Why do people still buy CD's when they could download the music for free?

because by and large you can't DL cd quality audio, just tinny lossy mp3's. if you want the real McCoy, you gotta ante up the bucks.

and if I see Origen or Steam I put it back.

I heard that!

i used to have a very poor internet connection. the steam client update was an 87 meg un-resumable DL that timed out after about 15 seconds. i had to change ISPs before i could DL skyrim or simcity4. and the SIMs is 1.5 MONTHS of bandwidth! ive done about 1 gig so far.

i also hate the way steam goes into an update DL when i try to launch skyrim sometimes if i'm connected. "i dont want to update steam! i want to play skyrim godammit!". just makes me want to shoot the monitor! <g>.

experiences like these are what have soured me on the whole e-delivery promise, and "ET phone home" DRM.

and what really sucks is that the internet is still too fricking slow to run a real god damned simulation. so server side solutions are out if you want to play something more than a mere game.

I'm sure I'll see a thing or three differently once I'm on the other side of a successful release.
I do hope DRM isn't one of them though.

don't count on it! its more difficult for games to provide continuous significant content and gameplay improvements, than it is for apps to provide significant new features to prompt users to buy the new version once the old one is cracked/hacked. and with game development success will come copy protection issues if the game size / game price / and or glory of cracking the game warrants cracker attention. IE the more expensive, bigger, and popular the game, the more likely it is to be a target.

probably the only way to make money in games without worrying about drm is to sell really cheap games in really mass volumes. or games for markets where piracy is harder due to the market's limited size.

Edit: As for game popularity - Torchlight sold over a million copies within four months of release. I would think that would make a large enough title to be 'on the radar'.

there are two formulas at work:

1. the cracker's formula:

"how much glory is there? they only charge $15, can't be much of a game. and they don't even bother with drm. probably so shitty there'd be no glory even if it had drm at twice the popularity and price point. zero points for cracking uncool games. lots of points for cracking cool games that everyone wants that aren't cracked. (think nba2K or tiger woods cool and popular)."

2. the end user's formula:

"how much more do i get, and for how many dollars, than i already have now with this cool file i just downloaded for FREE!"

as i said before, small cheap games are a dime a dozen these days. you have to try to build something big like skyrim before you stand out from the crowd.

i've personally never heard of torchlight, although i have heard of games like skyrim, call of duty (what is it version 27 now?), black ops, etc. THATS where the glory is for crackers, with big games like that, not one of the 10,000+ sub $20 games you find on steam. and yes, Caveman will definitely cost more than $20. price will most likely start at $30. The previous versions 1.0 thru 1.3, released between 2000 and 2003 were priced between $30 and $35 for a single user license.

I would think people would be deterred from cracking it if they know they are known.

haven't you ever burned a copy of a registered program for friend or relative that had your registration info in it?

i don't think any testers will try to crack the beta expiration date. but its possible that the beta might get out on the web.

That could be combined with online password checking on update/game start

no "ET phone home " solutions allowed. too intrusive. too exclusionary. not everyone had unlimited broadband. "no internet connection required" is a design constraint of the software's specification.

definitely doesn't make my job any easier!

My own personal take is that the reality of that situation being what it is, you simply have to accept it to be in the business of making certain kinds of games today -- Essentially any one-time-purchase-game without an online component is highly susceptible to being cracked and becoming someone's warez

i have a saying:

"I'm not in the business of selling games, I'm in the business of selling keydiscs!"

display a courtesy pop up that this copy is from a beta and that he is playing past the expiration date, and may contain bugs, etc; with a link to buy the final version.

yes, something like that is the plan. the program will need to be clearly marked as beta with info on how to get the full game.

as for the DRM methods, its occured to me that i may not want to go into too many details. if i were a cracker, say a year from now, thinking about taking a stab at this new game Caveman, the first thing i'd do would be a google search to find out what i could about it. and low and behold! what do i find? all these posts on gamedev about building the game! including threads related to DRM!

otoh, i would very much like to discuss the design with known members (such as yourself) in a more private and secure forum.

i HAVE figured out that its the exe, moreso than the memory image, whose integrity i need to worry about. if the exe is ok, the memory should be too - barring realtime tampering. but its mods to the exe that circumvent the beta expiration that i'm concerend with now. later i'll be concerned with mods that circumvent the keycd check.

Here's a list of DRM-free games. Take a gander through there and consider how many of them you recognize, how many of them have been profitable.

and consider how many aren't big or aren't new, or don't have that large a market.

there's not a single current AAA pc title there. assasin's creed 1 was about it. if they can get a few bucks for the old version on a "marginal goods" sale, great. its called milking the release for all its worth. no drm makes e-delievry easier. probably had to strip it out for e-delivery, and the game wasn't worth an alternative solution. its so old its no competition to the current version, and works as a "free demo" instead if redistributed.

in the wikipedia article on DRM, they point out that big pc games released in 2008 with good drm were conspicuously absent from torrent freak's list of top 10 most popular cracked games for 2008. their point was that drm doesn't therefore seem to encourage cracking. well of course not silly! you think the cracker does it so all those legit users dont have to put a cd in their drive to play? you think they're some kind of gaming good Samaritan? Nonsense! They want bragging rights within their community - plain and simple, its all about prestige amongst one's fellow crackers. unfortunately (for gamedevs) the only way to gain such notoriety is by releasing cracks.

most of the examples of games held up as "drm free and it works" simply wouldn't be worth cracking even if they had the easiest to break drm ever. they're just not cool enough, big enough, expensive enough, popular enough, etc.

.