A refreshing take on PC games piracy..

[usxhe190]

What i mean with the CD key is that the key is matched with the "official servers" so that only that cd key can play on the server (at any one time).

If pirate wants to generate cd keys, it won't work because the server doesn't recognise that cd key.

All the pirate can do is
1. play that game offline
2. play that game online on an unofficial server with other unofficial people - this is fine with me, because the developer should make the "official" server more enticing experience (e.g. number of players, low lag etc etc).

that is how to tackle pirates. But obviously developers will always think they spend too much time on developing the story in the offline game and so don't want to lose it and always think of piracy....

[kalniel]

So the article is basically saying 'avoid pirates by making products that ignore the hardcore market'..

Where does that leave people who want to make games for that market?

[Gr44]

thinking about it, a combination of cd key and official servers only would work nicely.But the cost of running those servers would have to be put onto the customer in the form of monthly subs. Most clans wouldnt complain too much anyway as they pay for their own servers, but a lot of casuals might not be so keen as they may play 10 different games and 10 different sub costs would add up!

UT2003 had piracy sorted pretty well as far as I know. It forced your UT to talk back to a master server which then sent your CD key, if it was duplicated then you'd be blocked from playing.

Someone used my cd key once which blocked me but Epic soon sent me another one after I'd proved I owned the game... which was a little debatable but I think 2k4 was out then anyway so they didn't care too much.

Again though, annoying for people who have bought the game and get kicked off because of another person stealing/generating keys.

SupCom/Forged Alliance has a good system. Soon as you sign up online you need to enter your CD key and sign for an account. Once the account is made you've used the CD key and it can't be touched again. Doesn't stop single player use on multiple keys though...

Point is you don't need to host each and every server for a game, just a master server with something similar to the above games should cover it pretty well.

[scarbunny]

So the article is basically saying 'avoid pirates by making products that ignore the hardcore market'..

Where does that leave people who want to make games for that market?

I think you have missed the point of the article, what he is saying is that the majority of hardcore gamers with top end systems know where to get pirate software as they are generally pretty internet savy, even if they only use torrents. Of cause this dosnt mean all hardcore gamers are pirates, just that most pirates are hardcore gamers.

What he is getting at is that Infinity Ward are complaining that they didnt sell as many copies of there overly, short overly hyped, not as good as it should have been AAA title and as a result are blaming the fact that they didnt sell as many as they thought they deserved to on pirates. However his argument falls flat when compaired to Stardocks sales, as the article states they have sold 200,000 copies of Sins in a month with little media coverage, little advertising and absolutly no copy protection. His argument is that if you aim your game at the hardcore market and create something only highend systems can run well then the only people that will buy it is the hardcore gamer with a high end system which is a tiny market share. If however you make a game that looks and plays good on a mid range system then you increase your market share hugely, then you can stick some bells and whistles on for us.

I think Crysis is a good example of this syndrome, I have a pretty highend system not crazy fast but good enough but Crysis played pretty sluggish on my system on high and looked crap on medium and terrible on low settings. If it had look good on med and amazing on high it would have sold more copies.