Inside The Game Copy Protection Racket

simoniker writes "German game company and Accordion Hero creator Schadenfreude Interactive have been carefully considering what copy protection to use for their next game, and have documented their process in detail in a new Gamasutra article. After rejecting scratch and sniff cards, dongles, and musclebound Russian copy protection outfit NovaHammer ('You would not want any of your computer games to get hurt, would you?'), they come to the (fictional but agreeable!) conclusion: 'We decided against using any sort of copy protection on our games. After all, you shouldn't feel you are being forced to buy our games. You should want to. And if you do not want to, that is really our failure — not yours.'"

Comments

Re:Ah, the memories

[sqlrob]

I can't tell if the scratch and sniff card is or ever was real. Honestly. Was it?

Yes.

Leather Goddesses of Phobos (although it was interactivity aid, not DRM) Infocom liked to put goodies in that would make you want to buy it rather than copy it.

Re:Wow!

[MindStalker]

Nope, but restricted online play has helped a LOT. There are many games that have been bought not out of the goodness of a gamers heart, but for the right to play on official server. :)

Otherwise no... People with money to burn will continue to buy games, people without will continue to pirate. People with money to burn that pirate for anything other than a trial deserve a special place in hell :)

Re:I disagree

[Sycraft-fu]

I dunno, as to if no copy protection can work I suggest you ask Stardock. They seem to have sold a ton of copies of Galactic Civilizations 2, and in fact are still selling it (if you don't have it, buy it, it's great). Do people warez it? Of course but then they warez everything. You show me the most locked down software, I'll show you the crack for it. Yes even things like Cubase 3 which has more code for protection than for program.

Something you also can't forget is copyprotection software isn't free. Macrovision doesn't had out Safedisc out of the good of their hearts you pay for it, most likely a per disc license. So while you may get some more money from people that can't copy the disc and don't know how to look for a crack online, you'll lose money in having to pay for that protection. You might assume it's more, but have you done a study to see if that's the case? You also have to take in to account what happens if legit users get locked out. Starforce is notorious for not working on legit copies, and for even hosing systems. You end up footing the bill either in terms of patches, refunds, lost business, or all three.

Either way, it's clear no matter what protection you use, people can and will break it and your game will get warez'd. It's also clear that it is possible to make money on a game with no protection.

Arg

[Deliveranc3]

Games companies need to stop being so reasonable, I'm going to go broke!

Simple Solution

[alexgieg]

To make sure you'll sell your game, just make sure that the official game packaging is so INCREDIBLE AMAZING AND COOL that the gamer will miss having the experience of owning it. Include a fantastic shining printed manual in full color with high-quality paper (a detailed manual, by the way), a CD whose cover has bright 3D effects, a futuristic or medievalistic box, one or more game character miniatures, coupons with codes allowing a gamer to obtain things he would love (such as game magazine subscriptions, calendars, official strategy guide etc.) at noticeable discounts as well as coupons to access ultra cool sections of the official website, such as, let's say, one where the buyer would be able to register his name and have the chance to win a trip to know the game developers with everything paid, and so on and so forth.

In short, add value to your official package by offering things a pirate would never be able to provide and people will simply prefer buying from you.

Re:I disagree

[dgatwood]

You alluded to this with your comment about locked out customers, but that's only one of many problems that copy protection causes. Not only do you as a company pay for the protection, your customers pay for it, too. The only difference is your customers keep paying for it over and over every time something goes wrong with the protection software.

There are a great many expensive products for which the protection is so buggy that people buy the software, then download the crack and use it because the "protection" contributes so negatively to the overall stability of their computers. Then, there are the apps that start out with the carrot (software authorization), then suddenly give you the stick (telling you "We're not going to give you a software key. If you want to replace your computer, you have to go out and buy a dongle to reauthorize this.")

I got burned by that once. Never again. Antares, Inc. is now on by absolute do-not-buy blacklist until they change that policy, and I recommend alternatives to their products to anyone who asks me about them. I don't care how good a product they develop. From now on, I won't even look at it. If I've spent several hundred dollars on an app, I expect to be treated better than that, and not forced to spend more money just because the manufacturer has decided that repeated software authorizations are costing them too much money. Life's too short to deal with companies like that.

The more draconian the copy protection, the more your users flock to alternatives. That's why I now use Digital Performer (no key) instead of Cubase, and Melodyne (software-only key, but only after emailing them to make sure they weren't about to force iLok on me) instead of Auto Tune, and that's why I will never use products by Waves and countless others. I vote with my dollars and purchased software whose authors didn't treat me like a criminal. I will continue to do so and encourage others to do likewise.