DRM done right: Puppygames

All this is rather beside the point - according to the numbers in that post, they're selling 20 copies a month. If you're writing good, attractive games but making so little money, you have much bigger priorities than your DRM scheme. Spend an hour implementing an off-the-shelf watermarking system to give yourself basic legal recourse against wholesale piracy, then get on with the job of selling.

If this is just a hobby then fair enough, I have no right to argue, but if this is supposed to be a business then I really despair.

Or, turning your comment on its head, Minecraft's income looks absolutely amazing compared to this!

1) Sharing with friends and family is allowed, and encouraged

2) Your e-mail is your registration key - when you try to activate on another computer, an activation link is sent to you via e-mail, and you can do this 10 times. After that, you've just got to ask Puppygames for more activations and they'll almost always approve them (I assume the main exception would be if someone was passing around a registration all over the Internet, which is pretty easy to notice if it happens).

3) If anything screws up re: the DRM system, it errs in your favor. In particular, if you haven't registered when you boot the game and you can't reach the server, it will assume that you're good to go, and turn the demo into the full game. It will never shut you down because it can't phone home.

4) The only way the full game gets disabled is if the server tells it that you've asked for a refund (which they always honor).

5) They're aware that 3) and 4) are very easy to game (block the Internet connection once you get your refund), and that's fine, they prefer not to hassle legit users unduly.

IMO, this strikes a pretty good balance - it tends to err on the side of the user while still throwing up a tiny barrier to piracy (pretty much just enough to thwart the casual pirate). To do more is not worth it, because people that will go through the trouble of bypassing the registration process on the demo would probably just find a cracked version anyways if it was any more difficult to do.

Also, I should mention that the demos that Puppygames provides are quite substantial chunks of the full versions - if you've played enough of the demo to reach its limits, then chances are you've been liking the game enough to warrant buying it. I think this is pretty important, it's probably the main reason they have so few refund requests.

Finally, I encourage everyone to check out the game itself at http://www.puppygames.net/revenge-of-the-titans, too - Cas and Chaz have always put together really polished and fun games, and it's a shame that they haven't been able to figure out how to sell more of them (Cas was not joking at all with the self-deprecating stuff about people not buying the games, they really are only selling a handful of copies every month). FWIW, I have no relation to either of them, I'm plugging them because I've always liked their games and would hate to see them give up.

Eh, as you mentioned, this post is aimed at people like us - to the normal end user that's not trying to play the full version for free, there's nothing complex at all. You just download the game, and enter your e-mail address. If you've already bought the thing, then you just have to click a link in an e-mail, otherwise you either play the demo or buy the thing, no surprises. Even sharing with friends is easy, you just enter your e-mail address and it works fine after you click the link.

The other details involve edge cases; perhaps Cas will at some point release some stats, and tell us (for instance) how many people actually activate more than 10 copies of the game. I can't imagine it's very many, and for everyone else, the scheme is trivial.

If you're writing good, attractive games but making so little money, you have much bigger priorities than your DRM scheme.

I'd tend to agree with this. The level of polish in their games makes it surprising that they're doing so few sales, so there's probably a lot that could be done marketing-wise to improve things. Of course, I have no idea what these things are, myself. :)

I'm sure Cas would be open to suggestions on this front, I know he's aware of this thread, so by all means, fire away if you've got advice...