CMBS License/Activation

[BFCElvis]

     But BFC has admitted its their problem and they see this with other people.  Don't question me on this one.  I have several emails from support admitting its their problem.  You're a beta tester...go ask Elvis or some of the previous support guys about gsclean.  A specific utility had to be built just for guys like me.

Not from me. The system is working exactly as it's designed. The gsclean tools were not created just for us. It's part of the package with the DRM company. It's designed to match a computer with an activation. That prevents someone from simply copy/pasting the game onto someone else's computer. So when it detects multiple items that have changed since the last time the software was used it, correctly, detects a mismatch. I got a new rig last spring. I have plugged in external hard drives, external fans, headphones and recently updated to Windows 10 and have not triggered it yet. That said, Windows 10 can and has triggered it for some people. So, in my experience as being the one who actually helps people with the issue....in addition to my own personal experience with it, I can say that the reports of it being overly sensitive are patently untrue. You can believe that or not...all I can do is tell you what I experience with people working the Help Desk.

Regarding activations, the system has changed some since I started on The Desk. I wish that I could remember for sure if one of the changes was when 2.0 or 3.0 came out but certainly from 3.0 forward, using the gsclean tool should not "burn" and activation.

Steam? Origins? No picnic for me. There are plenty of things that I like about them but they're very intrusive too. Getting the new Dragon Age activated last Christmas took me over a week. (only to discover that my rig wasn't up to the task when it finally got activated....thus the new rig last spring) My point being that there are no perfect systems.

Regarding what Steve said about piracy. You wouldn't expect someone with a pirated version of a game to contact tech support for licensing help but I see it all the time. Just last week a guy asked me for a license key. We went back and forth about how he can retrieve his key and when it didn't get us anywhere I asked him for his order number so that I could have it checked. He replied that he didn't have an order number and gave me a link to a torrent site telling that is where he got the game. Another good one from a few months ago was a guy in China asking me why his key didn't work and why the store he purchased it from have the same license key on every box in the store. And my all time favorite was from a guy in France who purchased the game in the photo below from a store in France and was complaining that it didn't come with a license key.

Regarding support......If I'm in front of a computer, I'm on duty. Christmas? Yup. Thanksgiving? Yup. Late at night? Yup. Early in the morning? Yup.

 

[Thewood1]

in this thread...

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=9450.msg246980#msg246980

...you mention the issues with drm that are being worked on.

also note this thread has some data on drm isues from the bfc forums.

I have the emails where it is mentioned the issues are known by bfc and there is nothing that can be done except contacting the help desk when they en.

[BFCElvis]

in this thread...

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=9450.msg246980#msg246980

...you mention the issues with drm that are being worked on.

also note this thread has some data on drm isues from the bfc forums.

I have the emails where it is mentioned the issues are known by bfc and there is nothing that can be done except contacting the help desk when they en.

That post was from over a year and a half ago. Not long after I began my work on the Help Desk. There have been changes to the DRM since that time. For instance, read my answer to the question at the top of the page that you linked to, that's what I was talking about in my last post. It isn't as sensitive as it was then and using the gsclean tool doesn't "burn" an activation for most titles (as I mentioned before).

I assumed that you were talking about something in recent history.

 

[Battlefront.com]

Both Schullencraft and Elvis have dealt with me numerous times.

And we've dealt with your bad attitude and public axe grinding of narrow minded, sometimes factually incorrect, topics even more times.  On that count, we have more to complain about than you

Elvis has come to clarify some points, but I'll clarify some more...

So let's say we take your number of 1%.  Most companies are striving for six-sigma levels of service.  That seems to be a fairly poor mark.  You obviously aren't reading my posts.  I explicitly say its not a widespread problem.  But I am pointing out that its not just 1-2 whiners.

Funny how some people can type, yet say nothing.  Who said the DRM was perfect?  Who said computers are perfect?  Who said end users are perfect?  Not I.  So of course there are going to be problem cases.  Those problem cases are directly proportional to the volume of customers.  Over time they will accumulate into a larger aggregate number, compounded by the fact that many of our customers have multiple games using the same DRM.  Which means if they run into a single problem it is more likely to affect more than just one installation.  We have also found that when a person has a problem with the DRM they tend to have a higher chance of problems in the future compared to someone else.  Probably has to do with end user behavior patterns (i.e. constantly switching hardware vs. someone who doesn't).  As long as the number is reasonably low, then that is just the way things go.

If volume of problems is what you're focused on, then what do you have to say about Apple products?  How about Microsoft products?  I bet they have more customers complaining on a given day than we have customers in total.  Which should make it pretty clear that number of customers complaining is irrelevant.  It is percentages that count.  And since NO company has 100% customer satisfaction, there's always going to be someone with a complaint.  Be it DRM or otherwise.  The judgement should be on how well those customers are treated and if their problems can be solved reasonably efficiently.  We believe that we do that, especially considering that we're a small company with a large customer base.

I  completely understand the difficulty in managing IP and DRM systems.  I have actually done it before at a company called Intellution/GE.  But we never deluded ourselves that DRM issues were isolated incidents.  If we had more than 10 in a year, there would be hell to pay.  And that was on software selling for $10k an install.

Well duh.  Of course there is a different level of expectations for a $10k mission critical piece of software maintained by a professional IT department (end user) in carefully vetted/controlled environments compared to a $55 entertainment product maintained by Joe Average with a computer that would probably give an IT professional nightmares. The price tag includes expectations.  The higher the price tag the higher the expectations on BOTH sides (i.e. I doubt GE would honor its support commitments if the one on the other end maintaining the software was the mail room guy with little IT experience). 

I also wonder what percentage 10 is of the total installed base you worked with.  For us, 10 doesn't even qualify for a rounding error a month, not to mention cumulative customer installed base.  Which is why thinking in terms of absolute numbers is quite silly.

When assessing the overall success/failure of a particular feature of a product, these things matter.  Well, to someone who isn't mired in defective logic at least.

Steve

Edited October 5, 2015 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

Regarding activations, the system has changed some since I started on The Desk. I wish that I could remember for sure if one of the changes was when 2.0 or 3.0 came out but certainly from 3.0 forward, using the gsclean tool should not "burn" and activation.

 I can confirm this since I'm the one that has to muck around in the backend.  I think I've had to add activations maybe two or three times in the last year.  Activations are almost never consumed during reactivation process on the same computer, be it gsclean or because an end user change triggered the DRM to request confirmation of ownership.  The older DRM we used, which hasn't been in use since Fortress Italy, wasn't quite as intelligent. 

The problem was that each time the customer's computer contacted the server it would dutifully subtract an activation, then send the authorization on the assumption that it would be received.  The problem arose when a customer's firewall blocked incoming traffic and, therefore, the game never received the authorization even though an activation was subtracted.  This could be cleared up by exempting CM from the firewall.  We probably had a couple of these a year, so not a widespread problem.  It was also pretty easy to spot and therefore the solution was also easy. 

The current DRM appears to wait for a confirmation from the game that the authorization was received before subtracting an activation.  It also might use a more acceptable method of communications too since we don't usually have firewall problems any more.

Steve

 

[BFCElvis]

  The older DRM we used, which hasn't been in use since Fortress Italy, wasn't quite as intelligent. 

Steve

 

OK, so it was 2.0. I wasn't 100% sure.

The other thing that I meant to say about Origins (and probably Steam but I've never been in a position where I needed to find out). After fighting to get Dragon Age activated, I discovered that I hadn't checked the minimum specs before asking Santa for it. My computer couldn't play the game because it wasn't even close to minimum specs. There was nothing that I could do with the game. I couldn't sell it on eBay or Craigslist or trade it in at a game store. Nada. ZIp. All I could do is put it on a shelf until I could afford a new computer...which I did 6 months later. Also, with RPGs I tend to play them through once and never touch them again. So, even now there is nothing that I can do with it. I can't even put it on my son's computer without giving him access to my account. So, there are good things and bad things about all these systems.None are ever going to make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

Good to hear about improvements in the implementation and behaviour of the DRM.  I used to be the manager responsible for license checking at a previous company and it truly can be a pain for all concerned.  I hated having my guys spend time trouble shooting it because it took away from other things customers wanted.  It was the number one support topic so the support team didn't like it either.  And of course customers with problems really did not like it.  We worked hard to make things as smooth and error free as possible - never got to perfect.  I also advocated for dropping it but the sales and management teams never bought my arguments.   I had at least some leg to stand on because our customers actually wanted a licensing system because they wanted to know how much use the tool was having and when they needed to buy more seats - my argument was we could satisfy that request without a DRM and we could save $.  Still the fear of piracy (which is real BTW) won the day.

The best BFC can do is actually what they are doing and the best we can do is be patient.  Sadly if you are one of the few who are repeatedly having problems it sucks. Hopefully one day an adjustment that BFC makes will take you off the problem child list

[A Canadian Cat]

And my all time favorite was from a guy in France who purchased the game in the photo below from a store in France and was complaining that it didn't come with a license key.

Oh I meant to say that is one amazing picture.  Did you ever find out if it really was a copy of your game? Someone went through a lot of trouble to make box that has nothing at all to do with your game so I almost wonder if it was a pirated version of your game or just a total sham.

[Battlefront.com]

  I used to be the manager responsible for license checking at a previous company and it truly can be a pain for all concerned.  I hated having my guys spend time trouble shooting it because it took away from other things customers wanted.  It was the number one support topic so the support team didn't like it either.

No different with us.  Technical issues that are in some way DRM related make up the bulk of our support issues.  That's more a reflection upon our software having very few problems that require tech support (i.e. not bug/feature discussions here on the Forum).  If we got rid of DRM the tech support requests would drop off quite a lot.  However, the sales would drop off even faster   Which is why we have no more interest in doing away with DRM than your sales folks were.  However many headaches DRM causes, going out of business creates a lot more.  Especially for customers since since 1 out of 1000 with a DRM problem means 1 person with a problem, going out of business means 1000 with a problem.  Which is why a sensible company keeps the big picture in mind.

I will say there is one DRM issue that actually helps people.  There's a number of ways to mess up a CMBN installation and DRM generally will not allow activation if that happens.  Which means people contact us saying they have a DRM issue and we are quickly tipped off that they actually have an installation issue.  Which means we are able to quickly focus on installation issues and the DRM problem resolves itself automatically.

Steve

[A Canadian Cat]

No different with us. 

Yes, in case anyone else missed it that was my point, BFC are not some how special in this regard.

I will say there is one DRM issue that actually helps people.  There's a number of ways to mess up a CMBN installation and DRM generally will not allow activation if that happens.  Which means people contact us saying they have a DRM issue and we are quickly tipped off that they actually have an installation issue.  Which means we are able to quickly focus on installation issues and the DRM problem resolves itself automatically.

LOL that is a good side effect.  We had no such benefit because we had a way more complex setup.  We even had an option for a license server some customers installed inside their own network and floating and fixed licenses and any combination there of.   Plus several applications that used licenses at various times.  etc.  etc.