What´s the point of the new copy protection?

[Turin]

Apparently menus randomly disappear on some turns in 3.06 if you play with a bad(pirated) CD-KEY.

I´m wondering what this should accomplish, because I see lots of negative effects of this copy protection.
Here are some that immediately come to mind:

1.Bad word of mouth.
People don´t know that it´s copyprotection, so people assume it´s a bug. That certainly will drive people off, who are thinking about buying the game, but hearing from their pirate friends that it´s a really buggy game. For example check out this thread on the somethingawful forums, where multiple people complain about the "bug", but are otherwise enthusiastic about the game:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...2&pagenumber=4

2. Alienating semilegitimate users:
Unless it has changed recently, it can take quite a while for the copy to arrive when ordering from some publishers. Since many people aren´t very patient, it´s pretty likely that they will use a pirated copy until the real one arrives. Now guess what happens when they find out that the 55Euro game they just ordered has strange bugs/crashes.

3. Wasting programming time:
I don´t know much about programming, but implementing and checking that the copyprotection works correctly must take some time. With the huge list of bugs/requested features I´m pretty certain that the programming time could be better spent elsewhere for legitimate users.

4. Not trusting customers:
I think the dominions series is a pretty big success partly because the Illwinter guys are seen as nice guys, who passionately work to create their dream game and aren´t that interested in making money off it. Now if that perception changes and people see Illwinter as just another company out there to make money, I guess people will be less patient with UI issues/bad graphics etc, or less interested in making mods to enhance the game experience.

I can see two good effects though:

1. The developers can get the feeling of satisfaction that no pirate is enjoying their hard work.

2. There may be some guys, who have a pirated version, come to this forum to complain about the bug, get told that it´s because of their pirated version and then proceed to buy the game to get the benefit of the patches.


The reason I´m interested in this is that I´m a student of economics and I have focused on behavioral economics, which deals with issues like fairness/trust/reciprocity in an economic background. And given the results of the papers/experiments I have to read there regarding trust and reciprocity, I just can´t see how the new copy protection scheme makes sense.

For example why don´t you put at least an errormessage like Nagot gik fel:badcdkey after the error, so that the pirates know it´s not a bug and you don´t get the bad word of mouth effect?

[reverend]

This form of copy-protection is by FAR preferable to the hardware-based one usually found on computer games.

There are enough companies that have to issue no-cd hacks just so customer can play or install the games, because their hardware isn't compatibel with Starforce or securom or whatever. Both of which may (or may not, depending on your source) seriously affect your PCs performance or establish a filter driver between windows and the cd-rom, making it potentially unstable and unsafe to uninstall.

Also, we don't need a cd to play dom3. Try that with any other modern game, out of the box.

So, the point is, it protects the developers efforts while not afflicting legitimate customers AT ALL.

As a software-developer and computer gamer, I salute Illwinter for the form of copy protection they have chosen (and developed themselves, if I'm not mistaken).

[Turin]

Hmm this wasn´t supposed to be a rant against the copy protection, which is as you point out still very benevolent compared to other copyprotection and doesn´t affect legitimate users.

I was just curious how the copyprotection should help sales, because as far as I can tell it only tells pirates: "This is a buggy game" and not "Your game is buggy, because you are a pirate, go buy a copy and it works fine".

[llamabeast]

I have to agree it's a weird way to do it, it would make a lot more sense if it at least told you why it was behaving badly.

[reverend]

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant either.

It's just that this game is one of the most lenient when it comes to compatibility, ever. (Windows/Mac/Linux, no CD required etc.)


As for the point about appearing buggy: There is a demo (there is, right?), and as soon as you come to the official forum and spend a few minutes searching, you KNOW it is your fault, not the games.

Also, in my opinion, Dom3 fits in a market where there are decidedly less pirates than for example first-person-shooters or real-time-strategy. At least it doesn't get a bad reputation for wrecking you cd-rom drive like other games.



PS: Maybe, in the next patch, Illwinter could change it so that the orders of all your commanders read "AWOL, buying the game", without the ability to change them, much like insanity.

[Nick_K]

Is this the bug where the map stays present, but the controls etc vanish so nothing can actually be done? I've had that a couple of times despite playing with a legitimate copy... if this is supposed to be 'copy protection' then it's not very good for two reasons:
- Firstly, as I said, I had it a few times
- secondly, quitting and restarting the program fixes the problem, so as bugs go, it's not that much hassle.


Of course, you could be talking about something else entirely... Have you official confirmation that this is intentional? I've seen several forums accept the 'fact' that a recent, quite serious, bug in Football Manager 2007 was put in by the developers to affect pirated games, despite this not being at all true and the bug also affecting legitimate users. This sort of rumour can be quite nasty if a user asks for help about the bug and gets flamed as a 'pirate'.

[Gandalf Parker]

Discussions of the copy protection dont tend to last long. But this is the publishers forum so I dont hav a problem with that.

But just for now.. Umm.. are you sure thats the action? All the tests I can do seem to just say that it wont work with a bad key. Ive seen guesswork that some bad events might be a bad key but I havent been able to duplicate it. But I do tink they should do some simple cryptograhy with the key file.

On the other hand, if they were to do something interesting I remember one game (I think it was a space game) that a bad key meant you got a load of the games bad events piled on you every turn.

[Baalz]

I know that I stepped in to sub in a MP game because the previous player was "having problems" with the 3.06 patch. First turn I step in I get a message (based on the previous turn, the one I didn't play) that the CD key was bad, so no orders had been processed. Guess we know what problems the guy was having.

[Turin]

Johan K mentions the bug being copyprotection in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Heh if not even Gandalf Parker, a moderator of the board knows about this, how is the casual pirate supposed to figure out the game is wonky because of copyprotection.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmm I still cant dupicate it that way.

By the way, moderator isnt based on knowledge. Expert moderators tend to create an unsocial forum. They dont moderate (I mean the definition of the word) very well.