Arcen Games
Other => Game Development => Topic started by: zespri on June 26, 2012, 05:06:08 pm
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Sorry, for bringing up beaten and dead topic again, but I'm wondering why AI Wars and AVWW do not have DRM for online functionality. This one seems like a no brainer, everyone is doing this and it does not seem to be harmful for legitimate customers. What I mean here is that Online Updater can refused to work (server side check) if a correct serial is not provided. Currently you can update even demo/unregistered version just fine, I'm assuming you'll be able to do this with a fake key too. It's easy auto-ban a serial on the server if it starts to be using for downloading updates from zillion IPs over and over again. This check won't prevent normal game functionality, it will still work like it is now, but since new versions are not published anywhere else but via the update, it will deter pirates. Who wants to be N versions behind?
I'm guessing that the answer to this question is that for developers the effort is not worth the benefit AND saying that the game has no DRM is a good selling point. However I'd like to know why the extra sales generated from pirates who wants to keep their game updated is not worth it?
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I won't speak for Chris here, this is my take. But, IMO, there are basically two types of PC game players, there are paying gamers and there are pirates. Pirates don't normally become paying gamers, and the people paying typically don't pirate (some may grab a game off of a torrent site to try it out, then buy it if they like it.) So, why bother the folks that pay with the potential for issues and problems for what is likely to be very little return?
Yeah, I know my view is an oversimplification, but, really most people that go out of their way to pirate a game really aren't likely to come back and buy a game. Especially when the game has an extensive demo like ours.
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Being able to demo the latest beta is a useful sales tool.
Banning keygenned serials from updates would catch legitimate consumers (see what happened on that score with steam registrations -- that's not an idle fear).
And that's pretty much it.
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OP, your argument assumes that it would stop piracy. The questions here are:
- would it really stop piracy? (no)
- would a significant number of pirates actually become paying customers at that point? Or would they just move on to some other video game they could easily pirate?
- how many paying customers would even a moderate stance on DRM alienate? (Esp. given that Arcen's reputation as being simple-serial-only has been established for years now.)
IMO, the act of taking a "stolen" serial and using it to activate a game you haven't paid for is about as weighty on a conscience as using just about any other anti-DRM measure.
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All you really need to do is link an account / email / pw to a serial and just base updates on the requirement to login, allow offline playing when the account was logged in and authorized at least once. Like.. basically all the big games do it just more lenient.
That way, pirates get offline game and no updates unless they pirate them as well (and believe me, they will)
Customers get updates and can play online or offline however much they want. If the account/email/pw is made so that it "remembers" properly this would be 0 hassle. But it would be DRM.
Imo this is an acceptable trade-off... I guess some would disagree, but it would save you a lot of bandwidth because pirates would need to download the updates elsewhere ;p
Obviously Steam would subvert that idea though, most cracked games and all cracked updates come straight from steam.
It would also require you to at least keep logs how many computers/ip's log in serial bound account.. and some servers are needed too ;P
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OP, your argument assumes that it would stop piracy.
Nope, it does not assume that.
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All you really need to do is link an account / email / pw to a serial and just base updates on the requirement to login, allow offline playing when the account was logged in and authorized at least once. Like.. basically all the big games do it just more lenient.
That way, pirates get offline game and no updates unless they pirate them as well (and believe me, they will)
Customers get updates and can play online or offline however much they want. If the account/email/pw is made so that it "remembers" properly this would be 0 hassle. But it would be DRM.
Imo this is an acceptable trade-off... I guess some would disagree, but it would save you a lot of bandwidth because pirates would need to download the updates elsewhere ;p
That's exactly what I was getting at. I basically just want to know if this is implemented in a game, where it can bite back.
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Being able to demo the latest beta is a useful sales tool.
Banning keygenned serials from updates would catch legitimate consumers (see what happened on that score with steam registrations -- that's not an idle fear).
And that's pretty much it.
Thank you for getting back to me on this. I'd like to clarify this is a little bit. Surely if I only ban if someone try to download from 20 ip addresses within a few days it won't affect legitimate customers? I'm sorry if this discussion is boring, I'm just trying to understand. You don't have to make your key key-genable. You can just store valid ones on the server in a db. This way it's almost impossible to obtain someone else's key without their knowledge, unlike the situation with AI Wars no one would be able to generate a key that would be a real key for someone else and thus hurt a legitimate customer.
By the way my AI Wars key IS registered on steam by someone else, so I can't register it, so I know that this is a real problem.
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It's not boring, but I am writing from my phone and it's well-trodden.
Put another way: there is no system of drm that I could implement that I could not think of a way to crack. So I put my resources to better use than futilely chasing the pirates while annoying real customers. I don't pretend to like that situation -- pirates are being jerks -- but there you go.
The system you suggest would make for more work for the pirates, because they would have to download and distribute updates and crack them each time rather than using a keygen. But that's all that would change, except to add extra work for myself and extra cost of maintaining a server to do all those key checks. While pissing off the anti-drm crowd.
It's a classic no-win situation. At least for small businesses. This will be fought out between big businesses, politicians, pirates, and consumers. In that order, for better or for worse. I'm more interested in making games than getting involved in ideological battles, as much as it bothers me that people steal my stuff.
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The system you suggest would make for more work for the pirates, because they would have to download and distribute updates and crack them each time rather than using a keygen. But that's all that would change, except to add extra work for myself and extra cost of maintaining a server to do all those key checks. While pissing off the anti-drm crowd.
I think this is the crux of it. In my opinion, if pirating is made more difficult - which this will - less people will be inclined to overcome hurdles of it. No one is going to keep uploading each and every update because it's quite a bit of work. And if I sway a part of people in to buying because they no longer can get their update reliably, this might be worth it. And as for anti-drm people, I don't see how this particular scheme hampers legitimate customers.
Also I would like to clarify, that I'm in no way proposing changes for Arcen games, I'm exploring the viability of the idea above for indie games in general.
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DRM: more work than it's worth.
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The system you suggest would make for more work for the pirates, because they would have to download and distribute updates and crack them each time rather than using a keygen. But that's all that would change, except to add extra work for myself and extra cost of maintaining a server to do all those key checks. While pissing off the anti-drm crowd.
I think this is the crux of it. In my opinion, if pirating is made more difficult - which this will - less people will be inclined to overcome hurdles of it. No one is going to keep uploading each and every update because it's quite a bit of work. And if I sway a part of people in to buying because they no longer can get their update reliably, this might be worth it. And as for anti-drm people, I don't see how this particular scheme hampers legitimate customers.
Also I would like to clarify, that I'm in no way proposing changes for Arcen games, I'm exploring the viability of the idea above for indie games in general.
Making pirate's jobs more difficult will not likely stop them from pirating. You can't beat the price of free really. Plus, pirates seem to thrive off of challenges. According to the devs behind the Witcher 2 series, they found that their Disc (with DRM) was pirated far more often than the digital copy (without DRM). So this seems to suggest that pirates live off breaking DRM schemes.
And there's nothing stopping pirates from just getting BETA updates once in a while, rather than every patch. If I were pirating this game, and I can't imagine how I ever could, I would simply scale back how many times I got updates and enjoy the game for free. Its not like I'm missing a ton and eventually I'll get the content.
I can't see atm how this system would hamper legitimate customers, but if DRM has taught me anything, if its tied to a server, its more than likely going to break in some form or fashion.
King
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Making pirate's jobs more difficult will not likely stop them from pirating.
Of course not. Why are you all keep repeating this? :) I understand it perfectly.
But sure as hell if you are not a cracker, but just garden variety pirate that just downloads game cracked by others, sure as hell, that if you want consistent updates and can't have consistent updates if you have not paid, you'll go ahead and pay. It seems to me that quite a lot of people would fall into this category. And when I say consistent updates, this is just for arguments sake - because we all know and love Arcen's consistent updates. Other games can have some other online functionality, even if it is not prominent for it's frequent updates. Leaderboards, levels uploaded by players, whatever online functionality the game provides. If you are a player and being a pirate cuts you off I think it's reasonable to say that there is a good chance you come bringing the dev the money.
And to be honest it does not looks like it is THAT difficult to implement. There is a certain work involved, sure, but my feeling that in the end the gain would be more. And I'm trying to understand why I'm wrong =)
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Well, in this case its just that Arcen believes in no-DRM. That right there is why. But for the sake of argument, well, I guess the downside would be the higher costs associated with the system, I mean, there are costs regardless. Time, money, technical support, etc. It would also get Arcen some bad PR for using DRM. Maybe not a giant amount of bad-PR, but they would get some. And then there is any potential server problems that would crop up due to the DRM.
I think I'm repeating the same thing, but at the end of the day, the general expectation of Indie-developed games is that they do not include DRM period. End of story. I have that same expectation too but I'm anti-DRM regardless of who develops it. So I guess its not so much that its just technical reasons not to do it, but social reasons not to do this particular DRM your talking about. And if you tick off the legitimate buyers, well, that's bad.
King
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DRM: more work than it's worth.
No, lots of Indy games use this system and it reduces piracy rates noticeable, it does not stop piracy, but it at least makes people who really want to play it updated consider buying it who don't like the hassle of hunting down the latest cracked patch. The account/serial check works.
You shouldn't forget that buying customers WANT BETTER SERVICE than pirates. Yet they don't get that. Pirates and Customers are identical in terms of support quality. And that is imo the WORST possible situation. Why should we pay money if you don't differentiate between customer and pirate?
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You shouldn't forget that buying customers WANT BETTER SERVICE than pirates. Yet they don't get that. Pirates and Customers are identical in terms of support quality. And that is imo the WORST possible situation. Why should we pay money if you don't differentiate between customer and pirate?
Eraser, you're usually more coherent than this. That's 4chan talkin' right there. You do it because it's the right thing to do, that being not stealing someone else's work for your pleasure. Point me to where the 'service' could be better by removing pirates from the mix and I might agree. As it stands, they get themselves some downloads without me having to argue with yet another random password when I sit down and decide I want to fire up a game and catch up on patches.
I'm not anti-DRM, I've had my work pirated to the point where one of my businesses was crippled because of it. I'm actually NOT against the RIAA going after 12 year olds pirating shit, though million dollar lawsuits might be extreme. I don't buy their stuff because they're overpriced, but hey, it's their stuff. So, no, I don't support piracy. However, there IS a cost involved in keeping up DRM and the like, even if it's just in bandwidth prices and internal coding support and support for legit customers who are 'detected' as invalid and... well, there's a lot of costs, really.
Why are you so vehement about this? What better service from Arcen would you expect if they started blocking piracy? I'm not trying to be fecicious, it's an honest question. The update servers have never been DoS'd, never been slow, and they're producing updates at Mach 10. What do you perceive would be better?
Oh, I agree I'd like to see Arcen make more money, but that's Chris' decision as to the increased revenue of forcing what, 1% of piraters to pay up for up to date updates vs. all the internal hassle and coding costs. It's their call to perceived revenue differences. After that, what's the diff?
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The service would be better because paying or not would actually make the difference. ;) The problem with Tidalis was that the keys got keygenned and used on Steam which then ended up being keys generated for people that bought it later, a proper verification system would have prevented that.
I don't feel like being more coherent regarding this. You can say paying is the right thing to do but let's face it, pirates pirate stuff. No DRM will ever prevent that. The problem is when you give them easy and quick access to patches and new content they never actually have a incentive to feel like they might want to buy this anyway even during a sale. There is a second layer above "morals" and that is how I feel when I give money to someone, does it feel like a good value and reward/return? Or does it feel like paying or not would have made no difference apart from the setup download link not being on a warez site. Supporting developers? Please, that is not how or why I buy or play games. I buy games I want to play, not because a developer deserves it but because I want to play the game and buying it is less hassle than pirating it.
Do you know the difference between buying Tidalis and pirating it? Buying Tidalis takes 6 steps (on steam, Search, add to cart, checkout, pay via paypal, enter password, confirm payment, wait for download). Pirating Tidalis takes 2 (Search, Download). I can see the argument against DRM; but you gotta realize that if you make buying more a hassle than pirating you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Normally, the above example would be in favor for the buying if more than 3 updates come out and they have to be cracked. That means 3 more times search and download just to keep up to date. This is the kind of hassle that weeds out casual pirates and makes them buy the game if they like it, even if just during a sale.
Without cracking required, the pirate has the better experience with less hassle. And if the support is the same for customers and pirates then a pirate has never actually any incentive to buy the game whatsoever.
You don't "fight" piracy, you make it part of your business model, pirates need to be constantly reminded that buying would give them BETTER service.
No DRM actually gives the advantage to pirates, where pirates get the BETTER service (they didn't have to pay) And I highly doubt the 6 people who actually care about minor DRM like this wouldn't understand this simple reality.
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Guys, before you dismiss what eRe4s3r wrote with "you are a filthy pirate" comment, try to look past moral issue as to why we are buying games (support developer vs less hassle this way). If you are willing to look past this aspect, the rest of what eRe4s3r is saying makes A LOT of sense. To me he is completely spot on. This is why I think that if you are writing and releasing a game there is a strong argument in favour of including at least *some form* of DRM that would not make life of a legitimate customer any worse, but would keep a pirate cognizant of what they are loosing by not buying the game.
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Guys, before you dismiss what eRe4s3r wrote with "you are a filthy pirate" comment, try to look past moral issue as to why we are buying games (support developer vs less hassle this way).
I don't think anyone was going there, Zespri. I simply hadn't responded yet because it's very late and I can't write well without it coming off horribly wrong when I'm tired, particularly on this subject where my personal reactions to the other things it brings up might leak in. I don't believe anyone who's trying to convince someone to put DRM IN is going to get beaten up by 'U P1r47E!' reactions.
I'm simply trying to discern what's got him in a knot on this and questioning his statements with my understanding for clarifications.
This is why I think that if you are writing and releasing a game there is a strong argument in favour of including at least *some form* of DRM that would not make life of a legitimate customer any worse, but would keep a pirate cognizant of what they are loosing by not buying the game.
DRM maintenance and encoding can be very expensive, depending on your ongoing budget. It can really hammer you down the line, when you might make $1/game 10 years later but you're still maintaining the equipment and things of that nature. It's got built in costs that can be significant if mishandled by other parties, as well, such as what Eraser mentioned regarding Tidalis and Steam.
How do you shut down a business that has DRM of a certain nature? 5 years later a product you purchased can't be 'authenticated' because the company that made it shut their doors. Or worse, it's no longer financially viable to support, the company's still active, but could be liable depending on laws to continue to support the DRM for a product since the owner has actually purchased the right to use it indefinately on their personal property, or face a civil suit. A simple issue that could come up... your drive crashes and you need to rebuild from scratch. It's not a holy grail, unfortunately, and while in larger corporations those costs are simply rolled into the 'cost of doing business', a smaller company can't always afford the risk of the possible costs it could bring down the line.
Edited for grammar, told you I was tired...
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The reason I changed my stance on this to a more pragmatic one is simple. I realized that Indies misunderstand the whole DRM/Piracy topic from the ground up. DRM should be there to reward customers without being a hindrance to them. No registration = no patches, but the game still plays offline, and once patched, the patches remain and can be played offline as long as the auth was passed at least once (online, obviously, how else would anyone get the patches ,p).
Obviously, the Steam version does not have that but still requires a valid account with a linked serial that is authed at least once before the game can then be played either trough steam directly or offline without steam. It is not always on, but it is online activation of some kind. So it is DRM, not even denying that. But it is the best DRM there is. Best for the customer, that is.
DRM is about rewarding customers and making customers out of some pirates. Not to prevent piracy or to hassle customers or even to hassle pirates all that much. Just enough for them to consider buying it later on anyway. If you give up on trying you are admitting defeat. You can not fight piracy, but sure as hell can make a legitimate profit of it by trying to make them customers through continued support of the legit version.
Obviously account creation has to be stupidly simple and only have rudimentary controls (ie, if IP variances are too great (20 different IP's a day?) then ban with a message to contact email should person feel wrongly accused. Proof of purchase and a proper explanation gets ban lifted. (There is really no proper explanation for 20 different IP's in a day though ,p)
and to reiterate, it doesn't matter if this is cracked. In fact, we should fully plan for it being cracked. The point is that each time a patch needs to be cracked that is HASSLE for a pirate and 0 hassle for a customer.
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How do you shut down a business that has DRM of a certain nature? 5 years later a product you purchased can't be 'authenticated' because the company that made it shut their doors.
It is not as bad as you making it sound.
In case of updates - there will be no more updates, so the concern is moot.
If it's a MOO (not an indie title usually) when it shuts down it shuts down for good - we've seen a number of examples of this, my personal favourite was Hellgate: London, I was really upset when it went belly-up. But this happens and this will keep happening. That's life.
Take SpaceChem. They did shut down online services because they can't support them any longer, that's the research-net with user submitted puzzles and online statistics. Again, disappointing, but that's happens.
Some companies make server-side components available when they shut down, so that people can continue experiencing the game if some one can set the online component up.
Hell, even if the do not shut down: One of my favourite games King's Bounty (http://store.steampowered.com/app/25900/) used to have most draconian DRM I've ever seen (barring always on, it was before the always on time. By the way, who pioneered always on? I *think* it was Ubisoft, but I'm not sure with what title they did this). King's bounty used StarForce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce). If you don't know StarForce eats babies. It does stuff like suspending all processes on the system for a few seconds when doing checks so that no process could interfere. A kernel driver is also installed that has been know to cause problems with other software. This all sucks, but I liked the game so I had to put up with that. But you know what? In about 1.5 years after the release, when they were preparing to release a sequel (http://store.steampowered.com/app/3170/), they made a patch, that removed DRM completely. They figured, that they are not going to do patches any longer, and that getting more people to see the older game will set them up good for selling the sequel.
So, some people when shutting down find ways to make their game available to people, after all by that time revenue is usually no longer a concern - there won't be any anyway.
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No, lots of Indy games use this system and it reduces piracy rates noticeable, it does not stop piracy, but it at least makes people who really want to play it updated consider buying it who don't like the hassle of hunting down the latest cracked patch. The account/serial check works.
It does have value, but it also has negatives, and it also takes work to get working right. In this case, (value - negatives) < work.
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DRM: more work than it's worth.
This. And this is coming from someone who pretty much pirated 100% of every game I ever played a few years back. I've since "converted" and now I pay for every game I play, and ignore the ones I don't want to pay for, or who are too expensive. Heck, I even paid twice for Din's Curse (one for a friend) and AVWW (to get it on Steam).
DRM never stopped me. DRM never made me think about issues with updates. DRM didn't turn me into a paying customer. If game became too much of a hurdle with updates, I either didn't update, or just stopped playing. Never did I consider actually buying the game. DRM will never work for its intended purpose, which is stopping pirates. All it does is make the pirates laugh and enjoy the game and the legitimate customers cringe when they run into one issue after the other.
What makes paying customers is customer relations and great games that aren't stupidly overpriced. Companies like Arcen, Soldak and similar studios are what makes paying customers.
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Also, StarForce is the spawn of the Devil himself. I'd take always online ANY day above Starforce. At least online DRM doesn't fry my computer from the inside.
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This is an issue where rational consideration is more rare than ideological assertion, so let me explain in a bit more detail:
To say that DRM could ever convert a majority of pirates into paying customers is... not really based on reality. I don't think anyone here's saying that.
To say that DRM never converts any pirates into paying customers is also more of an ideologically-convenient claim rather than anything realistic.
So it's basically just a business decision: do we think that the marginal increase (in economic terms) from adding DRM would exceed the costs involved in creating it, maintaining it, and having it? Specifically:
- Implementing it takes time. Not a ton, if well-thought-out.
- Maintaining it generally has ongoing costs and possible undesirable long-term entanglements. Also not a ton, if well-though-out, and I can think of ways to neatly avoid the "we can't shut this down without getting sued" problem.
- Simply having it has a PR cost because regardless of whether we view it as a business decision, there's a fairly big crowd who grab the pitch and torches when they smell DRM of any sort.
-- In fairness, I think that's largely because of the obscene shenanigans pulled by various big-name publishers; Starforce, always-on-and-if-you're-connection-drops-you-lose-your-progress, etc. Things that actively inflict pain on the customer for daring to use the product. I try to be a rational person and those kinds of tactics make my blood boil. If DRM had always and only been some kind of one-time check-in-with-the-master-server license key thing or whatever I think it would probably be a lot more viable because there'd be less psychological baggage about it.
- And even among the people who aren't out for blood... I know I personally avoid DRM'd games pretty actively. Not because I think it's immoral to have DRM or whatever, but because I just don't want to deal with it. Lost sale for them, potentially lost fun for me.
So I really don't think the marginal increase in paying customers is worth all that.
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I'm not even going to try and quote all that text up there, but here's a problem with all the pro-DRM thinking:
DRM does not reward the customer for buying it. In fact it does the opposite. Or do I really need to bring up Diablo 3 again, do I really need to bring up Assassin's Creed again? DRM is not fool proof and as far as I can tell as long as its programmed by humans, never will be. It will break down at some point.
On the whole DRM updating: you say that when the game stops getting updated, this particular DRM is no big deal. How about this? What if you uninstall the game and reinstall it later down the line when the company is closed? You can't update it anymore. If this happened with Arcen's games that would not be good. It is why I'm really concerned about the future playings of our games when they are all locked down with DRM. We don't have this same problem with DOS games but geez, give us 10-20 years and we will have this problem with our current gen games.
And really, depending on an indie company to simply patch the DRM out of the game before they shut down is wishful thinking. There is a lot of concerns about Steam's DRM and while Valve has said they would take it out if the company was to shut down, there is no guarantee they will and all the more likely they wouldn't if they suddenly shut down.
Another thing to think on is even if your DRM successfully converted some pirates to buyers, its also possible you'll convert legitimate buyers who are pissed off into pirates.
I really empathize with those that suffer from piracy but DRM isn't the solution.
King
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So your solution is to give up and do nothing? The system I described works, if you don't think it does, try finding a cracked up-to-date copy of Dominions 3.... if you become less obscure than that someone is going to upload a cracked copy for each update with a serial that you can then ban in the next update. That way your customers feel ahead of the pirates. And that is the point, making your customers feel like they bought something that puts them above piracy. At least you are making it a hassle to keep up-to-date (Minecraft comes to mind), that WILL convert casual pirates if they get fed up with the hassle.
I guess nobody actually read my post though, because I already described there why I think that your standard-anti-drm reply (KingIsaacLinksr) misses the point by an entire solar system ;) If a dev does nothing against piracy, it makes me wonder why I shouldn't pirate it. Because buying it, besides being morally right, gives me nothing I don't already have (meaning, piracy is there and it is a possibility, so buying has to offer more, (including the smug moral feeling of doing the right thing) than piracy saves me).
The update thing is an example, for all I care come up with a better idea than linking updates to a proof of purchase, but if you don't offer more than piracy does, you are competing against free with only morals in the way of it. And if you do that, well... most human beings aren't exactly the pinnacle of moral integrity.
I guess, I am not really lobbying for DRM. I just want to feel out what people think, but to do that, please at least read my post(s) because "OMG DRM ICANHATEIT" posts are not what I care for. ;)
I don't think the cost of DRM is relevant because I don't want it to be included in the current games by Arcen. But generally speaking, I prefer the system I described to "nothing is done" every time ;)
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So your solution is to give up and do nothing?
Yep! "Ostrich algorithm" is sometimes the answer that best fits one's true goals.
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So basically your asking why shouldnt you pirate. I don't have a good answer for you other than it is a moral choice. As you said, it is right there. I'm not going to sit here and try to instill moral obligations to a person, it is up to them to decide whether they want to financially support a developer or not. DRM isn't going to force people to not pirate a game as we have already seen many times before and simply inconvincing pirates isn't going to do much either as fox said earlier.
For me, I won't pirate games. If I can't afford it, well, I don't get to play it. If I don't like the DRM, well, then sucks for me I won't pirate it anyway. Those are all moral choices. As a college student, not many would blame me for pirating games due to my low budget. But I still won't pirate the games. There are no technical reasons for me not to, it is a moral reason.
King
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... as Tobias said earlier...
*ARGBLBERGHLLAHAHA RABBLE RABBLE!*
Don't use my real name on Internet, you twit. I'm a persona, not a person!
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*ARGBLBERGHLLAHAHA
Thus proving that it wasn't your real name after all: it isn't a Murloc name ;)
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*ARGBLBERGHLLAHAHA
Thus proving that it wasn't your real name after all: it isn't a Murloc name ;)
Hahah! Oh god, stop it now, Keith! People are looking at my funnily at work. xD
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... as fox said earlier...
*ARGBLBERGHLLAHAHA RABBLE RABBLE!*
Don't use my real name on Internet, you twit. I'm a persona, not a person!
I'm scatterbrained and trying to follow about five conversations today, LEAVE ME ALONE!! Btw fixed so you can fix it in your last post
;)
King
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Well, it's not like I'm paranoid about my name floating around. It's listed on both Twitter and G+, but I'm thinking most people here have no clue who "Tobias" is :P
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Well, it's not like I'm paranoid about my name floating around. It's listed on both Twitter and G+, but I'm thinking most people here have no clue who "Tobias" is :P
Oh, but now we do!
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I am sorry, did I see ponies being mentioned here somewhere? ;P A pony called Tobias? Scandalicious! ;)
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I am sorry, did I see ponies being mentioned here somewhere? ;P A pony called Tobias? Scandalicious! ;)
Oh now you've done it. Fox will find you and kill you for that. I once mentioned ponies on a mumble conversation, Fox immediately left and I didn't hear from him for days. One day, I step out of my apartment, get the crap beaten out of me by some Viking (weird I know), call in sick to work, drag my beaten body back to my computer, check my email and see a message saying: don't ever mention ponies again.
;)
King
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Now you're just exhaggerating, Tim. Oh I'm sorry, King.
I'm no fan of ponies, but I wouldn't beat up a brony just for being a brony ;)
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So your solution is to give up and do nothing? The system I described works, if you don't think it does, try finding a cracked up-to-date copy of Dominions 3....
This is kind of a bad example. Dominions 3 was last updated a year ago. Of course there is a crack around.
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There is no crack for v.3.27 and thus, if you wanted the latest version you would have to buy it. It's the perfect example imo ;P
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There is no crack for v.3.27 and thus, if you wanted the latest version you would have to buy it. It's the perfect example imo ;P
I'm sure there is :)
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Using a legitimate leaked serial is not exactly a crack ,p If dev cared he could black-list it internally until he gets bored.
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Using a legitimate leaked serial is not exactly a crack ,p If dev cared he could black-list it internally until he gets bored.
If there's a leaked serial out there, perhaps that explains why there's no crack: why bother? :)
I certainly hope no one wastes time cracking our games, there's just no need. Obviously I hope they don't pirate it at all, but the idea of someone spending a few hours debugging and modifying the actual binary or something like that... facepalm material.
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Well this probably won't make you happy but I've seen AVWW pre'd about a minute after it unlocked on steam, same for Tidalis and AI War. Heck you don't even need more than the relevant keygens. And all 3 games can be found online and updated to the latest version.
http://www.nfohump.com/index.php?switchto=nfos&menu=quicknav&item=viewnfo&id=145426
http://www.nfohump.com/index.php?switchto=nfos&menu=quicknav&item=viewnfo&id=191666
http://www.nfohump.com/index.php?switchto=nfos&menu=quicknav&item=viewnfo&id=143446
(That's just links to nfo, not to releases)
All 3 games, with a valid serial generating keygen not just any serial, but a serial that is legitimately part of the pool of serials customers can get, I'd say that warrants some rethinking, no? The lax and insecure serial system in place actually does more damage to legitimate customers (namely when there is a match with a key-genned serial) than it would slow down a pirate. I think there are even batch keygens for all expansions around, but finding those is a bit trickier.
And keith, someone actually did commit the effort to reverse engineer your entire serial algorithm ;) Which is why I think the serial system in place as it is now is BAD and does more damage to customers than it stops piracy, even the most casual one. ,)
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Oh, sure, it's not complex. I wish they'd just use one serial and not have gone to the bother of making a keygen, so that they don't hurt other customers, but they don't really care about what I (or other customers) want anyway.
It does suck that pirates can actually hurt other customers by registering their ill-gotten key on steam, but that's the only harm that is done: inability to register a non-steam-bought copy on steam. If they really wanted it on steam they could buy it there and have zero chance of not being able to use the full steam features. And even if they do find that their key has already been registered, steam has proven willing to fix it (by unregistering it for the other person) upon being shown proof-of-purchase, though sometimes mixed signals are sent.
Anyway, there are two very key distinctions of that (real) harm that the present system allows to happen to the customers:
1) The harm does not impact at all the use of the actual product that was purchased:
- the game itself is not impacted at all
- the services of the distributor it was bought from are not impacted at all (if you bought it direct from us and then can't register it on steam that's a different thing: you didn't pay for steam's services, their willingness to register it as if you had is basically just a courtesy to us and to you)
2) The system isn't doing the harm itself. Pirates are doing the harm, not the software itself.
Every DRM scheme I'm aware of can harm your ability to play or enjoy the actual product you purchased, and that harm is done by the system itself, regardless of what other people do.
So yes: our approach has negatives, but again, I find the net gain to be superior to either no-protection-at-all (just removing the serial requirement altogether) or anything more proactive. No solution to this problem is going to be without-negatives (grammar teachers are probably on their way to kill me now).
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I just above described a system that let's you play always and NEVER will prevent you from playing the game, it just doesn't let you update always......
Why does everyone assume when he reads DRM I mean access restrictions to the game, I said DRM has to be a service that adds benefits to a customer, not a service that restricts rights to the game or restricts when you want to play. That means if your DRM is not adding benefits to a customers experience then your DRM is pointless.
A good DRM lets me log-in with my user account and knows what expansions I have registered under it, and never asks me for serials again. Even when I am offline, as the system can work on a 1-time-only online check or the manual entering of serials (but they get checked against the account when the game goes online).
This is also why I love steam, even though that is even more drastic than the DRM i just described in previous posts.
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I just above described a system that let's you play always and NEVER will prevent you from playing the game, it just doesn't let you update always......
Exactly: can't update = less enjoyment of the game itself.
If the updates are actually improvements, at least ;)
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*cough* I edited my post ;p Needless to say I disagree, updates are a service for your customers and that is what DRM should be. A service, not a restriction.
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*cough* I edited my post ;p Needless to say I disagree, updates are a service for your customers and that is what DRM should be. A service, not a restriction.
If it can interfere with a legitimate customer getting access to updates, then it's a restriction :) It might also be a service, but that's beside the point.
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It is not restricting anyone from playing the game ;)
Actually, by the standard, AI War has a pretty restricting hardcore DRM, so there ;D
Current DRM worst thing since Starforce! :o ;D
(Also adds nothing for the customer)
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*cough* I edited my post ;p Needless to say I disagree, updates are a service for your customers and that is what DRM should be. A service, not a restriction.
If it can interfere with a legitimate customer getting access to updates, then it's a restriction :) It might also be a service, but that's beside the point.
Warning: psuedo philosophical stuff ahead about this conversation itself
And it seems we have finally gotten to (possibly one of) the central disagreement over eRe4s3r idea. Hopefully this means we can stop repeating points trying to imply what the idea disagreement is and begin to talk about the central disagreement. Basically, both positions make sense depending on which answer you give to the posed point (are updates an optional, revokable service or a psuedo-obligation/part of the agreement with product users?)
I do appreciate it when arguments (arguments in the logical discourse over disagreement sense, not the negative form of communication, "yell fest" sense) can finally hone down to the central issue, as that is really where you can start seeing how both sides came to different conclusions, even if they share many of the same assumptions. This is where progress can be made.
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It is not restricting anyone from playing the game ;)
This is Arcen, the updates are part of the game :) I keep prodding Chris that we need to put something in the AIW tutorial about "Now, be careful as you attack this next planet, because midway through the developer will nerf your most effective strategy.".
Actually, by the standard, AI War has a pretty restricting hardcore DRM, so there ;D
How does the serial check get in the way of the updates? You can update a trial version, and you can do it with saved copies of the update files if our server were to disappear (you'd have to find copies of the update files, but I doubt they'd be hard to find as anyone who'd run those updates would have them).
(Also adds nothing for the customer)
It lets the demo, the base game, and the expansions all share the same executable, and lets us keep them all up-to-date together. That's something we couldn't do without the serial check because then we'd need to either make it effectively freeware (people probably wouldn't even realized they were supposed to pay for it) or make the demo and different expansions different binaries.
So it does add convenience compared to the alternative.
Not that it has to, in my mind: it's great if whatever protection/DRM involved does add some benefit, but it's more important that it not detract from the value of the product. Once that's achieved, sure, if it can add value then fine. But not really necessary.
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Do you remember the off-topic talk in the Drox topic? This is exactly what I meant ,) My post are not pebbles they are rocks, you can not pick up pebbles that are part of the rocks and reply to them, I am talking about a thought, if you dismantle it, you are not ever going to see what I talk about). If you reply to my post singularly you can always find a retort. How absurd this becomes (and what TechSY730 meant) is that we have fundamental different views on the same thing and we are at a point where I can reply to your post by just quoting myself. (Which usually indicates the end of a discussion ;P)
I said DRM has to be a service that adds benefits to a customer, not a service that restricts rights to the game or restricts when you want to play. That means if your DRM is not adding benefits to a customers experience then your DRM is pointless.
A good DRM system rewards customers with service and doesn't punish them with play restrictions should they not choose to do the online verification. This can happen with a serial system offline that only optionally gets checked online and then unlocks FEATURES that are online and bound to an account. Like a proper player profile, stats, etc. But also easy registration and unlocking of paid and free expansions and easy patching.
Demo's would still work, no entered serial and no account = DEMO ;)
Either serial or proper account would unlock the game.
Proper account + serial unlocks patches and online services.
In fact, I think we have become full circle ;P I seem to recall this topic was titled DRM for online functions ^^
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It may well be that we simply disagree, my point was to show the rational basis for the way we do things.
Proper account + serial unlocks patches and online services.
I know you hate the one-line-quotes but I can't think of a better way to do this ;)
Anyway, that one line is where it breaks down for us: if the game cannot be patched without a proper account, the game cannot be patched if for whatever reason the person cannot get to our servers. That's not acceptable.
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It is equally not acceptable if you service pirates on the same level as your paying customers. As (lengthy) detailed on page 1 ;p And this is the rational basis why I disagree. But as said, it is good to reach the core of an argument. When posts become short and on point a topic is usually over, at least between the involved parties.
To me, the game cannot be patched if for whatever reason the person cannot get to our servers
would be acceptable ;p If someone can browse the web he can download patches. But if that is the only tipping point, you could always offer patches that check for serial if no valid account/serial is found. It would require each patch to be cracked and serials could easily be blacklisted.
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It is equally not acceptable if you service pirates on the same level as your paying customers.
I completely disagree with your use of the word "equally" there:
- I agree that there is some problem with pirates getting more than they deserve.
- But I completely disagree that it is as-bad as legitimate customers getting less than they deserve. That is far, far worse.
To me, the game cannot be patched if for whatever reason the person cannot get to our servers
would be acceptable ;p
And it's not completely and utterly unacceptable to me, really; it's just a matter of tradeoffs. If there were sufficient gains to balance out that "cost". But I think that cost is higher than any gains I've seen any proposed pro-active DRM scheme (including yours) promise or deliver.
If someone can browse the web he can download patches. But if that is the only tipping point, you could always offer patches that check for serial if no valid account/serial is found. It would require each patch to be cracked and serials could easily be blacklisted.
Here I don't get where your scheme works better than ours:
- If they can download an update outside the game and apply it offline without having to provide a valid account (the serial is no more defensible in this scheme than ours), then they can play the full, patched game with just a keygen'd or leaked serial. So back where we are now, right?
- If they have to provide a valid account to apply a downloaded patch, and for whatever reason they cannot access our server, they cannot update, which is too high a cost in this context.
As for blacklisted serials, if they can install, patch, and play the game offline then we'll never know that they're using a given serial (which is the current situation) and thus know to blacklist it in the code (I'm assuming that there's no point in having it do a blacklist check on our servers since they're playing offline).
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I'm curious eRe4s3r, has there ever been a DRM-system that's been a benefit to the customer and not a restriction? Because you've brought up that DRM should reward the customer for buying from the original source, but I've never heard of a DRM system that was an actual benefit to the customer for buying products from X source. It's usually met with a lot of grief so I'm curious if you have an example of a DRM system done right.
King
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I'm curious eRe4s3r, has there ever been a DRM-system that's been a benefit to the customer and not a restriction?
Steam is an excellent example of a DRM-system that provides significant benefits. There are restrictions (on games that actually use their DRM wrapper, at least), but having the library, being able to pretty quickly install a game to any machine I own, steam-cloud for games that support it, relative ease of joining someone else's game in games with steamworks (dungeon defenders comes to mind), etc.
Steam's awesome. The very core "DRM" piece of it isn't a benefit to the consumer directly, but it does help a lot of publishers/developers get comfortable with the idea of not putting other DRM on the games they sell there, which I think works out much better than the probable alternatives.
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I'm curious eRe4s3r, has there ever been a DRM-system that's been a benefit to the customer and not a restriction?
Steam is an excellent example of a DRM-system that provides significant benefits. There are restrictions (on games that actually use their DRM wrapper, at least), but having the library, being able to pretty quickly install a game to any machine I own, steam-cloud for games that support it, relative ease of joining someone else's game in games with steamworks (dungeon defenders comes to mind), etc.
Steam's awesome. The very core "DRM" piece of it isn't a benefit to the consumer directly, but it does help a lot of publishers/developers get comfortable with the idea of not putting other DRM on the games they sell there, which I think works out much better than the probable alternatives.
Ok, fair point, I forgot about that, though it still brings up its own worries of future problems, but we can't always worry about tomorrow hehe. :)
King
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Ok, fair point, I forgot about that, though it still brings up its own worries of future problems, but we can't always worry about tomorrow hehe. :)
Yea, I don't like the "what if Valve disappears?" scenario but I find it sufficiently unlikely that I'm willing to pay a reduced price for games I get there. It's basically a really-long-term rental and while I'm not willing to pay $60 for a game on those terms I am willing to pay something.
If I were in a position of having to put some significant DRM on a game I'd probably (Valve-permitting) just make it a steamworks-only game and call it a day; that way all the infrastructure and such is someone else's problem, and it would at least deliver some significant benefit to offset the fact that the customers wouldn't actually own anything in return for their money.
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I'm curious eRe4s3r, has there ever been a DRM-system that's been a benefit to the customer and not a restriction? Because you've brought up that DRM should reward the customer for buying from the original source, but I've never heard of a DRM system that was an actual benefit to the customer for buying products from X source. It's usually met with a lot of grief so I'm curious if you have an example of a DRM system done right.
King
Well, I admit currently nobody did a good service DRM system that didn't restrict you from playing the game in an absolutely unacceptable sense. But if you want it in terms of just the basic idea. Kerbal Space Program comes to mind, updates via account requirement, gameplay without account requirement. And the game isn't exactly half-way developed, so who knows what they do with the idea.
Might & Magic Heroes VI comes to mind, they revised the DRM after patches to be 1-time activation and account bound and otherwise buying the game gets you a LOT of game benefits, and not buying it gives you still the basic game, just without all the bells and whistles of online features and avatars management. (But in the campaign, you don't play your own avatar anyway)
If you want to know how not to do it, look at Anno 2070, offline play disables gameplay VITAL functions, unlike in Heroes VI where it only disables EXTRA functions that have absolutely no vital impact on normal gameplay. (like certain weapons that can gain levels over many many plays (online and offline, as long as you have a legit account) and that you can keep through various levels and missions.
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If you want to know how not to do it, look at Anno 2070
Right with you there. I so want to play that game, but I just can't bring myself to spend $50 on something with that kind of DRM. Maybe a sale will bring it low enough that I can stomach it ;)
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And keith, someone actually did commit the effort to reverse engineer your entire serial algorithm
Come On!!! When Arcen say that they have no DRM they are not kidding. It takes whole 20 minutes or less to "reverse engineer" this. This is nothing to be proud of. This is kind of by design.
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And keith, someone actually did commit the effort to reverse engineer your entire serial algorithm
Come On!!! When Arcen say that they have no DRM they are not kidding. It takes whole 20 minutes or less to "reverse engineer" this. This is nothing to be proud of. This is kind of by design.
I don't think he was saying it was anything to be proud of, just something that had been done :)
I think this is also an example of why eRe4s3r doesn't like to be snippet-quote-response'd ;)
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Using a legitimate leaked serial is not exactly a crack ,p If dev cared he could black-list it internally until he gets bored.
There is a keygen that was created after 3.0 release but still works on 3.27. There are a few black listed serials, but since keygen can generate infinite number of them this is not an issue for a pirate. Really. What would you expect a year after release?
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It does suck that pirates can actually hurt other customers by registering their ill-gotten key on steam, but that's the only harm that is done: inability to register a non-steam-bought copy on steam. If they really wanted it on steam they could buy it there and have zero chance of not being able to use the full steam features. And even if they do find that their key has already been registered, steam has proven willing to fix it (by unregistering it for the other person) upon being shown proof-of-purchase, though sometimes mixed signals are sent.
This is not my experience. I tried to register AI Wars, but was told (after opening a support ticket) that since the purchase was many months ago they are unwilling to do anything. They indicated that they would help if the actual purchase where within a month or so. Thus, I had to be content with NOT having the game on steam.
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This is not my experience. I tried to register AI Wars, but was told (after opening a support ticket) that since the purchase was many months ago they are unwilling to do anything. They indicated that they would help if the actual purchase where within a month or so. Thus, I had to be content with NOT having the game on steam.
Ah, ok; thanks for letting me know, I had not heard in the past that their willingness there was related to purchase timeframe.
Sorry about the inconvenience there; in a lot of ways lately we've learned to really emphasize to people "if you want it on steam, buy it on steam" :) Used to be less important, but the whole cross-registration situation is just a hairier process than we previously thought (in more ways than just this).
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Sorry about the inconvenience there; in a lot of ways lately we've learned to really emphasize to people "if you want it on steam, buy it on steam" :)
I usually want it much much earlier than it's available on steam.
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Using a legitimate leaked serial is not exactly a crack ,p If dev cared he could black-list it internally until he gets bored.
There is a keygen that was created after 3.0 release but still works on 3.27. There are a few black listed serials, but since keygen can generate infinite number of them this is not an issue for a pirate. Really. What would you expect a year after release?
*breathes in*
There was a HTML/Javascript keygen that was only made in 2011 to begin with that actually created TRULY legit serials. All keygens before just created keys without the added security checks each serial had to pass ( of which I think, 10 were implemented step-by-step over time) and so these serials always got invalided 100% properly while legit serials remained legit.
And I think you pretty much prove my point there anyway, I said it must be a hassle, and hunting down the 1 keygen that actually worked for each new update for DOM3 was a huge hassle for any pirate. Their DRM succeeded by any definition of the word, in fact better than any other DRM I know off. Until development stopped more or less with 3.17 I think.., there was not a SINGLE keygen that produced 100% working serials for the next patch. Only when someone actually completely reversed the algorithm and found the checks the game performed on serials to further weed out keygenned keys that "appear" valid was the game keygenned. It was never cracked. And this javascript keygen only appeared in 2011.
Dominions 3 released in 2006 by the way. So for 5 years their serial check remained a hassle to pirates that wanted to update.
*breathes out*
Also you get -50 points for snippet quoting me out of context. The keygen was extra, a bonus and unneeded they did this specifically to prove a point. The fact that they did this and the keygen to this day still works is what peeves me and why I mentioned it. And you know why? Because if proper effort would have been put into the serial algo there could have been additional checks hidden that were not activated yet but which bought keys all passed, yet keygenned keys would not. And every major update, I would add a new check that would instantly invalidate all previous keygenned keys. That's how serials are done.
Dominions 3 only got really "pwned" when active development died off. At which point the developer likely didn't care anyway.
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there could have been additional checks hidden that were not activated yet but which bought keys all passed, yet keygenned keys would not. And every major update, I would add a new check that would instantly invalidate all previous keygenned keys. That's how serials are done.
Dominions 3 only got really "pwned" when active development died off. At which point the developer likely didn't care anyway.
That would actually work pretty well, no server connection needed to revalidate (beyond the connection needed to download the patch), does not add a huge amount of logic, new steps that could cause a change in validation are restricted to at most once per update rather than a once every startup.
But you better have planned some special properties all official keys will have ahead of time for this to work, and deliberate not test all of them all at the get-go. If you are trying to retroactively apply this sort of check, there is a pretty decent chance that you might not be able to find a suitable test (or rather, the strictest test mathematically possible without false negatives short of whiteisting every legit key ever made would still let tons of keygenned keys through).
Also, there is the risk of a bug in the implementation of the new checks on the key validator, which would introduce false negatives.
And still, there is the cost of implementing this type of system in the first place, which would require either some nifty math and/or cryptography knowledge, or adapting you key validator process to a existing library that can take care of this for you, for questionable returns.
And even if this is solved for the product, third party services that enforce the "key belongs to one customer" thing (like Steam) would need to implement these sorts of checks too. Plus, if key genners are already genning keys (on a moderate basis at least) that the official keygen server can dish out, then you are already screwed; they have already cracked your algorithm well enough. This is what is happening with AI War. Nothing short of changing your key system on the client, service provider (like Steam), and server (the official key genner) sides can stop that. This would also certainly break existing legitimate keys. (Yea, you could email out to people that this is changing and here is a new key, like they did when you first bought the key, but that is annoying and error prone itself)
So yea, if you design your key system from the ground up for good validation rules, then this is a great system. But trying to apply to existing systems not built on this is fraught with issues.
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eRe4s3r, I had big hopes for you, you started so nicely in this thread and now you are talking nonsense. You've disappointed me! (Sorry, I'm just kidding here)
Seriously: the only thing in the last post I agree with is the time line of when the keygen was released. I stand corrected.
The rest of the post.... Let's see.
And I think you pretty much prove my point there anyway, I said it must be a hassle, and hunting down the 1 keygen that actually worked for each new update for DOM3 was a huge hassle for any pirate.
This does not make sense. Once keygen is out there there is no "hunting" involved. You just go and get it.
Only when someone actually completely reversed the algorithm and found the checks the game performed on serials to further weed out keygenned keys that "appear" valid was the game keygenned.
These "further checks" are simply checks for previously banned keys. There is nothing mystical or advanced about them.
It was never cracked. And this javascript keygen only appeared in 2011.
There is no practical difference between cracked and keygenned. If a game is keygenned it's as good as cracked. There is no reason to "crack further" although at this point it would be quite trivial.
Also you get -50 points for snippet quoting me out of context.
Sorry for that it was not intentional. For me it looks like I quoted you in the context of the thread. But then again, sorry I made you feel that way.
he keygen was extra, a bonus and unneeded they did this specifically to prove a point. The fact that they did this and the keygen to this day still works is what peeves me and why I mentioned it.
You keep saying "they". Who? The crackers or the game designers? What point where they proving? Sorry, the meaning of the quote above remained a mystery to me.
Because if proper effort would have been put into the serial algo there could have been additional checks hidden that were not activated yet but which bought keys all passed, yet keygenned keys would not. And every major update, I would add a new check that would instantly invalidate all previous keygenned keys. That's how serials are done.
And this is just pure fiction. Serials are done by simply having a DB of all sold units. They are not generated off of an algo. Adding new check every release does not strike me as a good or workable idea either, effectively you are releasing a game with less protection that you could have otherwise. Also all these extra check has to be designed before the first release anyway, which means that there will be a limited amount of them.
Dominions 3 only got really "pwned" when active development died off. At which point the developer likely didn't care anyway.
Again, no. It's not because development died off. It's because there was no clever extra checks. What you perceive as extra checks is simply checks for banned/leaked serials. Ones a proper keygen is released there is nothing else left to do, and this is not because of lack of care. You simply can't do much because you affect your legitimate customers otherwise.
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There is no practical difference between cracked and keygenned. If a game is keygenned it's as good as cracked. There is no reason to "crack further" although at this point it would be quite trivial.
The difference is a crack is copied over and works, usually just like that, copy over and it works. A keygen you have to go look for again and again if the developer is evil.. You don't seem to remember what I said on page 1 ;p Hassle for pirates EACH PATCH, reward for customers with EACH PATCH
You keep saying "they". Who? The crackers or the game designers? What point where they proving? Sorry, the meaning of the quote above remained a mystery to me.
The crackers, obviously. I was talking about the releases I linked to. Prime example on why you shouldn't quote like you did ;p (and why keith even had to laugh at that ;p)
And this is just pure fiction. Serials are done by simply having a DB of all sold units. They are not generated off of an algo. Adding new check every release does not strike me as a good or workable idea either, effectively you are releasing a game with less protection that you could have otherwise. Also all these extra check has to be designed before the first release anyway, which means that there will be a limited amount of them.
If you are a Indy developer who has no real thought put into serials, then yes. But let me just for giggles, tell you how I'd do serials. And believe me, a cracker would keygen my serial within minutes, that's the point. I want that, free PR.
Firstly, on release there would be only the basic algo check for the serial at game start.
Secondly, bought serials would pass this check, and about 20 other checks I would have planned beforehand that further weed out serials out of that algo. The serial to valid serial rate should be 2500k to 1 or better.
I generate valid serials and those go in a DB I give out to customers.
Thirdly, about 2 weeks after release I would implement the first of those 20 extra checks randomly in a patch, I would also have the patch do a 2nd check for the serial, so only a valid serial would pass the patch installation and even if the patch is keygenned the game would be have to keygenned a-new. That way, a legit serial would install the patch, but a cracker would never know the patch adds a different check than the game. Double protection means both patch and game have to be distributed = Hassle for pirates.
That means patch gets 1 of those 20 new checks, and game gets 1. Now 18 checks are left. Keygenners think there are only 2 extra checks. But if someone has the game and cracks the serial based on his legit patched copy he will not generate valid serials for the patch, only for the game.
I do this little game until its about a year after release, at which point I'd stop messing around with that ;) Repeat for each expansion, of course.
That is the VERY most BASIC serial protection mechanism. And it works. It delays pirates sufficiently. And a "working keygen" would not be working for long.
If you think my method is pure fiction you would be surprised that I am not the first to think of this. But maybe to first to mention it here specifically.
Edit: By the way, my serials would not activate on steam. I am not insane ;) For steam you can do steamworks ownership check, without serial.
Edit 2: By the way.. hehe ^^ There is no huge cost, if you develop a way to generate your serials it takes a good coder maybe an hour to come up with these extra checks, he would just need a proper database with generated serials based on algo without checks stored, and then adds rules that weed out enough serials so that you have about 50k or 100k serials that are valid, it takes longer to compute than to code that.
Edit 3: And by the way, obviously I would not tell that the serial is invalid when it's entered. Even the patch would just patch 1 bit different somehow and create a fatal crash situation with an obscure misleading error message. And this is fool proof, it can *not* fail for legitimate customers, ever.
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And this is just pure fiction. Serials are done by simply having a DB of all sold units. They are not generated off of an algo.
Actually, all ours are generated by an algorithm, and we send a big list of valid keys to each distributor (including our direct site, but never the same serial to more than one distributor) and hold some on the side for reviewers and such. But if we need more we just crank the algorithm more (not that we've needed to).
And the game uses the same algorithm to see if the "key" part of your proposed serial matches what the algorithm function outputs from that key. If it was just a big set of literal serials with no mathematical relationship I think we'd have to somehow encode all valid serials into the program or something silly like that, but I could be missing something.
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I know, I know. I probably misunderstood eRe4s3r. I thought he was contrasting keys (that can be keygenned) and un-gennable serials
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And since that is the case, you could easily develop a set of extra rules for the algo generated serials, by generating a database of maybe 20gb of serials the algo generates, then applying advanced math filters to it until you find a volume you like (500k or something). It would be a KISS system for making fool proof serials with some degree of keygen resistance (obviously not the algo itself). The more effort you would put into the your rules the more stages of possible security the serial has.
And you could still call it "no drm" by the way. ;p
might be worth to think about that for your next AI War Expansion
Edit. With keygen resistance I mean that you could invalidate previously valid key-genned serials. You could even send a batch of valid serials to steam, it doesn't really matter in this case. If all you want to do is curb keygens this simple system would already solve my main issue with the current way serials workin AVWW/AI WAR/TIDALIS
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So eRe4s3r, let's just rephrase what you are saying about 20 checks so instead of "mysterious" checks we talk about something concrete. Let's assume that the key you generate is actually consists of 20 individual keys. Say, you give it to a customer in form of a file, you can encode them, so they don't look like 20 keys but as one big key.
In your release you check only first of the 20 keys. And then a patch checks another one and the game after patch is checking yet another one. Am I following you so far?
In the case of this example, for each key you can actually use different generation algorythm if you have all the time in the world for designing these algos. The have to look sufficiently different so for a cracker activating each new one is a completely new endeavour, and not just changing a constant here or there. And you make it difficult to the point that there is too much trouble of doing a keygen, it's simpler to do a crack.
Heck, you don't even need complexity, to make your program "unkeygenable". This kind of protection has been invented many years ago. It's not really complicated and it works like this (you have to know what asymmetric cryptography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography) is all about) :
- Sign something you know (Customer's name or email) with your private key that no one knows and it's not integrated in your game so there is no way to find it out
- Give the signature to the customer as his key
- Let the game check the signature with the public key embedded into the game
Currently there is simply no way to keygen this type of keys. None.
So the cracker does the next best - he disables the checks in the game so it does not need the key. Fair enough.
And this leads us to where this discussion has started. You have to do an online check, and you have to keep the keys in the database on your server to do the check. It's the best you can do.
So you can say goodbye to the idea of protecting the game offline functionality. You can never make it efficient enough regardless of the schema you are using (to the point that it becomes more expensive you than you are gaining). But what you can do and what is not that difficult to pull off is to do proper checks for the online functionality. Like downloading patches.
And this all has nothing to do with Dominion 3, which was doomed to be cracked the day it was released. It does not do online checks. It was bound to be cracked once and for all.
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You are of course right with your whole post ;)
But to prevent that -1- keygen breaks your entire valid key arsenal with simple serials you simply need to add basic (and I do mean, most basic!) rules to your key list for which you planned ahead (and thus, your valid serials all follow these extended rules in addition to the algo). But you understood me correctly, the game does not check for these rules at first. And it never tells you if one of these checks failed. It also never checks for ALL of them at the same time. That would make it too easy ,p
And if you ask me, if someone has to crack your game with each patch because keygens become incredible annoying to keep up, you have succeeded in adding enough hassle for pirates. Most importantly, a keygen will never keygen valid keys (for steam etc.) if you do not release too much of your rule set as checks. You should keep 3 or 4 in backhand so that you seriously are the only person ever that can generate a fully 100% always valid serial. Yes, random luck will allow keygens to get that serial too, but the chance is very very small ,p
I mentioned Dominions 3 mainly because Dom3 patches do in fact check for serial and the keygens repeatable failed to actually work. As an example it serves well imo
The point of this exercise is not uncrackable or unkeygennable things. It is to delay, add hassle, and annoy pirates. The serial trickery I described is incredibly simply and already would be enough to literally protect all truly valid serials against keygens.
Yes cracks would still work, but each patch, needs it's own crack and at first the pirate wouldn't know about your planned obsoleteness of serials made by keygens ;) The point is to delay and add extreme hassle if pirates want to keep "in the loop" of support and service a game gets.
Personally, I think a proper online system is better. But a good "salted" serial algo is already enough to annoy pirates ;p
There are plenty of games whose patches are not cracked in a timely manner, and that adds time a pirate might want a feature of that patch, and decides to buy your game to skip all this hassle.
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You said you liked the idea of a "Proper online system." For the most part, I don't buy games that require me to be online for install/boot up. Steam (especially Steam sales) tend to be an exception, but outside of that, forget it. In fact, there is a publisher who has a game I really want, but, since their game requires you to be online and access their server on install, I won't buy it. I've talked to them about it, they won't budge on their system, and they've yet to receive a single cent from me. I'm far from the only person who feels this way about such systems.
As for the salted serial system, to me personally, I'm not convinced that it would be worth the extra work/planning involved. My biggest fear with such a system would be that what if when you added in one of your additional checks into a patch, and there was a bug either in your original algo or in your patch? Now the game is either unplayable or unpatchable. Either of these scenarios is bad bad bad bad bad, and, in my mind, is more than enough reason to avoid it as a developer, and would absolutely infuriate me as a paying customer. Also, this is really something you could get away with only once, since on your second game (or first expansion), the crackers would just go around the serial check anyway (knowing that you played these games in the past), then you're back pretty close to square one.
(Please note, I'm the low guy on the totem pole here. All views expressed in this post are mine and mine alone, and should in no way be construed as anything like an official position from Arcen :) )
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A heavily multipart asymmetric (non-keygen'able) serial that is checked many different places (in different ways) in the game code and causes delayed failure (though I don't think not-making-it-clear-it's-because-they-pirated-it is a good idea, because then there are tons of reports circulating that your game is unstable for unknown reasons, etc) could be a good start on making it really frustrating for pirates to crack. In fact, I think I could probably whip up something that would require them to actually decompile and spend days/weeks analyzing the program to fully crack, albeit it would take a lot of testing on my part before release to make sure I didn't have any false negatives in there.
But all that goes out the window on a single leaked serial. Then you can blacklist them from future updates, sure, but that means:
- you're having to stay vigilant on finding out about what serials have leaked; I could find the initial algorithmic and code tomfoolery to be entertaining from a "hobby" perspective but I loathe the idea of having to repeatedly update some blacklist
- the legitimate owner of that key (who may not have intentionally allowed it to leak) is blocked out
- the blacklist itself is probably a lot easier to "crack" out of the game than the original protection, unless every time you do a new patch you spend more time coming up with some very different way to obfuscate/check it (meaning more time for testing and/or potential false-negative bugs)
And so on.
In short: it does at least avoid the need for any kind of online-requirement at any stage, but the negatives still significantly outweigh the positives.
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- you're having to stay vigilant on finding out about what serials have leaked; I could find the initial algorithmic and code tomfoolery to be entertaining from a "hobby" perspective but I loathe the idea of having to repeatedly update some blacklist
You could crowd-source, but that is the only barely negative I can understand. It takes effort (who would have thought ;P)
- the legitimate owner of that key (who may not have intentionally allowed it to leak) is blocked out
there are no legitimate owners of keygenned keys and I never heard of a serial "accidentally" leaking.... if that really happens, you can *easily* check for proof of purchase, new serial, if it leaks again, life-time ban. Sorry, but if a customer is stupid enough to leak his serial twice he is too stupid to be allowed on the internet.
- the blacklist itself is probably a lot easier to "crack" out of the game than the original protection, unless every time you do a new patch you spend more time coming up with some very different way to obfuscate/check it
That is kind of the whole point of a serial system. You want to force pirates to crack the game. You do not want them to make a keygen that runs on javascript that completely pwns your entire protection for all eternity because you forgot basic security measures ;)
negatives still significantly outweigh the positives.
I don't see what is positive about the current situation of the protection. Unless you mean "it is not working at all to protect your game" is a positive ;)
If that is not the intention of the protection one wonders what is. If you only do it as gateway to unlock the demo you might be interested to know that this system is why I am so adamant opposing your stance of "it is good how it is"
Pirates can
1) Download the demo and patch it to latest version then
2) Download the keygen and unlock the game and all expansions with that (AI War)
You just paid the bandwidth a pirate used
Pirate paid nothing
Maybe I am bad at economics, but that doesn't seem smart to me ;)
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I don't see what is positive about the current situation of the protection. Unless you mean "it is not working at all to protect your game" is a positive ;)
If that is not the intention of the protection one wonders what is. If you only do it as gateway to unlock the demo you might be interested to know that this system is why I am so adamant opposing your stance of "it is good how it is"
Pirates can
1) Download the demo and patch it to latest version then
2) Download the keygen and unlock the game and all expansions with that (AI War)
You just paid the bandwidth a pirate used
Pirate paid nothing
Maybe I am bad at economics, but that doesn't seem smart to me ;)
Piracy costs us money, yes. But the cost of any of the other approaches I've seen would be higher, both in terms of money (due to staff time and whatnot) and in goodwill. That would probably somewhat reduce the cost in bandwidth and lost sales, but not enough by far.
The only purposes the current serial system serves is:
- Increase customer convenience (not having separate downloads/installs for the demo, the full-game, and the expansions).
- Improve potential-customer experience (demo always up to date with no additional ongoing time cost for us).
- Does those while still making it so that pirating the game requires a deliberate decision. It's not even protection, really, but it's better than "here's the full game with no protection at all, please remember to pay us if you like it" (most people would forget to, probably).
So protection is not the reason we have the serial check, because it is fundamentally impossible. Once someone has made the decision to pirate the game, there's nothing we can do to stop them. We could inconvenience them by also inconveniencing ourselves and our legitimate customers (to at least some extent), but honestly, that's not why I work here. If succeeding in this industry requires that degree of defending-yourself-from-selfish-people, I'd rather go back to my old job. There were some selfish people there too, but at least I got to deal with them personally, and there was accountability.
Thankfully, such self-defense is unnecessary :)
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Well, the more interesting statistics would be your demo downloads to purchase conversion rate ;) Because if you know that you could calculate how much potential piracy is in your bandwidth expenses (honestly, I am thinking about 50% to 75% is piracy traffic given that pirates also get beta updates and such for AI War) the price to do a better serial system would likely quickly become irrelevant. Especially because it is a 1-time only investment. Unlike your BW bill...
but ok ;) I won't continue this topic if the idea is to offer 0 protection against piracy. Because then we will never understand each other. To me not doing anything at all is promoting piracy, not just "not defending against it". The only reason that is not a massive issue right now is that popularity is not mainstream.. it would not hurt to plan ahead.
customer convenience
by the way, having to enter 4 separate serials I got in my email in different places and thus have to find separately is not convenient ;) Already there an account based (or steam workshop based) verification system would be superior for convenience...
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by the way, having to enter 4 separate serials I got in my email in different places and thus have to find separately is not convenient ;)
That is a fair point ;) It would be nice to have "bundle serials" that just let you do it all at once, or otherwise make that process easier, we just haven't thought of a good way to do that.
But even as-is it's better than having to rely on an external server to authenticate an account/pw pair. Granted, many including myself rely on their email server to keep serials, but that's a customer choice, not a developer mandate.
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To me, if a pirate would never pay for a given game then DRM doesn't matter. If the DRM was unbreakable, they just wouldn't play. But I don't get a sale out of it. Meanwhile, a paying customer can be lost if DRM annoys them. Even Arcen's serial key annoyed one of my friends due to the copy-pasta. He felt since he bought it on Steam, the keys should have been loaded automatically. So I don't want to annoy paying customers, and spending time to inconvenience never-paying pirates is a waste of money.
That leaves pirates who would actually buy the game. So either I pick the stick or the carrot. The stick is DRM that prevents them from playing enough they find they either need to buy the game or not play it. The carrot is a good game they want to support because of good quality, developer-customer activity, and potential future titles and expansions. The carrot is certainly the harder of the two, but it benefits even paying customers. So I can use a stick, which might get me some small percent of pirates, or I can use a carrot which again, might get me some small percent of pirates, but will also make my paying customers more loyal.
Obviously there is the combined approach, such as what Arcen uses: very small stick and a huge carrot. Personally, that seems the best use of resources and smartest way to grow a company. Interesting, think about this: who uses the stick? Big estabilished companies. Who picks the carrot? Small indies. A successful small indie can become a big company. In fact, has any indie that went for the stick approach ever grown into a large company? All the success stories I know of used the carrot approach until they became so big the suits stepped in and started beating everyone in the head with a stick hoping money would magically appear.
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but ok ;) I won't continue this topic if the idea is to offer 0 protection against piracy. Because then we will never understand each other. To me not doing anything at all is promoting piracy, not just "not defending against it". The only reason that is not a massive issue right now is that popularity is not mainstream.. it would not hurt to plan ahead.
If I read Keith right, it's not that he wants "0 protection" against piracy, it's that he realizes that there is very little Arcen can do against piracy. Whereas what you are suggesting is a way to frustrate pirates, not stop them completely.
So, Arcen can go ahead spend time trying to frustrate people who overwhelmingly are unlikely to buy the game in the first place, or they can spend time making their video games more fun.
For my part, I'm fine with how Arcen manages their serial system. I find it extremely convenient for me, and the fact that they trust me to police my own behavior as a conscientious person establishes a rapport that other publishers don't bother with.
And so not implementing a clever DRM system not only saves Arcen resources, but it also effortlessly cultivates a sense of loyalty in a certain kind of customer.
I'd argue that's worth more than the silly anti-piracy games you're suggesting.
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Eh..... :'(
I will just reply to your entire post with a link.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1543880
So yes, "silly" anti piracy games indeed ::)
For the record, I had it with this topic. If there is no intention to fix this issue, even though "we" just explained simple systems that the customer would not even notice to prevent it where the serial itself becomes a more secure system then there is no point to continue a repeating-argument-loop.
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The question now is, who would this DRM system frustrate more? The developers or the pirates? I'm just going to guess the devs.
I am most definitely of the opposite opinion that no-DRM encourages piracy. For me, it encourages me to buy legitimately. Whereas DRM has always encouraged me to pirate the game. It doesn't matter if it's Diablo's DRM, that Anno game, or even the one you suggested in this thread. Just having that DRM there will encourage me to pirate the game. Fortunately, I have a good amount of self control and respect for Devs not to.
I'd also like to point out the Humble Indie Bundles that we just had. All games had no DRM, and you can't tell me that at least one pirate didn't grab one for a $1 or $10 and put it up on the internets somewhere for everyone to take as they pleased. Yet the Latest Humble Bundle raised over 5 million dollars. That is an insane amount of money for a pay-as-you-want. Could DRM have created more sales? Not likely.
So I simply don't see how not having DRM encourages piracy. Yes, there are people who will pirate, and I'm unhappy that they do. But I think the focus needs to be less on the pirates and more on giving the most value to the people who will pay good money for games. For me, if I could, I would throw many dollar bills at Arce. But Ubisoft? Hah, they'll be lucky to see another cent from me due to their DRM schemes.
This is probably coming down to a discussion where we will have to agree to disagree. Heh.
King
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Eh..... :'(
I will just reply to your entire post with a link.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1543880
So yes, "silly" anti piracy games indeed ::)
It happens. But the guy can still play his games correct? Sure, not through steam, but he still can.
King
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http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1543880
So yes, "silly" anti piracy games indeed ::)
There's a very, very simple solution to that problem for future games: not offer the option of registering a non-steam key in steam. It's never been a guaranteed part of the product and the perception that it is has caused problems.
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I thought we are pro rewarding paying customers? ;P That would be punishing them for something pirates did.
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Too bad Steam registration of a key can't do an online, one-time verification of a key by matching the email address on the steam account to the email the distributor has on file for that key. Obviously easier sais than done.
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Too bad Steam registration of a key can't do an online, one-time verification of a key by matching the email address on the steam account to the email the distributor has on file for that key. Obviously easier sais than done.
Yea, that would require knowing which distributor that key was given to and that distributor being willing to set up a web service (or whatever) to verify that info, and Valve being willing to spend the time working with each such distributor. To me it's a surprise that they're willing to deal with external registration at all (though it does help encourage the "I want everything through steam" approach from customers, a very good thing for Valve), but expecting them to go a bunch of extra miles working with a bunch of other distributors to better facilitate providing services you didn't pay Valve for seems... yea :)
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For the record, I had it with this topic.
That's what superb customer service is about, keep entertaining your customers by answering their silly posts until they get bored, lose interest and stop on their own accord. This way they get the satisfaction of airing their thoughts, warm feeling that they got noticed and no one gets killed/banned in the process =) Well done, Arcen! ;)
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For the record, I had it with this topic.
That's what superb customer service is about, keep entertaining your customers by answering their silly posts until they get bored, lose interest and stop on their own accord. This way they get the satisfaction of airing their thoughts, warm feeling that they got noticed and no one gets killed/banned in the process =) Well done, Arcen! ;)
Thank you. There is nothing quite like the feeling of Heineken in your nose at two thirty in the morning. I needs me a woots smiley!
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My only interest in adding to this topic was to keep damage from Arcengames and from some customers on steam which is obviously not appreciated 8)
I was also kinda confused about the replies to Zespri's posts, maybe I should have gotten the hint that this topic would go south with everyone focusing on DRM, instead of how to prevent damage to Arcen the easiest and cheapest way possible.
Oh well ;p
Germany lost against Italy.. bah
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Germany lost against Italy.. bah
Agreed.
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http://indiegames.com/2012/08/piracy_is_a_fact_of_life_so_wh.html
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http://indiegames.com/2012/08/piracy_is_a_fact_of_life_so_wh.html
Haha, that is funny.
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If I was an Indie developer, that would be something I'd do.
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there are paying gamers and there are pirates. Pirates don't normally become paying gamers, and the people paying typically don't pirate
That's not actually true.
For instance, do you know why I was banned from the Steam forums?
Advocating Piracy.
Know how many games I have registered through Steam? Over 100.
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I noticed a discussion about keys and keygens and how you'd make a difficult to generate key system. My thought:
And then suddenly, a patch that bypasses keygen. Unless you mess with the code that the key validator and surrounding systems uses each patch, this "fixes" the problem entirely. And if you want to stop it you're stuck fiddling with a whole bunch of code every single patch...
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And then suddenly, a patch that bypasses keygen.
A lot of cracks work this way, but "removing" the key validation code.
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Ugh, i meant key validation :P But yeah.
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The discussion was about how to make a key where you can tell which is valid and which keygenned so that no keygen ever produced legit keys ;) Something that is with the current employed system not possible and indeed "by design"
And yes, it would be better if cracks were needed and would have to remade every single patch because then you would actually have something that protects your game. Instead of leaving the barn door not just wide open, but giving everyone who didn't pay a better service than those who paid. (in the sense of what is more hassle)
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The discussion was about how to make a key where you can tell which is valid and which keygenned so that no keygen ever produced legit keys ;) Something that is with the current employed system not possible and indeed "by design"
It's called a one-time pad, and they're a pony to produce.
Any sequence of pseudo-random numbers that is produced by a computer is possible to calculate twice. That's how Keygens work: they follow the same math with the same seed value.
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It is not only possible, but it is easily possible, as in you can do it in 10 minutes if you got perl installed.*
1) Generate list of 5 to 10 billion serials with your base algo.
2) Produce formula based checks until you are left with your target serial amount, optimally 20 or 30 extra checks that narrow the serial field down to 100k or 200k valid serials which pass ALL checks.
3) For first release, you do not check the serial at all except whether it fits the base algorithm (without extra checks)
4) First patch introduces 1 new extra check to the serial (the same check you used in 2)
x) repeat until you used all checks
5) Profit (pirates positively annoyed)
Bonus points: You introduce degrading gameplay if a serial passed step 3 but not step 4, because there is no chance a typo could end up actually validating at all.
Your goal is not a protection that lasts for eternity, it only needs to last for the product cycle of highest patch rate and interest.
So you see, this is why I am kinda stumped as to the replies, even if you go not for the full length here, even marginal effort produces 90% secure serials. The 10% are when bought serials are spread, for that only blacklisting in the patcher works (which if you are pirate, means now you have to download cracked patches, which are a lot rarer). And yes, i don't give a damn (sorry) about people who got their serial stolen or gave it away. Those only got themselves to blame, but if they have legitimate proof of purchase you can give them a new serial, if it leaks again you know who leaks your game ;p
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So....if this is so great, why aren't more people/companies using it?
I'm expecting the other thing on your foot to drop is why I ask :P
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If done right you would never know others are doing it. I can tell you most do not allow steam registrations of serials though so they don't need serials or use them just as a local annoyance ;p
But If I am evil and I'd say honestly, I'd say it's likely because developers don't think about this long enough to reach this point of thought. If you intend to make piracy mildly hard this is the easiest way there is. (And of course, it depends on whether you see a point in this or not to begin with). There is no real proof pirates that are annoyed by constant downloading patches have a trickle down to become a customer effect. But I would say any pirate who buys your game at some point, is a good pirate... you needn't make it so easy that they never think about it.
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I'd say it's because it started with only one developer, and he made a decision early on about not only the cycles that it would take to implement DRM, but also how he feels about DRM and how his customers probably feel about it. I'd say that he thought about DRM quite a bit, he just didn't get stuck on the implementation part of it.
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So you see, this is why I am kinda stumped as to the replies, even if you go not for the full length here, even marginal effort produces 90% secure serials. The 10% are when bought serials are spread, for that only blacklisting in the patcher works (which if you are pirate, means now you have to download cracked patches, which are a lot rarer). And yes, i don't give a damn (sorry) about people who got their serial stolen or gave it away. Those only got themselves to blame, but if they have legitimate proof of purchase you can give them a new serial, if it leaks again you know who leaks your game ;p
And then it's all pointless effort as someone just bypasses the key validation code...
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The original context of his suggestion was to force pirates to do that, instead of just keygen codes. Because 1) less people will download a hack to the executable that needs to be at minimum reapplied each patch, assuming it even works in the new patch, and 2) so keygen'd keys don't get created and registered on sites like Steam blocking the access of the customer who legitimately purchases that key at some later date.
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Pretty much what Hearteater said. :D
If they bypass the key code (which I have quite honestly, rarely seen done) then the system worked. They don't even go for legit serials but for bypassing them. And then, pirates can't register their serial, pirates can't get updates if it checks for serial AND Pirates don't drain your bandwidth..
Pirates still can get updates as warez, and this is not something we want to avoid. Because pirates who would go to that length are not gonna buy your game no matter what. I know for a fact that the only kind of release indy game patches get is very very delayed ALL-in-ONE installs (pre-patched and pre-cracked and all). But often weeks or months after the release of a patch
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One of the things I respect the most about Arcen is that their games are DRM free. I agree with Keith that Pirates are people who don't buy games regardless.
I mean look at Blizzard's recent policies as a great example. Diablo 3 was the MOST pre-ordered single-player game EVER in Amazon. There were already millions of people who were ready to buy the game even before launch. Yet Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to make it online-only, have no support for modding, offline, or LAN play, and look how that turned out? It became their most hated game ever - it forever tarnished the company's near-perfect reputation. And 3 months later? It's a ghost town.
Was it worth it? They probably ended up losing more customers in the end. Accounts got hacked, people were outraged, and Blizzard went through all that trouble for nothing. What has it really accomplished?
The 5 CD-Keys required to play AI War are already a hassle enough. I bought 4 copies of the game and all expansions so that my friends could always play with me, and everytime they install or reinstall the game, it's always a huge hassle giving them all the download links, then finding all the cd keys, then inputting them correctly into the boxes (if you copy-paste them twice, it says invalid key, but it looks like you just pasted it once), then making sure we're all on the same version etc.
It doesn't sound like much, but when you've got 3 or 4 people playing with you, it can turn into an hour or more ordeal getting it all sorted out. To put online DRM on top of that would probably make a lot of people just ignore the game completely, and rightly so.
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I'm with Wingflier. DRM's not necessarily a dealbreaker for me, but it quickly becomes a huge pain. I don't want to have to sign in to the internet to play my games. In fact, as it stands, probably the only games I can play whenever I want to are Starcraft, AI War, AVWW, and Doom. Half of those are by Arcen and the other half are a million years old. So, if my internet's down for a day, you know who I'm going with, aye?
That does happen, as well. My internet's not the most reliable thing in the world... so when a game kicks me out because I was disconnected, or doesn't let me play when I can't get a fast enough connection, it just adds a little bit to the irritation factor. It also means I have to spend more time on console games which, at least for now, don't require me to be online to start em up.
It bugs me beyond belief when people (not people here) go and say "Well just get yourself better internet." We actually can't, and a lot of people can't. Online only stuff is inexcusable outside of the actual persistent-world MMO sorts of games.
...Basically what I'm saying is I don't want to lose half my library if Arcen went off the wall crazy with DRM. Any other alternative DRM is fine if it does not interfere with my playing of the game. If it means I have to verify even once a day, it's not worth it. Even Steam's annoying because of that.
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I mean look at Blizzard's recent policies as a great example. Diablo 3 was the MOST pre-ordered single-player game EVER in Amazon. There were already millions of people who were ready to buy the game even before launch. Yet Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to make it online-only, have no support for modding, offline, or LAN play, and look how that turned out? It became their most hated game ever - it forever tarnished the company's near-perfect reputation. And 3 months later? It's a ghost town.
Was it worth it? They probably ended up losing more customers in the end. Accounts got hacked, people were outraged, and Blizzard went through all that trouble for nothing. What has it really accomplished?
I have no particular affection for Blizzard or their products, but I'm pretty sure you are greatly exaggerating the truth here.
- I don't know if there are any actual numbers to support whether D3 is their 'most hated game ever,' but I'd be willing to counter with an equally imaginary and probably equally true assertion that many of the 'haters' not only ponied up the cash for the game anyway, but also played the heck out of it and still do.
- With regard to their reputation, it probably only tarnished it in the eyes of the folks in the category described above, and these same folks probably also still bought and played the game, and probably will buy the next Blizzard game, grumbling all the way. When it comes to video games, loudmouthed naysayers will pretty often put their money where their mouth is... only long enough to preorder the game.
- I'll assume that the 'ghost town' you're referring to is the co-op form of play :) Because their actual 'dudes playing Diablo' metric is probably still really high.
- What has it accomplished? Alienating a few gamers, while confirming that locking down the controls Apple-style still rakes in the bucks.
Really, the polar opposite of the quiet, snickering pirate who never pays for anything is the bellowing franchise goon who always pays for everything.
My position: if it has DRM, I won't buy it unless it's super cheap and on Steam. If it's a really good game that I might want to play a second time, I'll just wait for a non-DRM version to come out. I'm a patient guy. I don't pay for subscriptions.
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@Doctorfrog. I raised quite a bit of hell over the game and yeah, it tarnished Blizzard's rep for me. I was thinking about getting Diablo 3, but when I heard about the DRM and Auction House, I decided other games deserved my time and money and never touched it. Diablo 3 is also making me reconsider getting Heart of the Swarm expansion when it comes out later. While I agree that those who were "hating" on it probably went and bought it, I'm sure the amount of people that didn't buy it isn't insignificant.
Blizzard also confirmed there are very few players playing the co-op experience compared to those playing by themselves.
While Diablo 3 certainly didn't mortally wound the company, if Blizzard continues to use these practices, they'll eventually find themselves without fans. Which seems like a strange tactic to use right now when WoW's population is falling at a rather rapid rate. You don't bring in new players by pissing them off.
Just saying.
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I didn't buy D3 because of the DRM.
But I think they'll be able to stay viable and even growing even with those antics because most people don't care as long as they get their fun. The shenanigans do get in the way of the fun, but not enough in the common case to jeopardize the business model.
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While I can't deny that DRM, the auction house and everything those things imply made D3 much worse, I still feel like I've got my money's worth from that game, so I can't just put Blizzard in the same no-buy boat where EA and Ubisoft are hanging out for me :D Though I'm probably not buying HotS anyway since I was only interested in multiplayer and I don't think I want to ladder anymore. It's been a fun 6 months with Wings of Liberty, though, for sure. :)
I don't have as much of a problem with always-online personally, since I have pretty stable internet and there's always AI War to back me up :D, but if the DRM is actively annoying (ubi/EA) or makes the game itself worse (D3 got close, and I'm sure went over the line for many people, for this same reason I dislike F2P, since in both cases the company's concern for its wallet gets in the way of gameplay) then count me out. There's not enough time to play all the games anyway, might as well choose those that don't punish you for it :)
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Wow I give up on humanity in this forum.. at no point since page 1 are we talking about online DRM, or always on, or auction houses. In fact, if we take the topic literal neither is OP, he merely wanted to prevent patches to be downloaded by pirates and then used on an illegal game or for other online functions. Which costs Arcengames actual money.
This topic is about how Arcengames serials are insecure because a flat algorithm with no salt and no security added beyond that. How the patches and lobby doesn't check serial validity (or well, can't actually, because the serials do not allow it) and thus all warez copies can always update and how pirates have it even easier than customers because they have a keygen that patches their game and doesn't even require entering serials.
If the serials were even barely secure, we could unify expansion serials into 1 to make it not such a hassle. If you have all 5 expansions x4000 could even merge the 5 serials to make a unique "unlocks all up to this point" serial. But he can't. Because the serial system is not advanced enough for it.
So in a sense, the lack of proper serial security adds to our hassle (I am no fan of 4 serials to be entered either).
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at no point since page 1 are we talking about online DRM
Welcome to Arcen Games forum, and where the heck have you been for the last 3 years? :P
I was responding in general to why all this serial number generation mess was kinda pointless. In fact, I helped edit together a comprehensive list of why DRM on anything you install to a computer is flawed (http://superuser.com/a/14764/2130). The only way to implement effective DRM is to make core parts of your application function on remote servers so it's (mostly) pointless to try and crack the client. There's still an uphill battle figuring out which clients are hacked and not, but you limit the damage pirates can do. It's just kinda messy and not very achievable by anyone that's a small company.
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Yaarrrrrrrrrrr...
No, please read my post before yours again, and again, and again. Until you understand what I (and 7 pages of topic) am talking about. I am talking about how the current serial-based DRM is broken it is completely irrelevant why DRM sucks or why it doesn't suck. The current one for AI War is BROKEN.
It does not protect the product or its services. It adds hassle to customers, it gives 0 hassle to pirates. It rewards piracy and punishes customers. and We, the customers, pay for the downloads of pirates.
You add checks to your patches because you do not want pirates to download patches from your servers! Bandwidth costs money. Not fighting this kind of piracy related issue is not just ignoring piracy but supporting it. And small or large issue we can not really quantify yet, because so far Arcengames has not said what the average patch download numbers vs sold copies statistics are ;) Or what the demo conversion to sale stats are. All which would be Interesting to see whether piracy actually is a factor or not. Now granted, I am just speculating on the severity, but I can't believe it is not noticeable. Particularly if you have a time-line and can check the availability of the keygen for an expansion vs the availability of the expansion. And see whether demo conversion rates take a noticeable dive there.
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Okay.
What you're asking for is that the server makes sure you only are the one with your CD Key... and if you pass that check you can download the patch? If that would not break things for me, who keeps AI War with my keys on multiple systems fully updated, fine. I agree. If it would cause problems that simple, then I disagree. 'cause I mean, you can just register the same key to any computer you want and download patches all you like. That wouldn't help, because then all pirates need is one CD key, and they can download everything forever. If you limit it to one patch per consumer or something, you hurt people like me.
Am I understanding you about right? I want to at least try.
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No... no, and no.. ;p
Patch checks on install for serial integrity. If no serial is there, it adds the current up-to-date serial check addition to the serial as well as the blacklist for leaked serials.
If you enter a serial in-game, it does not tell you whether it passes all checks, it only tells you it is valid (ie passes the base algo). This means a pirate can download the demo but for each new version of the game he patches with, a key-genned serial would become invalid.
To you, as gamer who didn't read the topic at all *cough* This would be entirely transparent. If you have a legit serial new patches would add checks further confirming it's validity but besides that, you wouldn't even know something was happening. Unless you pirated the game, in which case a patch now puts your game back into demo mode after 3 hours have passed...
So to re-iterate. To proper protect the game, all that's needed is to make sure that
1) Serial has additional checks
2) Game confirms algo match but not validity of the serial with checks. Only valid serial remains valid after 3 hours of play, checked at a random time in-game (somewhere between those 3 hours)
This is not supposed to fail-safe but a way to prevent such easy piracy where it is harder to find the arcengames website than the serial you need to enter to illegally play the game.
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But what keeps a pirate from just using a legit key and getting in anyway? That's what I don't understand. I mean yeah, it won't affect me, but if someone had access to the basic algorhythm and happened to generate my key and use it before my most recent install of the software, what would happen? Or, what if all pirates just shared the same legit key in the first place aside from just not being able to play together? They'd still get the full version of the game, would they not?
Because like... if it's not actually worth the effort, I wouldn't want the developers to waste the time on it anyway. Ultimately it'd have to either save them a lot of money or earn them a lot of money relative to the opportunity cost.
Oh... and I did kinda read the thread, but everybody seems to have been talking about everything in their own way of understanding it. I found the whole process not particularly easy to understand so I still need yet more clarification. Sorry about that.
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Yaarrrrrrrrrrr...
No, please read my post before yours again, and again, and again. Until you understand what I (and 7 pages of topic) am talking about. I am talking about how the current serial-based DRM is broken it is completely irrelevant why DRM sucks or why it doesn't suck. The current one for AI War is BROKEN.
It does not protect the product or its services. It adds hassle to customers, it gives 0 hassle to pirates. It rewards piracy and punishes customers. and We, the customers, pay for the downloads of pirates.
You add checks to your patches because you do not want pirates to download patches from your servers! Bandwidth costs money. Not fighting this kind of piracy related issue is not just ignoring piracy but supporting it. And small or large issue we can not really quantify yet, because so far Arcengames has not said what the average patch download numbers vs sold copies statistics are ;) Or what the demo conversion to sale stats are. All which would be Interesting to see whether piracy actually is a factor or not. Now granted, I am just speculating on the severity, but I can't believe it is not noticeable. Particularly if you have a time-line and can check the availability of the keygen for an expansion vs the availability of the expansion. And see whether demo conversion rates take a noticeable dive there.
And I'm saying it'e entirely pointless to add in any form of DRM on all-client-side games because pirates can and will crack it, then distribute the cracked game/patch/keygen/whatever. Remember Spore? Absolutely horrible DRM, pretty sure it was cracked and heavily pirated quickly, almost all of the legitimate users bailed for other games or to pirate it.
The beginning and end of it is that DRM isn't anywhere near the effectiveness needed for the cost investment, and the more unreasonable you make it the less legit sales you have. Thinking about a "better lock" is pointless when the bad guys can just cut a hole in the door or smash in a window and get in that way.
Serials are there currently to make and offer a distinction between a demo and a non-demo without having to distribute a bunch of different executables and junk, also secondarily to act as the "locked doors" bit of casual security that would prevent people from just grabbing copies without thinking. That's all. I'm not saying there couldn't be a nicer-for-the-paying-customers system, but...
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@ LaughingThesaurus
Firstly, leaked valid keys could be blacklisted by each new patch within the patch itself (finding them is as easy as using google.. ,p)
Secondly, the basic algorithm is just a ploy, a red herring. The real serial check would include about 30 additional formula based checks to validate a key as valid. Pirates could certainly get working keys for each version, and even make keygens, but they could never tell the difference until the first patch and after the next patch etc.
These additional checks can be stacked on to of each other, so that you simply add a new serial formula check to your already existing algo based check. All the valid keys would be generated with all those checks taken into account. But as you can easily blacklist serials with each new patch pirates would still not be able to play a fully patched full version of the game.
Yes, they can stay at old versions, and we don't mind that. We simply wish that pirates can not simply keep up-to-date and have better service than customers without some serious hassle of finding a new working keygen or serial. Also if people leak serials we now know who they are, because valid serial -> purchase ;)
and I'm saying it'e entirely pointless to add in any form of DRM on all-client-side games because pirates can and will crack it
Currently they do not have to even do that. Which is too little in my oppinion ;P
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And your opinion alone.
For someone who just asked someone else to re-read several of your posts, you are ignoring the posts of other people who do not want, and do not believe in, the efficacy of the DRM schemes you are arguing for.
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In fairness to eRe4s3r, I do think he's figured out a scheme that would make it a royal pain in the behind to pirate the game, solely due to the fact that we update the game so often and thus can put the screws to someone trying to stay up-to-date without a valid key.
He's just frustrated because we don't want to do it ;)
The main reason I don't want to is that between code modifications, proper testing (which would be quite mandatory; it's one thing for a beta release to have a crash bug, it's another for it to have a bug that causes a legitimate customer to be treated like a pirate), and vigilance to catch and block leaked keys, it would occupy at least half the time I normally have available for AIW updates, and I'm not willing to sacrifice half of the value added by that time in order to make the game hard to pirate.
There are other reasons the whole idea doesn't appeal to me, but that's the clincher: whatever extra value the system would contribute to legitimate customers would be more than offset by the value lost in time unavailable for actual improvement of the game.
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So as I understand it, pirates wouldn't be able to patch, assuming this is completely foolproof.
Then the question becomes, is it just your opinion that this would be a great idea? If it would take a lot of time or money to get a system like this working, to the point that it's not worth it, it should not be done. That is a plain fact. Obviously, a waste of time and money is not by any means good. But, beyond that, nothing is ever foolproof, and if any legit user is wrongly perceived as a pirate and can no longer update, you bet that will cause negative feelings for Arcen and at least one lost customer... but thank God they made pirates slow down slightly.
I totally admit I don't know enough to know whether it's actually worth it, but I know that I wouldn't go through the hassle, and I certainly doubt that it would actually be worth the money spent. I don't agree. Maybe, if updates were given through steam or something, but even then I like my offline access to these games.
Oh, and on blacklisting every individual key... that's another thing, you're talking a long list of potential keys to have to blacklist. It comes back to what if this affects a legit customer? How many hours are spent to blacklist all of the keys? It's not just a magic fingersnap all the keys are blocked. Every thing that has to be done costs money because it costs an employee's time.
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every key blacklisted is a key pirates had to purchase before.. so, i am not exactly sure how "lots of keys to blacklist" is an issue.. in fact, that'd be the sales pitch. Every key blacklisted is a sale and if finding keys is an issue.. well I heard you have loyal customers who'd probably do it for you. ;p
Also most serials leaked are -1- serial. Pirates gotta buy games to get serials... so that'd hardly be a "million serials" to blacklist. Unless you are like super successful and make a billion sales, at which point.. get rid of DRM!
For someone who just asked someone else to re-read several of your posts, you are ignoring the posts of other people who do not want, and do not believe in, the efficacy of the DRM schemes you are arguing for.
Because those people have no clue about piracy or how pirates think. When I read a claim like that "pirates never buy games anyway" I cringed so badly my face stretched to the moon and back. If you further make a statement like "pirates are not our customers anyway" you can already end your existence in the market. Because those pirates who are reading that, they are 100% not gonna buy anything by you after such a statement, ever. (And with you I am talking about no one in particular). But pirates ARE part of your customer base, pirates CAN be seduced into buying, either when a sale comes and the hassle of keeping up-to-date pushes them to an impulse buy or properly because they are simply annoyed they have to mess around with a game constantly just to play it properly but for free.
@ keith.. well I wouldn't do it quite that hardcore..
you can outsource finding leaked keys to your vigilant gamers and secondly, beta patches would be excluded from adding key-check stuffs. So you are really looking at a first setup and then you could let it sleep until the first real final non-beta patch in the series. That would be even better because pirates sure as hell won't be wanting to stay on a beta patch if they are downloading your beta patches and participate.. just saying ;)
Anyway, keith ye got the point unlike many here which is really quite bedazzling. And I get why you are not doing it, because it can't be done retroactively... but that's no reason to say it's too much work. You would only have to do this work ONCE. Whether you use the checks at some point or not, hell you could throw dices to decide when to implement another one of the validate checks. There could be no false positives because all serials given out would already PASS all checks, you simply are not checking for them until a certain point in time ;p
The system I described is the *best* serial based anti-piracy system there is. There is no better. So there is really no point in saying "it costs money" .. because I can guarantee you, this system would make you money. Whether it would offset implementation costs.. I do not know. Because I have no stats ;p But if done right, you could keep your game for 2 or 3 years so annoying to pirate that you WILL get sales ;P
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Ereaser, I think you're missing the point.
You still haven't convinced anybody that DOING all this work will actually save Arcen money in the first place. The effectiveness of DRM is...controversial at best. MANY indie games do just fine without DRM, even some mainstream games keep it to a minimum. If you can find some conclusive evidence that shows that online DRM increases sales, then maybe all of this would be worth considering.
However, I personally would not look too fondly upon Arcen if they resorted to something like this. For example, one of the biggest selling points of the Humble Indie Bundle series is that all the games are DRM free. I hesitate to believe it would be as successful as it is, if it were the Conceded Indie Bundle :P
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I can guarantee you, this system would make you money. Whether it would offset implementation costs.. I do not know. Because I have no stats ;p But if done right, you could keep your game for 2 or 3 years so annoying to pirate that you WILL get sales ;P
This is exactly the point I've been trying to make though. If it does not make enough money to offset the costs, no matter how cool it is, it will not be worth it. When running a company, you have to look for things that are a tangible benefit for the company. All of these updates and stuff, for instance. If you've read the blogs, you know that constant updates and expansions give you more material with which to market your product. Yeah, we all love the content too, but it helps them out by making their product more appealing. If this DRM did not make them profit, and did not help them market their games, it actually does nothing for them, even if it would deter pirates.
As cool of an idea it is to bring pirates to justice... you have to think it might just not be worth it from a business standpoint. This would have to, to my knowledge, not only bring in more money than it costs, but it would have to be more appealing than the ability to make the game more appealing by making it bigger, shinier, and more content-packed.
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@Wingflier
Yeah, except you said it again.. online DRM.. how is a serial like this online? And how is a broken serial DRM better than an actually working serial DRM ? Maybe ye need to convince me. ;)
To quote myself
at no point since page 1 are we talking about online DRM
And yes @ LaughingThesaurus
There would be a initial development needed. But I think you vastly over-estimate the effort needed to do this. IN fact 1 day or less is what I'd put down as time needed to fully implement a barebone 5 extra check validation solution. Already that would be enough to protect a game for 5 or 6 major patches...
If you still think this is about "deterring" pirates.. well..
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The system I described is the *best* serial based anti-piracy system there is. There is no better. So there is really no point in saying "it costs money" .. because I can guarantee you, this system would make you money. Whether it would offset implementation costs.. I do not know. Because I have no stats ;p But if done right, you could keep your game for 2 or 3 years so annoying to pirate that you WILL get sales ;P
Do you have actual evidence/facts to back this claim up? And saying pirates will get annoyed (and hence will buy it) is not enough.
On another note. I would not rely on my customer base to scan google/yahoo/whatever search engine all the time to make sure those pirated keys got banned. That's a lot of time to devote to such a thing. Maybe this is just me, but I have a hard time believing all that many people would volunteer to scan for pirated keys. Maybe at first they would, but I have little doubt exhaustion would set in and people would give it up.
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I can only talk about my own view on this and unless you were willing to test it somehow and knew a way where a statistical relevant test could be made I would help. Obviously a true 1:1 test would be impossible as we can not test with 2 identical games that have 2 identical target groups and release at the same time to the same stores.... ;)
All it would take to quantify it however, was if Keith or x4000 look in their stats how demo adoption rates vs update download numbers for Tidalis changed after 4th December 2010 (when the keygen was released for that) or how AVWW sales changed (if at all) after 23rd April 2012, which is when the AVWW keygen released. However I have the looming feeling there are no statistics for this because non were kept or properly collected and collated. (Which would be a huge mistake but for an Indy I don't expect this to be a priority)
And by the way, it took me less time to find the exact dates of these releases than to type the post.. so excuse me while I had to giggle at your notion that there is a "exhaustion" that could set in ;) Pirate releases for niche games are VERY rare and small scope in spread and often don't spread far beyond the file hoster share hubs.
The only way I could back my claim up is from my own viewpoint so no.. unless you invent a time travel machine you are just gonna assume that pirates are gamers who not just pirate but also buy games. Because if they weren't they wouldn't be pirating yo games, piracy for established pirates is EASIER than buying games, FAR easier. Only very few have the patience to wait out a 2 or 3 week wait for a new working keygen or leaked serial. Especially when there are sales on Steam or GMG in between. But how would I prove that?
Point being, that is not what I am willing to argue about. Because it'd be pointless. I just know that developers who berate pirates as "not being our customers anyway" have found to regret this very quickly. Because it is wrong. I can guarantee you pirates are reading this and laughing their backsides off. I am ok with that, and hey, if Arcengames doesn't do anything against piracy then I have a hard time condemning pirates for pirating. It is so easy that it is more hassle to buy games than to pirate them, and at that point morals are the only thing in the way.. and not for long.
Or you know, you could just read stuff like this which is, i thought, common knowledge by now...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110727/16233815292/another-day-another-study-that-says-pirates-are-best-customers-this-time-hadopi.shtml
Nevertheless. A better secured serial system is mainly to annoy, not to protect your game against any serious attempt to crack it. And I don't content this. If that is not a viable thing to spend dev time with that's OK. Yet that people are against this mild improvement of serial security is dazzling to me, because I don't understand it.
If you don't believe my opinion on this to be something you take serious that is ok too. After all, i can hardly legally proof that I have a clue about what I am talking about. Apart from the fact that I do have a clue how to code a secure serial check system that has a bit more security, at least in theory. ;) And keith surely will agree that the system described is sound and if done right, transparent. (You would never know it's there). And that alone should imo tell you that I know what I am talking about. That said, I understand when a developer does not want to go that far (which is not really far at all, but for some it may be..).
The reason I am even beating this dead horse is that I am 90% sure that because all games got keygenned with valid steam reggable serials this has pissed Steam off very badly and now they give us the stick with AVWW and registering serials. I am not buying that they are "busy".. previously this was happening within a week.
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1. I just know that developers who berate pirates as "not being our customers anyway" have found to regret this very quickly. Because it is wrong. I can guarantee you pirates are reading this and laughing their backsides off.
2. Or you know, you could just read stuff like this which is, i thought, common knowledge by now...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110727/16233815292/another-day-another-study-that-says-pirates-are-best-customers-this-time-hadopi.shtml
1. Do you have any blog posts, articles, or anything from a developer expressing such a regret after berating pirates?
2. If I'm not mistaken, this article concerns big-name content associated with movies, music, and television, as do the other reports that the article links to. I'm not a media industry expert, nor do I have statistics at the ready, but I'd be willing to bet that just as the culture surrounding games is different from that surrounding "big content," the culture surrounding independent games differs still more from AAA title games. And thus the behavior of the indie game pirate cannot be judged the same way as someone who is trying to complete his collection of out-of-print Miles Davis recordings, or the 13-y/o girl downloading a Justin Beiber single.
Setting aside the implementation costs of what you suggest, the evidence that there is a piracy conversion rate anywhere near what you assume there to be remains extremely thin... and it still isn't worth potentially aggravating good customers for it.
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It is my personal opinion, based on what I know of the environment in game development, take it or ignore it, based on your stance on my opinion, I am guessing the latter is the case. Just as I am not gonna say who uses this serial system... would be kinda defeating the purpose, if you know about it the developer did something wrong. ;)
Setting aside the implementation costs of what you suggest, the evidence that there is a piracy conversion rate anywhere near what you assume there to be remains extremely thin... and it still isn't worth potentially aggravating good customers for it.
You still have not actually explained how a transparent serial protection would be "aggravating good customers". Maybe if you did that, we would not be writing in circles. Because I don't understand it. To me, doing nothing is worse than doing something that no customer would notice.
Apart from implementation "cost" although I highly doubt it would be much, considering the skill of Arcen's coders.
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It is my personal opinion, based on what I know of the environment in game development, take it or ignore it, based on your stance on my opinion, I am guessing the latter is the case. Just as I am not gonna say who uses this serial system... would be kinda defeating the purpose, if you know about it the developer did something wrong. ;)
Setting aside the implementation costs of what you suggest, the evidence that there is a piracy conversion rate anywhere near what you assume there to be remains extremely thin... and it still isn't worth potentially aggravating good customers for it.
You still have not actually explained how a transparent serial protection would be "aggravating good customers". Maybe if you did that, we would not be writing in circles. Because I don't understand it. To me, doing nothing is worse than doing something that no customer would notice.
Apart from implementation "cost" although I highly doubt it would be much, considering the skill of Arcen's coders.
I guess that would be the thing to answer. Would this system be 100% completely foolproof, that in no way someone who legitimately bought a copy would be affected by this piece of software. If that is indeed so, then I haven't got a problem with it then. But I'm guessing based on Keith's comments that it is not so. That's just a guess though. And if there is something we know about software, it is often times buggy and prone to problems. Adding to that potential of those problems is probably not in Arcen's best interests, regardless of how good their coders are.
I do get your thoughts, that not putting in a form of DRM/protection is worse than putting one in. I don't agree with it though.
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1. It is my personal opinion, based on what I know of the environment in game development, take it or ignore it, based on your stance on my opinion, I am guessing the latter is the case. Just as I am not gonna say who uses this serial system... would be kinda defeating the purpose, if you know about it the developer did something wrong. ;)
2. You still have not actually explained how a transparent serial protection would be "aggravating good customers". Maybe if you did that, we would not be writing in circles. Because I don't understand it. To me, doing nothing is worse than doing something that no customer would notice.
1. So you have no factual basis for saying this, in spite of claiming you knew of some developers who very quickly regretted dismissing pirates as non-paying customers.
2. Actually, I said "potentially aggravating good customers," which would occur if something went wrong with the system, or if good customers were turned off by even a benign form of DRM.
And the existence and success of Arcen Games, GOG, the Humble Bundles, and other indie efforts that deliberately eliminate DRM are sufficient proof that there is a demand for games that have no DRM of any kind. It's a selling point. People are attracted to it. I don't have to prove the negative.
That was secondary to the criticism of that point, which is that there is no evidence that sufficient pirates would be converted into customers to make your anti-DRM scheme, no matter how ingenious it may be, worth implementing.
Instead, there is evidence in this very thread that people were wooed by Arcen's stance against DRM, as it was a talking point in the early days of AI War's release, and also clearly a draw for some of the people here.
Finally, you are confusing "not implementing DRM" with "doing nothing about piracy." Using DRM is one way to combat piracy. Trusting your customers is not "doing nothing," it is fostering an environment of trust that some people appreciate (myself included). Offering a free unlockable demo is making the game more easily and safely available to potential customers, which for some is more attractive than going the grayer route of piracy. Explicitly stating your anti-DRM stance in press materials and interviews, as Chris has done, is actually anti-piracy, because it's saying something that a lot of other companies are not: it's saying, "I'm not treating you like a potential pirate." In short, being pro-consumer is a form of anti-piracy.
You keep saying that the current system is "bad," and that it "does nothing," but you are simply ignoring alternative strategies that have actually had a lot of thought put into them.
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Trusting your customers is not "doing nothing," it is fostering an environment of trust that some people appreciate (myself included).
It isn't so much a matter of trust as respect. I don't actually trust the average stranger very far (I trust the average person on these forums a lot more, but they're almost all already our customers, not strangers), but I do respect that if they actually are giving me money for a product I should really avoid anything that could actively reduce or prevent their enjoyment of the product. Just courtesy, and common-sense when trying to sell something.
The current license key system is actually more annoying to the customer than I want it to be, due to the 5-key nature of installing a copy of AIW and all the expansions now. I'm not sure what else could be done at this stage; I could write something where you could paste in all 5 keys back-to-back but that's not how steam gives it to you in the copy-paste window so it wouldn't really help the common user.
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there is evidence in this very thread that people were wooed by Arcen's stance against DRM
No, the only evidence this thread offers is that most people can not read nor comprehend what DRM even is or what DRM is already in place, or why a better DRM would be less intrusive. Because a serial is DRM, 5 serials in 5 emails is sodding annoying DRM. And the described system could fix that too**However not as easily.
So you have no factual basis for saying this, in spite of claiming you knew of some developers who very quickly regretted dismissing pirates as non-paying customers
True. But why should I... I am hoping keith replies with update download numbers vs sales in a specific time-frame of the dates I listed. Unless you think I have a way to get interna on developers what I am saying is conjecture based on my own experience and observations.
Finally, you are confusing "not implementing DRM" with "doing nothing about piracy."
No I am calling a keygen that generates Steam reggable keys that's out for 2 years as "doing nothing about piracy". I am calling when that happens 5 times in a row "doing nothing about piracy" and I am calling not doing anything to prevent it in a future game "not doing anything about piracy" ;)
You are obviously happy this is the case... I am not.
However, I see that there is no point to argue for an improvement of this serial system. I have about my fill of giving suggestions how to fix it. If you believe it needn't fixing, well... then I am even more bedazzled than before.
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I've never said anything about whether the current system needs fixing, only that your solution has issues that you refuse to see... maybe because you are bedazzled? And then you condescend to other folks in here because they don't see things the way you do.
As for my 'happiness,' I'm pretty thrilled with Arcen's stance on DRM, even if the implementation needs work. And the work it needs may or may not have anything to do with your ideas, or mine, even. But you don't have the One True Answer, and there are alternatives out there that you mark as 'bad' or 'wrong,' as though that is the end of it.
But yeah I'm done here too. For I am ASTONISHED.
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So your alternative was what? Being happy that Arcengames does nothing while customers get their serials stolen?
Or let me rephrase it. What exactly is YOUR suggestion to the problem. Because you made it clear you don't like mine , even though it'd be less intrusive than the current implementation. (hence my confusion) In fact, Zespri made the first post and that is the industry standard. Everyone does this + what I described to protect their serials.
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I did not think such a topic would reach such level of ignorance. This is quite sad.
Below is the correct sentiment when dealing with piracy.
Finally, you are confusing "not implementing DRM" with "doing nothing about piracy." Using DRM is one way to combat piracy. Trusting your customers is not "doing nothing," it is fostering an environment of trust that some people appreciate (myself included). Offering a free unlockable demo is making the game more easily and safely available to potential customers, which for some is more attractive than going the grayer route of piracy. Explicitly stating your anti-DRM stance in press materials and interviews, as Chris has done, is actually anti-piracy, because it's saying something that a lot of other companies are not: it's saying, "I'm not treating you like a potential pirate." In short, being pro-consumer is a form of anti-piracy.
You keep saying that the current system is "bad," and that it "does nothing," but you are simply ignoring alternative strategies that have actually had a lot of thought put into them.
Let me break this down for everyone, there are two types of pirates: challenging and vindictive.
Challenging Pirates are organized groups of people who are known to the scene (their own culture / ad-hoc organization). Such groups have dedicated suppliers of storage space and games. They pirate for the challenge of it. The harder/more restrictive the copy protection the more personnel and effort they will place towards pirating a game because they gain more reputation among the scene. They consider groups and games that do not pose a challenge unworthy.
Vindictive Pirates are customers who, by their own or collective judgment, feel that they have been wronged by a company. This usually is through having their game invalidated or not being able to play the game they bought due to a limitation and/or error with copy protection. In an act of spite, they pirate their game. This is usually accomplished via commercially available means as, most of the time, they lack the know-how Challenging Pirates have.
By not using CD key checks only Arcen avoids the Challenging Pirates because it is not enough of a challenge and avoids Vindictive Pirates because they do not have to integrate third-party software into their games. As they cannot control the quality of and can not reliable predict interactions between their game and such third party software.
No I am calling a keygen that generates Steam reggable keys that's out for 2 years as "doing nothing about piracy". I am calling when that happens 5 times in a row "doing nothing about piracy" and I am calling not doing anything to prevent it in a future game "not doing anything about piracy" ;)
(http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/wp-content/blogs.dir/398/files/2012/05/i-805b79ff3c6f63f842ab03796b85fc46-thestupiditburns.jpg)
GGAAAhhhh make it stop!
Keygens exist for other games with DRM and online checks, they pass Steam too. Ask Bioware about how they like having all three of their Mass Effect games plus DLC keygened.
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Good to know you are such an authority on piracy related truths ^^ And yay ;) The first one to call me stupid ;) Of course, you are not entirely wrong, but you didn't read the previous posts.. I never said that this can't happen as it happened for Mass Effect. Point was it can be prevented for X amount of time.
Challenging Pirates are organized groups of people who are known to the scene
THE scene? Welcome in 2012.. Firstly, there are 2 scenes (4 if you count usenet/irc separate) nowadays, some do, because there are even usenet and irc only release groups.
topsite scene -> These groups (or people) do it for the lulz (or challenge, as you put it) these are highly secretive, and they don't give a damn about anyone but their own rules and lulz. Their stuff is leaked by select few spreaders to high tier warez hubs or directly into p2p scene nowadays. Often it trickles down no matter what.
p2p scene -> Those groups (or people) do it to share warez as far as possible on public sites to as many people as possible, they crack for downloads, not for lulz. They often post under aliases directly on the big 2 warez boards or other channels (usenet, torrents, and the various true p2p clients). And they don't care what it is. They also make money. They also "steal releases" and spread them into other avenues if the original releaser does not.
As for pirates... vindictive pirates exist, but to think those and the scene releasers who do it for challenges are the only 2 groups of pirates.. well that is just very hilarious ;P But never-the-less, your less than correct post made me realize that a better serial is kinda pointless but for completely different reason than the one you proclaimed, it's simply that most of these pirates don't give a damn. For them a release only exists when it is there. If it isn't there, they don't care until it is. So you wouldn't ever get any of those to buy a game via DRM trickery.
There are (This is not the "casual piracy" crowd)
Majority# (ie, more than 99% of a site/board/channel are one or more than 1 of these categories)
x) Personal Interest pirates (various degrees). Those pirate everything in their field of interest (Music/Apps/ebooks/porn/games/movies/TV/packs etc...). Everything that flows through their reaches is pirated, doesn't matter who made it, what it costs, whether it's free or not. As long as they find it curious, or it is something they were looking for,or waiting for, they download it. They do it for lulz, morals, hate, play absolutely no part. They download because it's easy. Often their interests can be specific, or all enveloping.
x) Collectors (from lol to insane), these collect everything for the sake of collecting. All 720p movies, all TV shows, all games take your pick. They do it for lulz. Nearly all pirates are also collectors of some degree.
x) Sharers, those pirate something to fill requests on other locations. Altruism, personal recognition. No idea what drives them.
x) "out of principle" Haters, Hate specific companies and pirate everything from them, (you call them vindictive pirates..) Would never download anything else.
x) Special interest pirates, pirate anime/foreign movies and super rare stuff for which there is no legal avenue of obtaining it, or if, often in inferior quality. Which is not actually illegal most of the time.
By the way, casual piracy exists too, often focused on 1 thing that they absolutely must have but can't afford or don't want to afford but have. The 13yr girl downloading Justin Bieber songs is a good example of a casual pirate, those are completely irrelevant. They are the bottom feeders of the above mentioned social system of piracy.
Now let's get 1 thing out of the way. Would be proper secured serial prevent piracy? NO Would some hassle of extra serial security make some of those pirates I described above give a damn? NO Except, and ONLY, maybe, casual pirates. Those are the only ones.. I guess.
What is it good for?
1) Timed staged security to make 0-day piracy a pain
2) protection of bandwidth for updates
3) make patching a pain in the ass for pirates, just because you can.
And that's it. I guess I can understand that some people find this too little a reason to mess about with Arcengames stance on DRM.
However, as far as DRM goes, there are far better DRM methods that work... Anno 2070 (Ubisoft) comes to mind. Pirates lose 75% of the games features, there is no crack that "circumvents it"
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Good to know you are such an authority on piracy related truths ^^ And yay ;) The first one to call me stupid ;)...
What I posted is not overly complex nor difficult to understand. As a matter of fact it is quite generalized for the sake of expedience and broad understanding. If such is too complex for you than you have only yourself to fault.
Of course, you are not entirely wrong, but you didn't read the previous posts.. I never said that this can't happen as it happened for Mass Effect. Point was it can be prevented for X amount of time.
Cripes more ignorance, you have forgotten what I posted about Challenging Pirates? They are broadly defined as an organization with suppliers, they obtain the software to crack before everyone else.
But humor me for a minute, can you quantify what is the ideal X amount of time is? After all you have set a standard with a lack of data to accompany it.
THE scene? Welcome in 2012.. Firstly, there are 2 scenes (4 if you count usenet/irc separate) nowadays, some do, because there are even usenet and irc only release groups.
topsite scene -> These groups (or people) do it for the lulz (or challenge, as you put it) these are highly secretive, and they don't give a damn about anyone but their own rules and lulz. Their stuff is leaked by select few spreaders to high tier warez hubs or directly into p2p scene nowadays. Often it trickles down no matter what.
p2p scene -> Those groups (or people) do it to share warez as far as possible on public sites to as many people as possible, they crack for downloads, not for lulz. They often post under aliases directly on the big 2 warez boards or other channels (usenet, torrents, and the various true p2p clients). And they don't care what it is. They also make money. They also "steal releases" and spread them into other avenues if the original releaser does not.
As for pirates... vindictive pirates exist, but to think those and the scene releasers who do it for challenges are the only 2 groups of pirates.. well that is just very hilarious ;P But never-the-less, your less than correct post made me realize that a better serial is kinda pointless but for completely different reason than the one you proclaimed, it's simply that most of these pirates don't give a damn. For them a release only exists when it is there. If it isn't there, they don't care until it is. So you wouldn't ever get any of those to buy a game via DRM trickery.
There are (This is not the "casual piracy" crowd)
Majority# (ie, more than 99% of a site/board/channel are one or more than 1 of these categories)
x) Personal Interest pirates (various degrees). Those pirate everything in their field of interest (Music/Apps/ebooks/porn/games/movies/TV/packs etc...). Everything that flows through their reaches is pirated, doesn't matter who made it, what it costs, whether it's free or not. As long as they find it curious, or it is something they were looking for,or waiting for, they download it. They do it for lulz, morals, hate, play absolutely no part. They download because it's easy. Often their interests can be specific, or all enveloping.
x) Collectors (from lol to insane), these collect everything for the sake of collecting. All 720p movies, all TV shows, all games take your pick. They do it for lulz. Nearly all pirates are also collectors of some degree.
x) Sharers, those pirate something to fill requests on other locations. Altruism, personal recognition. No idea what drives them.
x) "out of principle" Haters, Hate specific companies and pirate everything from them, (you call them vindictive pirates..) Would never download anything else.
x) Special interest pirates, pirate anime/foreign movies and super rare stuff for which there is no legal avenue of obtaining it, or if, often in inferior quality. Which is not actually illegal most of the time.
By the way, casual piracy exists too, often focused on 1 thing that they absolutely must have but can't afford or don't want to afford but have. The 13yr girl downloading Justin Bieber songs is a good example of a casual pirate, those are completely irrelevant. They are the bottom feeders of the above mentioned social system of piracy.
So close yet so far! You are confounding a method of communication and distribution with culture, thus, demonstrating fundamental ignorance of sociology. A method of communication does not in and of itself create culture.
Now let's get 1 thing out of the way. Would be proper secured serial prevent piracy? NO Would some hassle of extra serial security make some of those pirates I described above give a damn? NO Except, and ONLY, maybe, casual pirates. Those are the only ones.. I guess.
A claim, a hypothetical scenario and no proof. Lets get crackin'.
What is a properly secured serial?
How and why would pirates not give a damn?
I want to see you exemplify your claims. Perhaps you might provide an analogue scenario.
What is it good for?
1) Timed staged security to make 0-day piracy a pain
Suppliers, how do they work?
2) protection of bandwidth for updates
That would actually work, of course which third party would have to be paid to distribute and host the patches? Badnwidth and storage server side is not cheap.
3) make patching a pain in the ass for pirates, just because you can.
If you are setting up a war of attrition you are doing it wrong. Pirates do not have to pay people to annually, companies do.
However, as far as DRM goes, there are far better DRM methods that work... Anno 2070 (Ubisoft) comes to mind. Pirates lose 75% of the games features, there is no crack that "circumvents it"
Look how little you actually know.
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Ok, I'm done with this conversation, stepping out as it were. Mostly because of TKillburn (FYI: calling someone stupid only invalidates your argument).
Unfortunately this is just a thing where we are going to have to agree to disagree. Arcen is not doing nothing about piracy. Though for some reason eRe4s3r is ignoring what has been said on that subject. I sure wouldn't call Ubisoft's latest DRM a good idea on Anno 2070. Especially when it prevented a lot of people like me from buying it. Good job Ubisoft, you stopped the pirates and a percentage of your customers from buying. Truly, some great DRM right there.
Tired of people calling other people stupid. I expect better from people on this forum.
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Up until recently, this conversation was fine. Discussion is fine, debate is fine, but we really need to not have the personal attacks please. I'll be watching this thread closely, please don't make me take any further action.
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So close yet so far! You are confounding a method of communication and distribution with culture, thus, demonstrating fundamental ignorance of sociology. A method of communication does not in and of itself create culture.
You know what memes are? The internet creates culture simply because it IS, culture is not created without a method of communication that can carry it, it requires it. I ignore sociology and your statements relating to it however, because you are wrongly assuming people see the Internet as an equivalent of the real world (they do not, particularly pirates and assorted hardcore internet users). The "consuming" side of pirates are like a river flowing in an ocean of warez. Warez flows to them... they do not need to put ANY effort into getting warez (exceptions are maybe, if you are using filehosters, but then the effort is not related to finding warez, it is the getting it for free part thats the problem there ;P). This needs no proof, because if you ever were a pirate (sins of youth, or whatever) you know this.
What you are talking about are the actual core sources of warez and THEIR motivations (which are completely out of scope of any action whatsoever we could possibly commit to). And so that is not relevant. Indeed, no way we could annoy them.
you have forgotten what I posted about Challenging Pirates? They are broadly defined as an organization with suppliers, they obtain the software to crack before everyone else.
And those we do not want to annoy because there is no point, they will crack a game when it releases. Always. Unless they can't (Anno2070 is uncracked so far, Reloaded only enabled the offline mode, you can do that too without using a crack ,p)
A claim, a hypothetical scenario and no proof. Lets get crackin'.
What is a properly secured serial?
How and why would pirates not give a damn?
I want to see you exemplify your claims. Perhaps you might provide an analogue scenario.
I know I can not expect you to actually read what I post.. but no proof.. well, let's explain a last time ;)
A properly secured serial is one that has at least a 2 stage fallback check system to maintain keygen security against proper validation. Proper validation meaning once that final stage is keygenned you fully expect valid serials to be keygenned, forever. Before that, only thing that's keygenned is access to 1 specific game version. Every major patch adds an additional (pre-chosen) check that all a developers valid serials already pass. However, the game itself only checks for additional checks when the developer chooses. The more checks hidden, the more resistance against keygens, each patch invalidates their keys and blacklists leaked ones.
And this brings me back to your previous statement
you have forgotten what I posted about Challenging Pirates? They are broadly defined as an organization with suppliers, they obtain the software to crack before everyone else.
Where you are partially wrong imo. Pirates get games from suppliers ON RELEASE. Rarely, and I mean, you have to actually have a cracking group with exceptional "gives a damn" ratings for that. They release cracked patches. And more often than not, that's only for steam games.
That would actually work, of course which third party would have to be paid to distribute and host the patches? Badnwidth and storage server side is not cheap.
Exactly, which is why you make patches so they have to be cracked and pirates have to distribute them themselves.
Suppliers, how do they work?
Are you asking or being sarcastic there? Supplies get their stuff mainly from steam nowadays. So the discussion (and any DRM including the serial) is at least in that regard pointless. As you can not do ANY serial trickery with steam. But in return steam patches need to be redistributed by pirates anyway. So those don't hurt at all ;) In fact, if you go entirely steam only. Forget serials and make it account based.
I want to see you exemplify your claims. Perhaps you might provide an analogue scenario.
Scenario
You make game X it releases not on steam. You offer demo with serial unlock. Patches are secured with serial check (ie, checks when a serial was entered, whether that serial is blacklisted or failing one of your new checks). Only major patches have this.
Serials are generated with 5 checks that all serials you give out pass. These checks are inactive. Actual first serial check is the bare algorithm. All valid serials pass this check as well as billions of invalid ones. Keygens however, do not see any checks in place, generate keygen or leak serial. Both wanted. First off, day 0 piracy can not be prevented at all (i was being silly ,p) my point was you WANT that piracy, it is PR. It is the first showcase. It is a demo for pirates, except it is the full version. Nevermind that. first patch now comes out with 1 of the 5 checks in place sees pirates have invalid serials entered. Says "sucks to be you, no patch for you"
new keygen needed or new leaked serial needed (at this point, a serial that has to be bought).
Repeat as long as you have checks to spare. IN best case, every major patch needs a cracked patch, a keygen or a leaked serial. All of which is "annoyance" for pirates that you want. At this point we are talking 6+ months post release. Most pirate groups do not do "patch support" that long after release.
After all 5 checks are depleted, you remove all checks again and start making a new game. Or a new add-on ;p
@KingIsaacLinksr
Yeah, I didn't say Anno 2070 is friendly for the customer, but as far as DRM goes.. it does what it should and it does so pretty damn well. In fact, Ubisofts approach is pretty much teh ONLY drm scheme, apart from online games and account based serial registration. That is uncracked in teh sense that pirate get a better product and service.
And yes, I was ignoring what has been said on that subject, mainly because If I didn't the discussion would be dead ;)
Anyhow, you needn't be stepping out just because someone calls me stupid ;) I am certainly not going to reply in the same way, simply because I find this discussion quite fascination. For one, because I.. think I have a pretty good grasp of how piracy works. But I admit, the whole anti-drm stance is not my thing. I am too much a "creator" of content to think no protection or trust would work
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TKilburn, I don't really agree with eRe4s3r, and I appreciate some lighthearted ribbing, but it would be difficult for me to estimate how much he has contributed to our games in terms of suggestions (particularly on the art side of things). You may do many things here, but being wantonly disrespectful of other community members is not one of them.
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I probably jumped the gun on leaving because I was in a foul mood last night and I kind of expected this conversation to go down the swirling maw that is similar to every "Conversation in YouTube comments everTM." ;) So that makes me look like a jerk in its own right. I can't win. *sighs*.
Having re-read your post several times eRe4s3r, I find no big warning sign with the idea. The only problems that could come up with such a system is any possible bugs/errors that could crop up. There is also a slight potential for abuse if the blacklist was outsourced to the community but its extremely unlikely to happen. Which is basically, someone reports a legitimate key being used to ban them from using it for malicious reasons. Its just something to mention. But, this seems like a decent system, provided you want to keep a blacklist of keys going. I'm not advocating it being used but neither am I saying we shouldn't. Certainly we have had worse ideas floated for protecting software here recently. *cough* Diablo 3 *cough*
So yeah.
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I'm about four pages late on this, but...
One of the things I respect the most about Arcen is that their games are DRM free.
Technically AI War isn't "DRM Free." It still has a serial key, even if it doesn't check to see that it's only been used once.
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We're dipping into pointless semantics here. What does DRM free in the absolute sense mean? Does it matter? Basically, DRM free for the purposes of this conversation, means that the publisher doesn't keep you from making copies off their stuff, without parting with money, if you really want to. If anything, it's got DRM hooks into consumer morality. Typing in a stolen serial is akin to typing in "I didn't PAY FOR THIS GAME AND I DON'T CARE." So get technically DRM if you want to, but I'm pretty sure you know better.
edit: Two things: first, I said I'd bow out of this conversation, and two, now I'm sounding shrill. I'm out for good because I honestly don't think I'm positively contributing to the discussion at this point.
All I gotta say is that Arcen's original stance on DRM is spot on with how I feel about it, and I'd be pleased as punch to see that stance remain as it is.
now i'm gonna frogout
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I'm about four pages late on this, but...
One of the things I respect the most about Arcen is that their games are DRM free.
Technically AI War isn't "DRM Free." It still has a serial key, even if it doesn't check to see that it's only been used once.
Yea, we usually say it has no significant DRM.
Honestly, the main point of the serial key thing is so that downloading the demo is not automatically getting the full game; the license key is the only difference. Which lets us keep the demo up to date without additional effort :)
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What does DRM free in the absolute sense mean?
Richard Stallman. Or so I hear, it's kind of hard to get news from him when he doesn't run anything resembling a modern computer. *badumtsh*
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INSTALL GENTOO
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I can understand the desire to make it harder for pirates to get the updates for the game, after all it really isn't fair that they get the exact same level of customer service and support that the rest of us get. However, there is a distinct problem with any sytem that would blacklist serials of any kind. As keygens can create ANY valid serial, there is almost no way to prove that any given serial is legitimate customer's or a leaked/keygened serial. Yes if you have the original emails you could prove that you paid for your copy, but that would require a portion of legitimate customers to have to prove they're not pirates. After doing a bit of checking, prompted by this very thread, I discovered that 2 of my 5 serials are in fact posted on a torrent site. I've never personally given out my serials, so I can only expect that either they were keygended or were taken when my hotmail account was hacked into. Since that hack, I've made it a priority never to keep important info, like keys, passwords, ect in my email. As such, I delete any email that has such that I don't have to absolutely keep. Since I copied my keys into a file, which I backed up on multiple sources, I deleted the receipt emails. (I tend not to keep game receipts, only the keys are needed after all) Now I don't make any claim that my case is common, hell it might even be unique, but the fact remains that pretty much any form of additional DRM or changes to Arcen's DRM scheme would mean I that my copies of Fleet Command itself and Zenith Remnant would be invalidated. I would be required to either leave it in demo mode, or repurchase both the main game and one expansion. Personally, I would most likely just buy them over again, but its still an additional hassle that a pirate doesn't have to go through. All a pirate will do if their copy is invalidated is either wait for the new crack/keygen/leaked serial/ect. Or if they are the type, make the crack/keygen themselves. And thusly, like most DRM, the pirate gets it easy, and I have to deal with the hassle. At least with the current sytem the pirate suffers just as much from the DRM as I do. They have to put in 5 serials just like I did. Sure, they stole theirs while I paid for mine. But that is not Arcen's fault. People steal shit, and as long as it's an imperfect world, that is the way it is going to be. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with Arcen's DRM stance. Is it broken by keygens? Yep. So are most systems that allows serials/keys. They all get broken in the end. Are the pirates getting the same support as I get? Possibly. But I think not. I recently had an issue with my copy of AI War (the Spire City Shard Reactor image was broken) and it was keith.lamothe that helped me resolve it. Your average pirate isn't likely to post on the company's support page and ask for help. (though I could be wrong) Because I paid for my copies I feel no reserve about posting on mantis for help, or posting on these forums for questions. (though truth be told this is my first post, and I didn't know about mantis until 5.036 when the update on the wiki talked about a certain bug and gave a link to mantis.)TL DRDR, changing the current DRM will almost certainlnegativelyly affect legitimate customers (though possibly very few of them) and have, imo, little to no real impact on pirates themselves. keith.lamothe himself has already gone on record saying that any DRM that would havnegativeve affects on legitimate customers is something they are not willing to do, and that even changing their current serial system would take away from time spent improving and expanding AI War. Thusly, we can either pony that pirates are getting the same stuff we are for free, which is going to happen almost no matter what, or be grateful for the continued work and support that is given to and put into AI War by the Acren staff. And tell them to keep it up, and keep taking our money. I for one, will go with the second option, as I did when I bought and tested Ancient Shadows. Good job, love it, can't wait to see what it looks like when it's out of beta.
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Paragraph (and minor type correction) mode enabled. Oh, and welcome to the forums :) :
I can understand the desire to make it harder for pirates to get the updates for the game, after all it really isn't fair that they get the exact same level of customer service and support that the rest of us get. However, there is a distinct problem with any sytem that would blacklist serials of any kind. As keygens can create ANY valid serial, there is almost no way to prove that any given serial is legitimate customer's or a leaked/keygened serial. Yes if you have the original emails you could prove that you paid for your copy, but that would require a portion of legitimate customers to have to prove they're not pirates.
After doing a bit of checking, prompted by this very thread, I discovered that 2 of my 5 serials are in fact posted on a torrent site. I've never personally given out my serials, so I can only expect that either they were keygended or were taken when my hotmail account was hacked into. Since that hack, I've made it a priority never to keep important info, like keys, passwords, ect in my email. As such, I delete any email that has such that I don't have to absolutely keep. Since I copied my keys into a file, which I backed up on multiple sources, I deleted the receipt emails. (I tend not to keep game receipts, only the keys are needed after all)
Now I don't make any claim that my case is common, hell it might even be unique, but the fact remains that pretty much any form of additional DRM or changes to Arcen's DRM scheme would mean I that my copies of Fleet Command itself and Zenith Remnant would be invalidated. I would be required to either leave it in demo mode, or repurchase both the main game and one expansion. Personally, I would most likely just buy them over again, but its still an additional hassle that a pirate doesn't have to go through. All a pirate will do if their copy is invalidated is either wait for the new crack/keygen/leaked serial/ect. Or if they are the type, make the crack/keygen themselves. And thusly, like most DRM, the pirate gets it easy, and I have to deal with the hassle.
At least with the current system the pirate suffers just as much from the DRM as I do. They have to put in 5 serials just like I did. Sure, they stole theirs while I paid for mine. But that is not Arcen's fault. People steal [stuff], and as long as it's an imperfect world, that is the way it is going to be. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with Arcen's DRM stance. Is it broken by keygens? Yep. So are most systems that allows serials/keys. They all get broken in the end. Are the pirates getting the same support as I get? Possibly. But I think not.
I recently had an issue with my copy of AI War (the Spire City Shard Reactor image was broken) and it was keith.lamothe that helped me resolve it. Your average pirate isn't likely to post on the company's support page and ask for help. (though I could be wrong) Because I paid for my copies I feel no reserve about posting on mantis for help, or posting on these forums for questions. (though truth be told this is my first post, and I didn't know about mantis until 5.036 when the update on the wiki talked about a certain bug and gave a link to mantis.)
TL;DR[?]: changing the current DRM will almost certainly negatively affect legitimate customers (though possibly very few of them) and have, imo, little to no real impact on pirates themselves. keith.lamothe himself has already gone on record saying that any DRM that would have negative affects on legitimate customers is something they are not willing to do, and that even changing their current serial system would take away from time spent improving and expanding AI War.
Thusly, we can either pony that pirates are getting the same stuff we are for free, which is going to happen almost no matter what, or be grateful for the continued work and support that is given to and put into AI War by the Acren staff. And tell them to keep it up, and keep taking our money.
I for one, will go with the second option, as I did when I bought and tested Ancient Shadows. Good job, love it, can't wait to see what it looks like when it's out of beta.
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Paragraph (and minor type correction) mode enabled. Oh, and welcome to the forums :) :
Thank you for your assistance and the welcome
/mutters Show off.
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I have a question about the serial key actually. Would the game actually allow two players with identical serials play a game together? If not, would there actually be a problem if that were actually not allowed to happen?
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I have a question about the serial key actually. Would the game actually allow two players with identical serials play a game together? If not, would there actually be a problem if that were actually not allowed to happen?
Given that the only way to test that is to give away a copy of the game, which you really shouldn't, I'm not sure they want us to know.
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Well, at worst, I gave em something to think about. Answering that question publicly is probably a terrible idea. And no, I'm not gonna test it. I'd rather just buy the game for my friends.
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Can't say either way really. My guess is no, since Arcen never mentioned it.
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I have a question about the serial key actually. Would the game actually allow two players with identical serials play a game together? If not, would there actually be a problem if that were actually not allowed to happen?
1) Yes, two people with identical keys can currently play together. I know, as I did this with the friend who introduced me, prior to buying my own copy.
2) Actually, yes. If you activate with one key, there's no way to "revoke" that key and/or enter a new, different one (ditto expansions).
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With steam I've had me and my dad play together using the same account. I wonder if steam cares if two players play, and only take notice when they notice a larger number of people using the same account at the same time.
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You were actually able to have same account online twice?
I know you can do that with one copy in offline mode another online - it's then up to the game if it works in that configuration. I used that a bit to test multi between laptop and PC at home and games that have their own match making mechanic can work like that.
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It would have had to be 1 offline and 1 online (or 2 offline) because steam won't allow 2 online from the same account, but that doesn't have anything to do with the game itself, it doesn't care.
Edit: also, if you run the AIWar.exe from inside the steam folder, I'm not sure you even need to have steam running. Probably do, because of the steamworks integration (you could just use a non-steam copy, of course) to get your username and make the steam overlay work right, but it doesn't use steam-drm.
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Dad did have steam offline. Basically he turns it on only when he wants to update the game list, otherwise keeps it off to save bandwidth (he locks down his computer). He uses direct .exe whenever possible as well, and we used lan like procedures to play our games.
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I have a question about the serial key actually. Would the game actually allow two players with identical serials play a game together? If not, would there actually be a problem if that were actually not allowed to happen?
1) Yes, two people with identical keys can currently play together. I know, as I did this with the friend who introduced me, prior to buying my own copy.
2) Actually, yes. If you activate with one key, there's no way to "revoke" that key and/or enter a new, different one (ditto expansions).
See, that's something that doesn't really set well with me. Typically even games very lax on DRM won't allow two people with identical keys to play together. Me, I just won't do it because I'd rather buy that person a copy of the game to play with that person, or even to show that person the ropes. But, the fact that it's there makes it too easy to spread one key around and have full and complete access to the entire game for free, and you can just play online with anybody you want. It's almost too free. Seems preferable to make it such that the game checks that two players' serial keys aren't identical in the lobby... but like, in practice, it still would probably have no noticeable impact on piracy rates.
It really just doesn't set well with me because of how crazy easy it is to just have a free copy of the game. I don't even see how it would be obtrusive. It'd only ever happen if you played a game with someone who had an identical key. You could install the game to as many computers as you want without any issue.
And yeah, the steam version can be launched without launching steam or the steam overlay. You just run the AIWar.exe and you get the game just like that. In fact, I think the auto updater launches the game in that way when it automatically relaunches after installing an update.
...all of that said though, I wouldn't support even this unless it would actually be worth the effort to prevent players from essentially giving away the game infinitely.
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I have a question about the serial key actually. Would the game actually allow two players with identical serials play a game together? If not, would there actually be a problem if that were actually not allowed to happen?
1) Yes, two people with identical keys can currently play together. I know, as I did this with the friend who introduced me, prior to buying my own copy.
2) Actually, yes. If you activate with one key, there's no way to "revoke" that key and/or enter a new, different one (ditto expansions).
See, that's something that doesn't really set well with me. Typically even games very lax on DRM won't allow two people with identical keys to play together.
I didn't say it was a good/optimal solution, just that that is the way AI War is.
(Oh, and btw, Age of Empires works this way too, back when games came on CDs. You needed the CD to start the game, but after that you could take it out and transfer it to another computer, and the two instances could mutliplayer together).
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Oh, no kidding? I always thought the CD was actually read from in that case, like Starcraft.
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Ah AoE.
First game my dad and I did together.
You had to register to use the internet for its games, but not LAN, so the result is we did direct IP games without one game.