Monday, February 20, 2006

Progressimo
I Added some placeholder music, and some sound effects to Kudos today, including a nice rain effect, some thunder, yawning and coughing and dogs barking and cash registers ringing. I'm planning on giving more attention to sound than normal for this game, so it's good to get some sounds in early.
I've got tons of emails today from other indie developers, and lots of publishers. I'm presuming I must have been featured on some website somewhere. Ho-hum.
At some point I need to get my head round web coding, as I'm planning on requiring Kudos connecting to my website before it runs, as a simple anti-piracy check.

posted by cliff at 5:36 PM

11 Comments:

  • Interesting. People do not like non-web apps "phoning home". It makes them nervous. I personally don't create rules on my firewall for application that have no business accessing the internet, as a prudent security measure.

    So this will require people to connect to the internet to play Kudos - are you thinking every single run? I hope not. Laptop and dialup users would be disappointed. Perhaps just the first time?

    Look at all the controversy surrounding Valve's "Steam" system.

    You'll have to define a privacy statement also.

    Piracy is a tricky thing isn't it? There is the component that is preventing people from enjoying the fruits of your labour without providing you with anything in return, and the somewhat more mythical part that is that piracy prevention techniques somehow serve to drive sales up. Like "well, it seems I cannot steal this game, so I guess I will go buy it".

    I think someone somewhere will enjoy cracking this measure, and will publish their results. And those who would steal will steal, and those who would buy will buy. However, those who bought it will have to suffer the inconvenience of piracy measures, and those who stole it won't.

    By Blogger Paul Koan, at 11:28 PM  

  • Yeah, I would have to agree that "phoning home" will piss some people off.

    Just split up the full version and demo version so that at least the pirates have to use their own bandwidth.. or a P2P network (which is more difficult for the average joe use).

    If your game is popular enough, it will be cracked anyhow.

    I really hate almost all forms of piracy prevention. They inevitably end up hurting legitimate users more than the actual pirates.

    E.g. requiring that the CD be in the drive to play even though all files are copied to hard drive. Result: Pirates get to play the game without the CD in the hard drive while legal users have to put the damn CD in every time.

    I wouldn't wast my time on elaborate piracy prevention.

    If you're going to get Kudos to Phone Home every time it runs a more useful thing to do would be to gather valuable data from Demo users...

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:31 AM  

  • The problem is, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of people pirating ym games and not buying them. Sadly, the level of piracy has driven me to this. I hate DRM, and phoning home as much as anyone else, but if you want to blame anyone, it has to be the thieveing son of a bitch who buy my game, then sticks it on emule.
    To be honest, if it annoys 25% of my customers, its probably still economically worth doing, because it will make a dent in the high level of casual piracy, which right now, is crippingly high. If piracy doesnt level out or drop, I'll end up working for a bank again, and certainly wont make any more games.

    By Blogger cliff, at 11:12 AM  

  • I hate pirates, but would never do what you are doing. Instead, what you should do is come up with a USE for connecting to your site. An advantage. Maybe as simple as a high score system. But while you're at it, throw in auto-updating, maybe some kind of auto-downloaded mod system (plug & play mods would be pretty cool - "New Game"... "Check boxes next to which mods to use", like mutators in UT). Here's an idea: dynamic special events. Maybe once a week or so you could come up with a wacky new special event that happens in the world, and the game would download it. That would even be a fun thing to encourage daily playing, because you could miss the event otherwise (no backlog, it's just there and then gone).

    I've been searching for a fun, simple internet feature I could do in upcoming games specifically so that I can have this kind of piracy prevention. But the difference is, I'm only doing it if I can offer something to customers through it. I'm not going to use it just to annoy them.

    Phoning home only to check the legality is just plain not trusting your customers and forcing them through hoops. As a dialupper, it's enough to keep me from buying your game, without a doubt. But if there is value in logging in, I'll choose to do it.

    By Anonymous Hamumu, at 3:09 PM  

  • You could have it that you keep an online record of everyone who has purchased the full version of the game (sending some personal information in the process) then they can go into the game, click an active button which then logs onto the internet and checks if that person is in the database of full version users. If so then the game is activated.

    If the process involves them sending say an IP address or some other form of information then they're hardly likely so share their activation information with anyone because it would lead right back to them.

    Of course such a system (like any other) has it's flaws. The main one being that you're giving people the full version of the game right from the start. Which will most likely be hacked. Unless of course upon activation the new game files are download straight to their system making it the full version.

    Gavin Clifton
    slashinfo@yahoo.com

    By Anonymous Gavin Clifton, at 4:01 PM  

  • Oh dont get me wrong, there will be an update check, and hopefully tons more online integration. Its just that part of the reason for doing this is to discourage piracy.
    Part of me is considering allowing it all to be optional,. so pirates could crack the game, but miss out on all the online stuff. Its still a long way off anyway :D

    By Blogger cliff, at 5:25 PM  

  • You still seem to be working from the mythos that those who have pirated your game would otherwise have bought it if they were unable to pirate it. This is sloppy thinking and almost certainly not the case. This is thinking borne from the anger of being stolen from. This is like suggesting that if you had a better home security system then the guy who burgled you would have gone down to Dixons and bought the TV and DVD player he stole from you instead.

    If someone sees your game, and then goes to look for it on emule rather than pay for it, they were never intending to pay for it. They were never going to pay for it. If they don't find it, then they would just look for something else to do. They will never pay for it.

    Thinking that piracy=lost sales is going to be wrong in the vast majority of cases. So stopping piracy will not keep you out of a bank job.

    By Blogger Paul Koan, at 10:49 PM  

  • Not to put words into Cliffski’s mouth but I think the concern is the “casual pirate.” At what point does piracy become so easy and prevalent that the average law abiding citizen feel he is being a chump for not taking advantage of the “free stuff like everyone else.”

    By Anonymous MrPhil, at 5:33 AM  

  • Wouldn't hardware-keys be enough to stop casual pirates?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:12 AM  

  • mrphil is right. I know people who wouldnt dream of stealing anything, and would normally buy new DVDs and video tapes.
    Then they discovered Kazaa. They find it so easy to get movies from p2p that they dont bother anymore.
    What happens when the current generation of kids using bit torrent grow up to become the majority of consumers? If attempts arent made to prevent this, we end up with zero sales, and zero new content of any kind. Also known as total economic stagnation.
    As for the burglary argument, if it doesnt deter the hardcore burglar, why bother locking my door? I do it to deter the casual teenage passer by from popping in and nicking my laptop. Thats the same thing Im doing here, deterring the casual and non-determined thief. And theres a LOT of people like that.

    By Blogger cliff, at 7:42 PM  

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    By Blogger Joe Berenguer, at 1:34 AM  

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