Re: Asking help for those that don't agree with Product Activation

In article <NZ6dnRW-P-s6qkDenZ2dnUVZ_vmdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
Brad Wardell <bwardell@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>You are assuming that activation forces users to tie it to a single
>computer. I won't go into too many details about how our activation works
>on our non-games but it essentially is designed to prevent mass piracy
>rather than small instances of it. So it would raise a flag if a dozen
>people from different locations (i.e. physically) tried to install it in a
>single day but not care if you installed it onto your laptop or a new
>computer the next day or week or whatever.

As I understand it, much of the appeal of current copy protection
systems (for the publisher) lies in their ability to deter casual
piracy. That is, your neighbour pops by, sees your software and says
"hey, where can I get one of those". Being a nice, helpful neighbour,
you lend him your CD and your activation code and he goes and installs
it at home. This is the sort of threat I had in mind.

>From what you write, this isn't the threat you are trying to
fight. You may be trying to prevent entire companies or departments
from installing the stuff on 100+ computers after one employee brought
it to work? If so, then this is an area I have never given much
thought. I doubt it applies much to games - perhaps if you sell fun
little puzzlers that people can kill time with in the office :-)

The third option is to prevent professional piracy. For shelf-ware,
this is only possible with a massive amount of effort, and even then
only for a limited time. Alternatively, it is possible if your product
is sufficiently obscure no one has ever heard of it anyway. Many
non-game products are "sufficiently obscure" simply because cracking
one isn't considered very cool.

The only really good solution I can see to forcing people to pay is to
have a sort of subscription system, or by providing a service related
to the software that people really want. Running updates, new
features, etc., can provide such an avenue, but it's not a viable
route for many games.

>The problem I have with nearly all copy protection schemes is that they're
>draconian. I mean, WHO are they trying to target? I get tired of hearing
>game publishers complain about # of unauthorized users playing their game
>when the real issue should be the # of lost SALES.

I expect they are targeting little Billy who borrowed his friend
Johnny's CD to install it at home.

>> The same feature that lets him do this also necessarily lets him give
>> this code away to his friends, so that they can also play the
>> game. The scheme doesn't therefore prevent casual piracy and so it is
>> unacceptable to the publisher.
>
>That's not necessarily true about unacceptable to the publisher. Galactic
>Civilizations II has no copy protection at all at retail. Having activation
>would obviously be more so than that. It totally depends on the demographic
>of the user and the ease of distribution (i.e. we put activation on
>WindowBlinds and Object Desktop programs, we don't (currently) on our games
>except during beta).

I was referring to the other publishers. You know, the ones whose
games I no longer buy :-)

Now, I'm not going to pretend to know how much pressure publishers put
on game developers to put in copy protection. Apparantly, you managed
to get yours to drop it for GC1. I don't know how difficult that was
or if it was even an issue, or how other publishers feel about it. But
they obviously _do_ think it necessary most of the time, as witnessed
by all the other games out there that have it.

>But even fairly strict activation could be quite effective, even against
>casual piracy. You have their hardware ID AND you have their IP address.
>If either of them is the same, the activation could give them a pass. If
>both are different, then you can raise a flag.

I am not sure what you mean. "even fairly strict activation could be
quite effective"? I think it's quite obvious that it is, but it can
create a lot of inconvenience for the customer. The question is
rather: can we have an activation scheme that is convenient for the
customer _and_ effective at combatting the type of piracty that is
feared?

>A less strict but still fairly effective activation strategy coudl involve
>this: You have their hardware ID and their IP address. You can get a
>general location of the user from the IP address. If ID is different AND
>the location quite a bit different, and the time since last activation
>attempt < 1 week then you could raise a flag.

That doesn't address casual piracy, which is what I think they are
trying to do. Professional pirates are going to remove your checks
anyway, so it doesn't really matter what you're checking for in that
case.

>
>There should be a law (not a real law but a design law) on activation:

It wouldn't surprise me too much if consumer protection laws along
these lines start popping up within a few years.

>
>1) I won't prevent the user from installing it onto other machines they own.
>2) It won't prevent the user from installing it later on onto a new machine
>in the future.
>3) It will continue to function even if the game developer/publisher goes
>out of business.

I left this in there just so I could "me 2" it :-)

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd@xxxxxxx - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
.

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