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| Sir Headless VII:
Do something simple (like what MonMotha described) and be happy with that. If the game cracking community wants to crack your game they will, but realistically that seems unlikely. The internet community at large isn't that interested in indie clones of 29 year old games (it sounds like something this community might like however). Also if you are selling a cabinet losing the software alone isn't really going to be that big a blow since your product is more of an arcade experience than a piece of software. |
| Gatt:
--- Quote from: Epyx on April 06, 2010, 12:08:43 pm --- --- Quote ---I know there's always a way in, even with security dongles and net verification, but at least it deters most people who can't use hex editors. --- End quote --- The problem is the people who are going to be spending the time hacking/copying/distributing are not your customer base anyways...the harder you make it for those people the more you piss off the real customers. In my opinion, take a page from Stardock games...no protection and therefore no challenge for hackers...yet they have a loyal and large customer base and due to their business model are one of the most profitable publishers out there. --- End quote --- I thought that to be true as well, until I recently read an article on piracy. The section on Stardock described how on the day of Demigod's release, Stardocks servers were completely crushed by a little over 100,000 players. When they went and looked, they discovered they'd sold only ~20,000 units. So sadly, not only did Stardock not sell as many units as they could have, but the people who paid suffered an inability to play because of the large influx of people who didn't. Here's a link.. http://forums.stardock.com/372773/page/2/#replies (Niz's post) --- Quote ---From Joystick.com "Demigod appears to have been a pirates' cove at launch, as Stardock CEO Brad Wardell explained on his blog a couple days ago: Out of the 120,000 connections on launch day, only 18,000 were legitimate customers (that's not sales, merely "concurrent users"). Obviously, this situation put quite a strain on the servers. He explained that Stardock stress tested for 50,000 players at peak times and wasn't expecting to hit those numbers for weeks. A letter from Stardock this morning notes that "most" launch day issues were resolved yesterday afternoon. A "doppleganger" of the network was created, along with an update for legitimate players, which now directs them to the clean servers. It's a pretty nasty situation for Stardock, which has actually put faith in gamers by not placing copy protection on its games. " --- End quote --- |
| mlalena:
Require that the PC have IE6 installed. No one would do that voluntarily on their own computer. On a serious note, I wouldn't bother much with security. Probably just a simple hardware ID check. The thieves are going to spend more time hacking the well known games by big publishers. The only "arcade" game I've ever considered building commercially were Megatouch style systems. You know you have an audience at bars where most arcades are gone. You could do a 50-50 split on the profits with the bar or sell them the system outright for thousands less than Merit. Even this isn't worth the effort. Good solid case (drunk people punch it when mad) + Touch screen + computer + bill changer + coin slot + warranty support... and the price adds up quick. You can find Metatough systems on ebay used for under $1000, so I figured it wasn't worth it. Still didn't stop me from writing the games and posting them online - almost 15 years since I wrote those games. |
| DashRendar:
--- Quote from: Ophelius on April 05, 2010, 10:19:58 pm ---Even if I sell only 1 and made no money, that would still be great. --- End quote --- If this is true, then why would you care about people copying the game? ??? |
| Thenasty:
use the JOSHUA OS. I have not seen any pirated Ultracade yet (DF is watching). |
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