and WILL buy games if the game can't be enjoyed without a legit copy.... Hmm, my game has nothing like that in place. You know what, let me make it even HARDER to crack and implement fierce DRM."

It is often stated that a pirated copy != a lost sale. That's true, but in the case of someone NOT buying games unless they need a legit copy in order to play it... That does many times equal a lost sale in my opinion.

I would actually really like to link to this thread, but as it exists on a forum that engages in file sharing, I do not wish to break the rules. With your permission however, I would like to link it, as I think it provides very good insight into the minds of a pirate.,

[x4000]

Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing that link -- you're not advocating piracy, but quite the opposite.  I agree with you on all that.

I think the kinds of pirates that anger me the most, personally, are the ones that pirate some small game or some small independent artist of another sort, and then proudly post it.  They act like they are Robin Hood, when generally it wasn't that hard (if hard at all, such as with World of Goo) to pirate.  A lot of that is just teenagers showing off what a rebel they are, but when it gets into actually being adults that's a lot more frustrating on a whole new level.

[Parogar]

This is a link to the thread I created on the forum http://tehparadox.com/forum/f18/honesty-thread-type-pirate-you-arent-you-3467079/

It is without a doubt, the most used and popular non-torrent site for downloading any kind of media through cyber-lockers.

As I confess in the opening post, I nearly always download disc-based games, often preferring to keep the original sealed in the box. Is this piracy? I want to say yes, but I am not even sure of the law. But completely regardless to its legality I have no moral issues downloading a game that I paid for, or a crack for it.

For instance, I just bought arkham city from my local gamestop. I read online that it checks the disc before each play session. I am lazy to the max, and hate changing "discs", so naturally I downloaded the full game, entered my own product key, and cracked it.

And I wonder again, is that legal to do? Well, if it isn't I'd do it anyway, and feel justified, because I paid the full price for it.

You seem like a really reasonable guy, I feel like such an idiot for the angry tone of my opening post :-( Did not expect you to be such a reasonable and affable person.