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Hackproof Arcade
Space Fractal:
its you do to much DRM on a product, you just download it instead to avoid these limits. A Pirate prodcut without limits is allways better than a original product with drm limits. Some companies is going to far and have not learnt the EA scandal around Spore (that DRM used here just got more pirated as it should) and as well Ubisoft stupid new DRM.
A perfect example to do a creat DRM is something like Batman Arkham Asylum does (which have a excellent integrate of Serurom, where EA failed on Spore):
- If the game detect a pirate version, you can simply not complete the game and hence much harder to crack.
Its THAT way a DRM should work!
Thenasty:
it's probably all over the internet ready for downloads. The pirates already got it off his HD and crack it to be shared :lol
Gatt:
--- Quote from: Haze on April 10, 2010, 06:31:03 am ---
--- Quote from: Gatt on April 10, 2010, 05:12:05 am ---
--- Quote from: ark_ader on April 09, 2010, 05:24:18 pm ---The only way that you are going to make any money today is to create a shareware version of the game.
One level play and the rest on subscription. Forget about encryption, dongles, authentication servers - its all a waste of money.
Besides what if the game is crap? All that money for a lost cause?
Think how ID started with Doom.
The only other solution is to make a free game - get yourself noticed and gradually enter the market with your wares priced at $5 each. Make it cheap enough and the pirates will leave it alone.
I thought you could make a dongle that was hack proof. When the offender tried to open the dongle - a mechanism would break the chip. Rendering it useless. BTW arcade game in a cabinet is dead money.
--- End quote ---
A hardware dongle won't stop anything, first, the data's not stored on a chip, it's on the hard drive. Killing the chip is only usefull in preventing emulation of the xPU's, but in this case, they're known. They're standard x86 CPU's and perhaps standard GPU's. You'd have to kill the drive. You could, of course, encrypt it, but that only slows things down, no guarantee it won't be cracked. There's ways to kill the drive, but they're dangerous. A big magnet might do it, but it might also shorten the components lifespan over time even in it's safe position, and there's no guarantee it'd do it's job before the drive could be extracted. A Solid-state with suicide battery would work, except as soon as it loses power it's dead even if accidentally. A Thermite reaction could do it, but there's no guarantee you aren't going to start a major fire.
As far as pirates go, having been reading anything touching on the subject for years now, I'm convinced there's nothing that will prevent rampant piracy. Pirates seem to use alot of excuses, "I just want to try before I buy", "I wouldn't pay for it anyways", or "They charge too much for it and I won't pay", or "The (RIAA/MPAA/ISDA) are EVIL and don't deserve money!".
But it's all obviously false. The sales figures vs piracy figures show people aren't buying after trying, no one's going to waste time downloading and useing something they don't actually like, and it doesn't matter where it's priced, the piracy rates again show people still won't pay. Simply put, if people can get it for free, most people will take it for free.
It's really important to remember, Pirates have primary motivations, they're not going to tell you "I want all my X for free", they're going to give some excuse that demonizes someone and "Forced" them to resort to piracy.
Honestly, hit up anandtech one day when they post a piracy article, and just read through the responses with an open mind. People's motivations become readily apparent, you'll see all those excuses, but you won't see any data to support their arguements, just those excuses in vacuum.
--- End quote ---
and the problem is, with all the 'solutions' they're turning people who weren't pirates into pirates, which was my point.
I can't honestly say I'm pro-pirate, I might work on emulation software, but I've made my views on the subject quite clear many times.
When I feel that by being a legitimate customer I'm being screwed over more than if I just pirate the game, and being forced to jump through hoops, install a trucload of junk on my PC just for a game to work etc. then I stop seeing any point in being a legitimate customer, and in the end simply don't play the games (which is now the case 95% of the time), or my only experience to them is through pirated versions.
--- End quote ---
I'm not argueing with you there Haze, I'd be an idiot to try given the debacle that has occured with Ubisoft these past couple weeks. My point was, the whole "If you sell it cheaper people won't pirate it" arguement is based on the fallacy that people pirate because of price, people pirate because they're going to pirate in most cases. Spore, Settlers, those are clear examples of where the DRM forced legitimate customers to pirate.
You also give another good example, Starforce, I lost a DVD drive to starforce, there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.
--- Quote ---Interpret this how you want, I'm not making excuses, I'm simply stating that the experience of being a legitimate customer is now so bad (thanks to ignorant companies, and 'anti-piracy measures') that it no longer feels worthwhile. I fully understand how important sales are to the games industry, I've worked in it, however, it's no excuse at all to treat your customers like dirt, which is what is happening. My message to the industry is simple, if you want to tackle pirates, tackle them directly, just stop making life so hard for me I no longer feel I can buy your products. When the pirated product is better, more complete and more usable, and contains less junk than the one on the shelves you're doing something wrong, very wrong and there are many games I simply haven't bought, or even played lately because of that.
--- End quote ---
I know you'd be against piracy under normal circumstances, you're a programmer, you're the faceless victim of normal piracy. Emulation, IMO, isn't the same, as it has different goals than piracy. I mean honestly, how hypocritical would I be if I myself didn't differentiate between the two, especially since I plan to make some ancillary attempts at contributing to the BYOAC community.
What I meant was the non-DRM related arguements.
--- Quote ---A perfect example to do a creat DRM is something like Batman Arkham Asylum does (which have a excellent integrate of Serurom, where EA failed on Spore):
- If the game detect a pirate version, you can simply not complete the game and hence much harder to crack.
Its THAT way a DRM should work!
--- End quote ---
That's actually been tried, in a number of ways, it backfires sadly. Titan quest is the posterboy, had hidden anti-piracy checks which triggered crashes, which caused people to label them bugs. There's no viable solution to the problem except literally forcing P2P to police itself and cut piracy on current retail products. The X-box 360 and PS3 events recently just show piracy's starting to become mainstream and threatening even the previously immune console market.
DJ_Izumi:
--- Quote from: Gatt on April 11, 2010, 12:26:20 am ---You also give another good example, Starforce, I lost a DVD drive to starforce, there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.
--- End quote ---
I'm like 99.9999999% certian that your optical drive wasn't affected by Starforce and any failure it experienced was purely coincidental...
Gatt:
--- Quote from: DJ_Izumi on April 11, 2010, 01:13:15 am ---
--- Quote from: Gatt on April 11, 2010, 12:26:20 am ---You also give another good example, Starforce, I lost a DVD drive to starforce, there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.
--- End quote ---
I'm like 99.9999999% certian that your optical drive wasn't affected by Starforce and any failure it experienced was purely coincidental...
--- End quote ---
I've read the stuff on it, I know the official position's are that Starforce doesn't cause hardware failure. I'm just having a hard time with it. Starforce did something to my computer, and it caused very reproducible problems, ultimately my drive failed, and the replacement displayed the exact same problems until I finally pulled Starforce out.
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