I have a computer with no network capability that my children use.  Yeah yeah but really I dont want my 6yo going to cheerleaders.com or the old whitehouse.com .  Is there a way they will be able to play the game on the PC?

Yeah, we're considering releasing without any copy protection at all. (Does anyone have any advice on this btw?) For now, while we're still in beta mode, I think you have to activate it only once, and from then on you can be offline forever.

Oh, you can also try copying the file "pers.dat" (search your c drive) to the computer with no internet access if you want to be sneaky about it :) No guarantees, but I *think* that will work as a quick fix for now if you absolutely can't get internet.

Another simple thing you could do is use opendns as your dns and set up content filtering (it's free and basically just works by filtering your name service look ups).  For example, if you try to lookup cheerleaders.com but you have filtering on for softporn (or whatever) it won't show it.  They have probably like 50 or 60 filters.

I have no affiliation with them; however, found them to be useful in the past.

Perhaps no copy protection. but limit highscores and other doodadz & whizzwongels to people who have a magic key?


game will be cracked anyway.. i think it's getting way too popular =P

I quite agreee with toompie, all good games will become warez.

But from personal experience I can also say that people will buy good software, especially if the price is right (as it is in this case).

This is just the kinda game that may benefit from disabling highscores on machines either not connected to the internet or using a cracked key, I know my kids won't be bothered by not knowing their rank in the world, but I am.

But again, if the software is good then people tend to buy it, I have lost count of the games I have first copied then bought later because they were good and I wanted the developers to make me more games, and it's also the reason why I pre-ordered this game.

[quote author=kyle link=topic=22.msg90#msg90 date=1204762267]
Yeah, we're considering releasing without any copy protection at all. (Does anyone have any advice on this btw?) For now, while we're still in beta mode, I think you have to activate it only once, and from then on you can be offline forever.


I would go with no copy protection (something I have covered in an article with my arguments about this. see my blog (link in sig) for the article) if you are releasing just via your site. I would also try to get on Steam, very secure and will have the chance of emulating Audiosurf :P

Agreed to above, if you can absolutely talk to Valve about getting on Steam, the game if the beta is any indication is really awesome and it would be a very sound move. You might make a little less per game sold (I'm not sure what Valve collects for distribution) but there'd be less stealing, and possibly a wider audience.

steam games are very easily cracked. i woulden't count on less stealing to be honest

woulden't mind it to appear on steam, but also woulden't mind if it came without steam

also without steam you guys may have more liberty in updating the game. and all around be less restrictive

ps:customers would really apreciate regular updates =D shows you guys care!

I highly doubt steam has an equal piracy rate to non-steam games, I mean heck, it's just convenient, and I trust it more than other download services.

Convenience is a really big thing. Younger audiences will try and pirate stuff in a lot of cases simply because they're young and often don't have the money/credit card, but for older gamers who can drop a few bucks, it boils down to how easy it is to get ahold of it... if it means a trip to the store, piracy is a viable alternative. Obviously WoG has this covered, though.

In any case, I think you're doing the right thing by going to multiple platforms. As for PC... follow the golden rule IMO, if the copy protection is going to cause paying customers grief, don't do it. You should certainly try and protect your work to some degree, though. Some sort of network access that you can only utilize with an account is a nice way of doing it. Again, pointing to audiosurf, that game wouldn't be much fun at all to me if I didn't have the ability to save my high scores. Patches are always good too.

Yeah, I second the comments by Twincannon in regards to copy protection.  When it comes to security (And even more so to DRM) I always liken it to securing a physical door.  The more locks you put on it, in theory, the harder it will be for a thief to circumvent them.  So too will it increase the ire of the legitimate users of the door as a result of the ever increasing weight of their key ring and the time it takes for them to get through. 

Of course, all of this is moot because any thief worth his salt is just going to come in through the window you left open anyways.

The moral of the story is to provide just enough protection to stop the more 'casual' interloper but provide easy enough access for legitimate users.  A good deadbolt will stop the college frat boy who learned how to card a door in his dorm or saw how to bump key on Youtube and for most stuff it's good enough.