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DRM done right: Puppygames

puppygames.net

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Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#21

Post by ido »

cookiecaper wrote: post #20
ido wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ignore the fact that the purpose of DRM is to minimize piracy, not prevent it completely. if it introduced even a slight inconvenience in pirating the games it would probably already shave off a nice amount of pirating. PS: Puppy Games is just one guy trying to make a living from his games, it's not really much of a "company".

OK, but it's not going to minimize piracy at all. Big-name games get pirated more and more and their attempts to "minimize piracy" are much more intrusive. If those don't deter people, a little flash of a name isn't going to deter people. The people who consume pirate media are just going to wait for it to pop on the torrent, just like anything, and crackers will have it out in a jiffy (assuming there's an audience t…

    Big-name games get pirated more and more and 
    their attempts to "minimize piracy" are much
    more intrusive. If those don't deter people,
    a little flash of a name isn't going to 
    deter people.
How do you know they wouldn't have been pirated even more without these measures?

In this particular instance, I think the fact it's a small fish game actually helps, since it will be harder to find well seeded torrents of it compared to the latest and greatest AAA extravaganza.

And do you think he'll automatically renew "1337 h4x0rs group" 10 keys limits after getting 1000s of requests to register the game under any single name?

I hope Cas will post some stats about how this worked out for him (assuming he can compare piracy rates between this and his previous games), I'd be very interested to find out how it fared.

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#22

Post by ido »

maushu wrote: post #13
willvarfar wrote: post #2

sad they say they aren't doing so well: "It means if our DRM system breaks, like for example our server melts down with the floods of sales we unfortunately aren’t getting, or Puppygames goes completely bust because you buggers aren’t buying nearly enough games for us to survive ," ... " Hint: you’re not :("

Well, if they aren't exaggerating with that 5% number. Then it means they are making around $270 per month. Kind of sad compared with minecraft that made $20k or something in a day.

$100-200k a day currently.

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#23

Post by city41 »

ido wrote: post #19
cookiecaper wrote: post #17

They should just take all of this out and tout that they are DRM-free. If they trusted the user as they claim, they wouldn't feel like they needed to revert your refunded full game into a demo. Lots of people would have no problem registering the game to "Sir Pantsy Higginbothom " and then what good does their little name screen do? If they always reset your registration count no questions asked, there is no point in…

You ignore the fact that the purpose of DRM is to minimize piracy, not prevent it completely. if it introduced even a slight inconvenience in pirating the games it would probably already shave off a nice amount of pirating. PS: Puppy Games is just one guy trying to make a living from his games, it's not really much of a "company".

Is it just one guy now? I know for a while it was at least two, possibly three.

Also, PuppyGames are the people responsible for LWJGL[1], which IMO is the best way to go for making games in Java.

[1] http://www.lwjgl.org/

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#24

Post by mjgoins »

patio11 wrote: post #7

I wonder how long it is going to take the fickle and rabidly cynical usual suspects to realize that "Our DRM / lack of DRM / pseudo-DRM / loud opposition to DRM is different " is, in fact, Marketing 101, and that they hate marketing almost as much as they hate paying for software.

I don't mind paying for free software, if I think it's worth it. But I wouldn't take their proprietary software even if you paid me.

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#25

Post by ido »

city41 wrote: post #23
ido wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ignore the fact that the purpose of DRM is to minimize piracy, not prevent it completely. if it introduced even a slight inconvenience in pirating the games it would probably already shave off a nice amount of pirating. PS: Puppy Games is just one guy trying to make a living from his games, it's not really much of a "company".

Is it just one guy now? I know for a while it was at least two, possibly three. Also, PuppyGames are the people responsible for LWJGL[1], which IMO is the best way to go for making games in Java. [1] http://www.lwjgl.org/

AFAIK there is just one programmer, and he is on the LWJGL team but is by no means the only LWJGL developer.

There might be someone else working with him, I couldn't really find anything about it.

EDIT: apparently there are 2 people, Cas & Chaz:

http://www.javagaming.org/index.php/topic,23005.msg190715.ht...

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#28

Post by njharman »

ido wrote: post #19
cookiecaper wrote: post #17

They should just take all of this out and tout that they are DRM-free. If they trusted the user as they claim, they wouldn't feel like they needed to revert your refunded full game into a demo. Lots of people would have no problem registering the game to "Sir Pantsy Higginbothom " and then what good does their little name screen do? If they always reset your registration count no questions asked, there is no point in…

You ignore the fact that the purpose of DRM is to minimize piracy, not prevent it completely. if it introduced even a slight inconvenience in pirating the games it would probably already shave off a nice amount of pirating. PS: Puppy Games is just one guy trying to make a living from his games, it's not really much of a "company".

> purpose of DRM is to minimize piracy,

Oh, that depends very much. Some other reasons include limit resale/kill secondary market/otherwise control distribution, track users/usage, be able to force update/patches/deactivations/etc on users, your publisher is an idiot.

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#29

Post by middayc »

cookiecaper wrote: post #17

They should just take all of this out and tout that they are DRM-free. If they trusted the user as they claim, they wouldn't feel like they needed to revert your refunded full game into a demo. Lots of people would have no problem registering the game to "Sir Pantsy Higginbothom " and then what good does their little name screen do? If they always reset your registration count no questions asked, there is no point in…

Do you have a credit card for that Sir Pantsy Higginbothom?

Re: DRM done right: Puppygames

#30

Post by maushu »

robryan wrote: post #14
maushu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this happened to me regarding Starcraft 2. I ended up regretting buying it after it took me half a dozen tries just to play single-player with my not-so-good mobile internet connection.

Had no problems with starcraft 2 at first, but the real telling moment came when I noticed that I couldn't play single player without first registering my account for offline play with a net connection that I didn't have where I was at the time. Felt weird having a game I had paid for and installed legit that I was being prevented from playing.

Yeah, I forgot about the need to register on battle.net
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