As a matter of fact, there are legitimate licensing solutions--they just don't cover all the most popular games, at least not yet.
The best license management system out there, bar none, is Valve's "Steam" (http://steampowered.com/) system. Most people are familiar with this is the basis for their internet-based software distribution model, but there is actually a special version of Steam that is available for use ("required" actually, if you're licensed) by game centers. This "cafe" version of Steam solves three problems:
(1) it does license management: you pay Valve for a certain maximum number of concurrent licenses, regardless of how many actual PCs you have, and Steam manages the licenses for you.
(2) Normal game software updates can kill your internet connection's bandwidth--World of Warcraft is the worst (but others are almost as bad): it runs a custom BitTorrent client with no bandwidth limits on every machine running the game; every time people started playing WoW in my 27-PC cafe after an update had been released, no one else in the cafe could do anything on the internet, including simple web surfing. The cafe version of Steam uses a local Steam server (which you have to provide) to fetch updates once, then disburses them to local PCs over your LAN, as needed.
(3) The cafe version of Steam lets customers save their games, automatically copying the relevent game state files onto your local Steam server. If you don't have something like this, no one can really play single-player games, since they have to start from the beginning every time they come in.
And no, Steam isn't just for games from Valve--there are lots of other publishers that are using Steam now. . . but if the game publisher doesn't have a distribution deal with Valve, Steam won't help you.
There are several other companies that are trying to do their own version of Steam specifically for game centers, but, as is often the case, these problems are actually a lot harder to solve reliably and consistently than they appear at first sight, and Valve has at least, from what I can see, a 2-year head start on everyone else trying to do this.
Could you do it yourself? A friend and I wrote all the software (http://fun-o-matic.org/) we used my game center, and we tried to tackle license management, too, but never got beyond the early development stage with that particular module--I'm convinced there is no technical reason why it can't be done. However, as a previous poster pointed out, just because YOU think you're being fair and legal doesn't mean the game publishers will see it that way, so unless you have a special licensing agreement with every publisher, you'd be running some legal risk, anyway.
I started and ran my own cybercafe/game center for 3 years, so I have some experience with this subject. It was GREAT fun! Financially it always made enough money to get all the bills paid, with a little (really little) left over as salary for me. That doesn't mean it was profitable, though: unless you like charity, you need to be looking at whether a business will be profitable in an economic sense, not just an accounting sense, and that means you need to take into account not just what a reasonable salary for yourself is, but little things like depreciation of your assets (so you can afford upgrades), your cost of capital (even if it's your own money), and a reasonable return on investment (compared to what you would earn on the money if you didn't put it into a game center). After having looked at my experience in the business every way I could think of, I'm firmly of the belief that there is just no way to make money on this type of business unless you have a very special set of circumstances. Consequently, I closed my place down a couple of months ago.
I like to think of the real problem game centers have in terms of system dynamics: a game center draws customers from within a limited geographic radius (about 10 miles, or maybe 15 km, in my case). Within that radius there are a limited number of people who will be interested in what you offer. In the early days business grows exponentially, but NOT because of any kind of growth in the number of potential customers--it's just that more and more of your fixed number of potential customers are finding out about you. At some point you reach saturation, and that where the system dynamics comes into play: you are in a fight between the number of potential customers in your area that are leaving (graduated, moved away, bought their own computer, ran out of money, lost interest, etc.) versus the number of new potential customers that are being created (moved in, got old enough mom would let them play, etc.). Basically, there are many more paths for customers to leave then there are for them to arrive in your pool of "potentials", so it's a loosing proposition.
Yes, there are things you can do to change the coefficients of some of the terms in the basic equation: you can try to bring in more adults, you can add more games more frequently, do more advertising, etc. What I've seen, though--and I've validated the basic model with several other (former) game center owners--is that if you do everything right business is good for about a year and a half, then it peaks and falls off to much lower level. Revenues can remain stable after that point, but at a level that is WAY below the peak--and that generally means you don't have the profits you need to upgrade machines, buy new games, etc. When you stop being able to upgrade and add new games, you enter the final part of the curve when business falls off further from the already-low plateau it was at, and then you're dead (in terms of the business).
Tweak the situation a little bit and the timing of when you hit the inflection points on the curve will shift forward or backward some, but the basic shape of the curve doesn't change--that's why I say that this really isn't a viable business.
Oh, those "special circumstances" I mentioned, that would make it viable? They DO exist, but are rare: for example, you don't pay for most or even any of your games (a popular strategy in developing countries, and unfortunately used much more frequently than you might think even in the developed world!); you're setting up business in a community where there's nothing else for kids to do; you find other uses for the floorspace and computers that you can make money on when people aren't playing games (computer classes, for example). Even if these or similar factors apply in your case, though, they usually only make the difference between surviving and not--I've never seen a case where they are enough to actually get things to the point where the business is financially attractive to be in.
I've had quite good luck by using Apache mod_security (modsecurity.org) to filter web activity. Yes, all the suggestions people have been giving about CAPTCHAs, blocking people with addresses in high spam domains, etc., are all good and useful, but mod_security lets you cover a base those approaches are missing: it lets you block spammers from posting spam, even if they somehow manage to get through your registration defenses.
I use a mod_security ruleset based on one published at http://gotroot.com/tiki-index.php?page=mod_securit y+rules which watches POST content for URLs and terms commonly used in spam postings, and blocks them--in adddition to rules that are more traditional for mod_security, such as blocking phpBB exploits--which I've also found it to be invaluable for.
I administer several forums and wikis that were having quite bad problems, even with CAPTCHAs, email verification, and so on. . . but the problems pretty much went away once I pulled mod_security into the battle.
I've been using Rails for several months, and I think it's "automatic code generation" is no big deal, and nothing to worry about. If you're worried about maintainability, it the wrong place to focus.
The only time code gets generated for you automatically is at the very beginning of a project to create "scaffolding". That scaffolding is great, because it lets you get something up and running very quickly, but in my experience, it NEVER survives in the body of the project for long--you always want to do something differently, or more elaborately, than what the scaffolding provides.
So, I think of Rails' scaffolding as "stub" code that happens to include some (very) basic functionality. Like code stubs, they just provide placeholders for you to use to flesh out your own code.
Once the project is underway, it's unlikely you will generate any more code automatically--you don't need to.
It's worth noting that what I've described here is the behavior and usage of code generators that are included as part of Rails. There *are* some cases where people have written code generators that attempt to automatically generate entire subsystems for you in a Rails app--and those generators are the subject of interminable support questions in online forums, and a lot of discussion within the Rails community as to their wisdom. . . which is why no generators like that are included as part of the Rails distribution.
Beyond code generation, I can't say anything definitive about Rails maintainability because it's so new, but my feeling from having worked with my own code, and from having studied the code of others, is that Rails apps should be wonderfully maintainable. After all, the "opinionated" style of Rails leads all Rails apps to be laid out the same way, with the same directory structure, the same application architecture, coding standards, naming standards, etc.
From my experience so far, all these things are likely to make Rails a winner from a maintainability standpoint, as well as in terms of productivity and fun!
In the U.S., season 1 DVDs of Battlestar Galactica are due to be on sale at BestBuy ONLY on July 26. . . and everywhere else roughly two months later, in late September.
There are quite a few unique things about the new BSG; apparently how they market their DVDs is one of them! The mind reels at what BestBuy must have paid for this. ..
Already available: I use Mozilla Calendar to access, via WebDAV and SSL, an iCalendar file stored on a remote server, protected by Apache's Digest Authentication. Because of WebDAV I can get at (and update) my calendar from anywhere; because of SSL it's secure from eavsdropping; because of the authentication, only I, or people I authorize, can access it.
Works great! Plus, you can use any iCalendar-aware client (not just Mozilla/SunBird).
The downside: I had to know how to set up WebDAV and know a little about iCalendar. That's not a huge hurdle, but its enough to keep most non-geeks from being able to set it up.
We had a computer club when I was in high school; FYI, the best fund raiser we found, BY FAR, was to run a computer dating service. We'd have booths at various student activities where kids could sign up--they'd pay a fee and fill out a short questionaire, which we would input into the database. To get customized date suggestions printed out they would have to apy another fee. I never heard of anyone *actually* going on any dates based on the service, but everyone was dying to find out who the computer would match them up with. Like I said, this was a serious money maker for us!
At the same booths we would also sell customized biorthym charts--utter rubbish, but hey, people pay for horoscopes too! This didn't earn as much as the dating service, but was still a good secondary product.
Slashdot Mirror
As a matter of fact, there are legitimate licensing solutions--they just don't cover all the most popular games, at least not yet.
The best license management system out there, bar none, is Valve's "Steam" (http://steampowered.com/) system. Most people are familiar with this is the basis for their internet-based software distribution model, but there is actually a special version of Steam that is available for use ("required" actually, if you're licensed) by game centers. This "cafe" version of Steam solves three problems:
(1) it does license management: you pay Valve for a certain maximum number of concurrent licenses, regardless of how many actual PCs you have, and Steam manages the licenses for you.
(2) Normal game software updates can kill your internet connection's bandwidth--World of Warcraft is the worst (but others are almost as bad): it runs a custom BitTorrent client with no bandwidth limits on every machine running the game; every time people started playing WoW in my 27-PC cafe after an update had been released, no one else in the cafe could do anything on the internet, including simple web surfing. The cafe version of Steam uses a local Steam server (which you have to provide) to fetch updates once, then disburses them to local PCs over your LAN, as needed.
(3) The cafe version of Steam lets customers save their games, automatically copying the relevent game state files onto your local Steam server. If you don't have something like this, no one can really play single-player games, since they have to start from the beginning every time they come in.
And no, Steam isn't just for games from Valve--there are lots of other publishers that are using Steam now. . . but if the game publisher doesn't have a distribution deal with Valve, Steam won't help you.
There are several other companies that are trying to do their own version of Steam specifically for game centers, but, as is often the case, these problems are actually a lot harder to solve reliably and consistently than they appear at first sight, and Valve has at least, from what I can see, a 2-year head start on everyone else trying to do this.
Could you do it yourself? A friend and I wrote all the software (http://fun-o-matic.org/) we used my game center, and we tried to tackle license management, too, but never got beyond the early development stage with that particular module--I'm convinced there is no technical reason why it can't be done. However, as a previous poster pointed out, just because YOU think you're being fair and legal doesn't mean the game publishers will see it that way, so unless you have a special licensing agreement with every publisher, you'd be running some legal risk, anyway.
I like to think of the real problem game centers have in terms of system dynamics: a game center draws customers from within a limited geographic radius (about 10 miles, or maybe 15 km, in my case). Within that radius there are a limited number of people who will be interested in what you offer. In the early days business grows exponentially, but NOT because of any kind of growth in the number of potential customers--it's just that more and more of your fixed number of potential customers are finding out about you. At some point you reach saturation, and that where the system dynamics comes into play: you are in a fight between the number of potential customers in your area that are leaving (graduated, moved away, bought their own computer, ran out of money, lost interest, etc.) versus the number of new potential customers that are being created (moved in, got old enough mom would let them play, etc.). Basically, there are many more paths for customers to leave then there are for them to arrive in your pool of "potentials", so it's a loosing proposition.
Yes, there are things you can do to change the coefficients of some of the terms in the basic equation: you can try to bring in more adults, you can add more games more frequently, do more advertising, etc. What I've seen, though--and I've validated the basic model with several other (former) game center owners--is that if you do everything right business is good for about a year and a half, then it peaks and falls off to much lower level. Revenues can remain stable after that point, but at a level that is WAY below the peak--and that generally means you don't have the profits you need to upgrade machines, buy new games, etc. When you stop being able to upgrade and add new games, you enter the final part of the curve when business falls off further from the already-low plateau it was at, and then you're dead (in terms of the business).
Tweak the situation a little bit and the timing of when you hit the inflection points on the curve will shift forward or backward some, but the basic shape of the curve doesn't change--that's why I say that this really isn't a viable business.
Oh, those "special circumstances" I mentioned, that would make it viable? They DO exist, but are rare: for example, you don't pay for most or even any of your games (a popular strategy in developing countries, and unfortunately used much more frequently than you might think even in the developed world!); you're setting up business in a community where there's nothing else for kids to do; you find other uses for the floorspace and computers that you can make money on when people aren't playing games (computer classes, for example). Even if these or similar factors apply in your case, though, they usually only make the difference between surviving and not--I've never seen a case where they are enough to actually get things to the point where the business is financially attractive to be in.
Yes, all of the
I've had quite good luck by using Apache mod_security (modsecurity.org) to filter web activity. Yes, all the suggestions people have been giving about CAPTCHAs, blocking people with addresses in high spam domains, etc., are all good and useful, but mod_security lets you cover a base those approaches are missing: it lets you block spammers from posting spam, even if they somehow manage to get through your registration defenses. I use a mod_security ruleset based on one published at http://gotroot.com/tiki-index.php?page=mod_securit y+rules which watches POST content for URLs and terms commonly used in spam postings, and blocks them--in adddition to rules that are more traditional for mod_security, such as blocking phpBB exploits--which I've also found it to be invaluable for.
I administer several forums and wikis that were having quite bad problems, even with CAPTCHAs, email verification, and so on. . . but the problems pretty much went away once I pulled mod_security into the battle.
I've been using Rails for several months, and I think it's "automatic code generation" is no big deal, and nothing to worry about. If you're worried about maintainability, it the wrong place to focus.
The only time code gets generated for you automatically is at the very beginning of a project to create "scaffolding". That scaffolding is great, because it lets you get something up and running very quickly, but in my experience, it NEVER survives in the body of the project for long--you always want to do something differently, or more elaborately, than what the scaffolding provides.
So, I think of Rails' scaffolding as "stub" code that happens to include some (very) basic functionality. Like code stubs, they just provide placeholders for you to use to flesh out your own code.
Once the project is underway, it's unlikely you will generate any more code automatically--you don't need to.
It's worth noting that what I've described here is the behavior and usage of code generators that are included as part of Rails. There *are* some cases where people have written code generators that attempt to automatically generate entire subsystems for you in a Rails app--and those generators are the subject of interminable support questions in online forums, and a lot of discussion within the Rails community as to their wisdom. . . which is why no generators like that are included as part of the Rails distribution.
Beyond code generation, I can't say anything definitive about Rails maintainability because it's so new, but my feeling from having worked with my own code, and from having studied the code of others, is that Rails apps should be wonderfully maintainable. After all, the "opinionated" style of Rails leads all Rails apps to be laid out the same way, with the same directory structure, the same application architecture, coding standards, naming standards, etc.
From my experience so far, all these things are likely to make Rails a winner from a maintainability standpoint, as well as in terms of productivity and fun!
In the U.S., season 1 DVDs of Battlestar Galactica are due to be on sale at BestBuy ONLY on July 26. . . and everywhere else roughly two months later, in late September.
.
There are quite a few unique things about the new BSG; apparently how they market their DVDs is one of them! The mind reels at what BestBuy must have paid for this. .
Already available: I use Mozilla Calendar to access, via WebDAV and SSL, an iCalendar file stored on a remote server, protected by Apache's Digest Authentication. Because of WebDAV I can get at (and update) my calendar from anywhere; because of SSL it's secure from eavsdropping; because of the authentication, only I, or people I authorize, can access it. Works great! Plus, you can use any iCalendar-aware client (not just Mozilla/SunBird). The downside: I had to know how to set up WebDAV and know a little about iCalendar. That's not a huge hurdle, but its enough to keep most non-geeks from being able to set it up.
We had a computer club when I was in high school; FYI, the best fund raiser we found, BY FAR, was to run a computer dating service. We'd have booths at various student activities where kids could sign up--they'd pay a fee and fill out a short questionaire, which we would input into the database. To get customized date suggestions printed out they would have to apy another fee. I never heard of anyone *actually* going on any dates based on the service, but everyone was dying to find out who the computer would match them up with. Like I said, this was a serious money maker for us!
At the same booths we would also sell customized biorthym charts--utter rubbish, but hey, people pay for horoscopes too! This didn't earn as much as the dating service, but was still a good secondary product.
Good luck!