I'll pre-order if...

[Bamse]

Username haaaalloooooo ! And the weather on your planet is fine ?

The pirates would crack that system in days and then everyone or many would want the cracked product !

I think WWII online looks cool but will never play or buy it because it will have a price/month or something.

[Username]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bamse:

The pirates would crack that system in days and then everyone or many would want the cracked product !

B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hello to you too

Pirates are people who make illegal copies. Very difficult to stop because they have such cheap CD RW tools. They arent 'cracking' anything. That takes a certain expertise, not just a piece of hardware that everyone sells. I believe you are giving hackers too much credit and software developers not enough credit.

Now GOOOODBYYYEEE

Lewis

[Username]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CEO:

I would never buy another computer game EVER again if everyone did this. It is just to damn inconvenient. EVERY time I want to play/use the software I have to pay? No thanks. If companies did this, I think my computer gaming addiction would go away (maybe).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

CEO

You actually do pay every time you play. Just divide the price by the number of times you played. Its called 'Costing'.

Now suppose you buy a game like 'Across the Rhine' for $59.95 and play it 3 times before you get fed up. Thats pretty expensive. If you only got burned for 9.99 +$0.25*3=$10.75, then you wouldnt feel so bad. I paid 40 bucks for Panzer Elite and must have played a couple hundred times before I stopped.

Of course, theres other methods like pay-per-day, so you can lose..er..play as many times in a day (Panzer Elite has a steep learning curve so that quarter might last 2 minutes). I admit its very different than what people are used to but so was cable TV when it came out. Pay for TV? WHY SHOULD I ITS FREE!!! I can't think of a wargame I bought over a year ago I still play.

Back to the point. The product has to be protected. The laws cant be enforced and the criminals dont view their actions as "wrong". The ball is in the software developers court and they might need a major shift in "selling" the product/service. Complaigning and wishing to throw these punks in the ocean never solved anything.

Lewis

[Guest Ol' Blood & Guts]

This is the dumbest thread I have read in a long time. You all are half-assed condoning software piracy!

My friend, aka KILLEM ALL, is expecting to burn a copy of my CM CD when I get it through the MAIL. But after reading this thread, I'm like "HELL NO!" He can order himself a copy his DAMN SELF! I told him that just this past weekend. Besides, isn't BTS gonna put some heavy copy protection on these CDs?

------------------

"I am not interested in the names of your fathers...nor of your family's lineage. What I am interested in...is your breaking point!"--Gen. Chang

[Mark IV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You actually do pay every time you play. Just divide the price by the number of times you played. Its called 'Costing'.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mere casuistry. The difference is that pay-to-play is open-ended. CM is prix fixe, meaning the total remains constant and my "costing" drops every time I play (conservatively estimating, if I played each of the 3 beta demo scenarios 6 times, and if I had payed 50 bucks for it, my cost would be 2.77/game. If I play again, it drops to 2.63).

The difference between CM and cable TV is that the cost of collecting and policing a pay-to-play plan is ridiculously out of proportion to the market. When there's a CM in 60% (or even 1%) of American households, come on back.

In the Hotline-download discussion, the idea that the priates <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>arent 'cracking' anything. That takes a certain expertise, not just a piece of hardware that everyone sells<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ...seems to ignore the fact that the download system is accessible by modem, which is protected by an authentication and a password, which is crackable, which is therefore as insecure as anything else. So if <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The ball is in the software developers court and they might need a major shift in "selling" the product/service<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>...then we could agree that marketing over the net and shipping a hard CD on credit verification is a major shift in "selling", with lowest cost and least risk to BTS.

[Guest hunt52]

Would it be nice to prevent illegal duplication of Combat Mission? Yes.

Is it practical? No.

Why not?

Well, what is a computer program? It is a series of 1s and 0s that when interpreted by a computer do something. If you don't let the computer see the 1s and 0s then - poof - no program. All any software developer can do is make it inconvenient for people to illegally duplicate the code. Ideally it will be more inconvenient for most people to hack the game than to buy it. Unfortunately, people will hack - human nature.

Now as to the proposed ideas:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Theres no easy answer but I would do the following. People buy CDROM games and the low upfront cost (lets say $9.99)covers the packaging expenses. They take the game home and load it and they HAVE to get online to register WITH a credit card. Every time they play they have to pay a small fee online (they can pre-order multiple games for airplane trips with laptops). Lets say 25cents a game. There is a "code of the day" that gets them playing. After they have spent 50 bucks (200 plays), they can play for a nickel a game. They can never change credit cards and the game becomes non-transferable.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

1. America won the war not Germany...

2. I don't have a credit card, and probably won't any time soon. I had to use my parent's to buy CM... and they don't like me using it that much. I'm sure that there are other people in the world without credit cards who would prefer to pay cash or check... If your ideas were implemented, I would NOT be able to play CM (ever).

3. How would the "code of the day" get to the player? If the answer involves any form of electronic communication it will be hacked. Also - sucks to people who access the net at work - or at school. Oh - and forget talking on the phone while playing the AI... (for people with modems) And someone who is clever will write a program that acts like the software developers "server" package and gives you unlimited games.

All in all, a marked decrease in user freedom that does not solve the fundamental problem: we can still see the code! The only real effective copy protection is to allow the players to play the game without putting the code (in any form) on their computer. Right now this isn't possible, and it may never be... Really what can be done is to vigorously enforce the copyright laws in place and hose the people distributing the pirated software and cracks.

- Bill

[Username]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>then we could agree that marketing over the net and shipping a hard CD on credit verification is a major shift in "selling", with lowest cost and least risk to BTS <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure if they could secure ALL their customers ahead of time, charge them, and ship the product in a mass mailing. Which is obviously impossible. Believe me, BTS wants a lot greater market than the pre-orders they have. The real payoff will come when reviews, WOM, advertisement, and magazine CDROM gold demos hit the stands.

I am interested in what BTS is doing as far as protecting the game. I imagine the CDROM must be in the drive? I remember heated arguments on TS page because customers felt they had some legal right to make one copy for themselves and that these protection schemes "violated" that.

Lewis

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Well, after perusing all the intelligent posts on this board, I figured I'd put my two cents in... besides, it brings me one post closer to that coveted "member" status Someone said that all pirates do is make CD-R copies of games, etc, but it is waaaay more sophisticated than that now. Search the web for "filez" or "warez" to see just how prevalent it is. And it's more than games... you can download full versions of much more expensive programs, like Photoshop or Quark XPress, without having to even touch a physical CD-R copy. Some sites even post the CD keys for hundreds of software titles, kinda taking the security out of that little exercise. And I don't think that paying for play with games is the answer... I know personally I'd be turned off to the idea of gaming if I was required to log my credit card with a software company and be charged for every hour I played.

And like someone else here said... if anything, that sort of a system would increase the "need" for pirates and warez peddlers. To me, this whole thing sounds a lot like the gun control issue. Rather than look for new, highly sophisticated ways of dealing with the problem, why not enforce what's there already? It's illegal to sell or give away copies of licensed software, why not have some law enforcement division patrol the net? It's not like it would take a lot of man-hours to find many of the sites in question... and the government spends its money already on a lot more useless jobs and equipment. Pay some joker to walk the Internet beat... it could even spawn various exciting made-for-TV movies... "This week on NBC... NET Cops, in color..." well, maybe not...

[Guest Ol' Blood & Guts]

Also I think the concept of "pay-to-play" is just about as good idea as DIVX. So you pay a "rent fee" to "buy" a movie and then you pay another fee to watch it again. That's fine if its a ****ty movie, but to keep paying money to watch a really good movie is stupid. I will guarantee that you will be playing CM plenty of times over to pay for it if you "payed to play" in your plan.

[Eridani]

I couldn't let this thread go without chiming in.

Username... your idea sounds remarkable similar to one that was just in the news... the new great way that we were going to watch movies... it was called DIVX, ever heard of it?

well, if you haven't the idea was this-

you pay a small fee (5-10 bucks) to buy a movie on DIVX (similar to DVD). You take the disc home and get 24-48 hours to watch it from the time you first put it in your DVD player. AFter that point you have to go online to "order" additional playings at some small fee (less than 5 dollars) per showing. great in theory, for those who didn't like spending 20 dollars for a movie that they were going to only watch once... it was going to put both retail sales and rental places out of buisness...

but then a poor little thing called reality struck.

When someone purchases something, they expect/feel like they should have rights to OWN that product. I personally am extremely offended at the Idea of spending the money for a product and then having to ask "permission" to use it as much as I want. As Bill said, the Allies won the war...

BTW, if you didn't know, DIVX is dead

The second problem is very simple- if you secure it, someone else will hack it. It is a very simple, straitforward equasion. Programs that are bastards about copy protection will only get hacked that much faster because more people will have a reason to try. I personally thing that a lot of sharware companies have it right- they make versions of their software that are mildy annoying to unregistered users, but not so annoying that they are not functional (and therefore demand the attention of the hard-core crackers). Then they get you in the basic mindset that "hey, its worth a few bucks to make this program work smoothly, but its not worth the time/effort/angst to find/make a crack for it", so they get buyers.

Don't underestimate the intellegence/persistence of these "pirates" who you so easily group together in one lump sum. Look at how quickly DVD encryption was cracked, that had a multi-billion dollar industry behind it. The people doing the cracking aren't idiots, they are in some cases extremely intellegent, and do what they do because very strong ideological/philisophical reasons (freedom of information, against the commercialization of the web, ect), and I'll tell you many of them are a hell of a lot smarter than you are. Now I'm not about to go and debate the merits/flaws with these beliefs, I'm just saying they arn't all acne-faced teenagers who don't want to spend a few bucks.

I have had several friends ask to burn me a copy of CM when it comes out, I said hell no. Were BTS another company I may think differently, but I think one of the major bonus's of Steve and Charles's business model is, well, the fact I know their names. The fact that I can interact with them and I know how much time/dedication/energy they put into CM. Now I'm not saying that other software companies don't put time and energy into their work, but with CM I really feel it. My money is going to help two great guys make awsome software, not to some suits who care only about the bottom line.

And I promise that If I do ever find a Hotline server, or anywhere that is offering combat mission I will do my best to... make life difficult for them... I will pay for one, maybe two copies (For me and my bro) because I honestly beleive that Steve and Charles deserve it.

But in the same breath, if the magic link were to appear before me, I would download the game in a heartbeat.

but then make sure no-one else who hadn't paid could (and of course I would still buy my two copies)

I know this will probably piss a few people off. Steve, I do understand your strong anger toward software pirates. I can't say I haven't download a few programs in my time. But I'll also tell you that I HAVE purchased any software package that I downloaded and actually started using on a regular basis. If those actions label me as a pirate in your eyes I'm sorry. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, but I'm not about to pay 50 dollars to try every software package I'm interested in.

*shrugs*

-EridanMan

[This message has been edited by Eridani (edited 04-10-2000).]

[Username]

I knew this thread would turn interesting. Actually informative, I never heard of DIVX. I think you are straining for an analogy there though. Seeing the same movie again and playing any scenario you want in CM for a whole day aint exactly apples and apples. What I am saying is that the software is becoming more a service than a product. You are leasing and not buying.

I don't think its up to anyone to decide to steal software whether they like the company or not. Thats a hard one to follow. A consumer can decide to not buy a product if he doesnt like a company. How stealing becomes OK I dont quite get.

As far as stopping software theft with the laws we have, no way. Look at the war on drugs. They cant stop that with billions of dollars thats spent. Its an international thing anyway. International Cyber Cops?

I don't really expect anyone to charge someone a nickel a play. C'mon the credit card people would not allow it. I just like getting peoples reactions to computer issues. People are a little wacky about computers, software, internet, the whole deal. And wargamers are pretty wacky to boot.

Lewis

[Eridani]

Lewis-

I didn't think I was straining, what your talking about sounds exactly like the DIVX model.

And I'm not trying to justify my actions... I'm simply explaining my thinking (there is a difference). I understand that my actions are illegal... I dare anyone here to tell me that they have never done things that they knew were illegal... But I have a reason, and I do go out of my way to give credit where it was do (purchase a full copy of any software I find to be helpful or that I use on a regular basis).

Either way I had to chime in to this thread, it is a topic I have done a lot of thinking/debating with others about.

I have a few friends who are the aformentioned copyright crackers... Absolutely brilliant guys who believe very strongly in freedom of information... I've had some LONG debates with them about this very topic... I don't know where I stand really, I definately do think that intellectual property is important so writers can get what they deserve(BTS), but pure-profit motivated programming is definately not... I think the world has had too much of a taste of what code that is written with the bottom line and not functionality looks like (m$)...

I do enjoy playing devils advocate in these type of debates, especially when Its something I have experience with... as to my own personal opinion...

It's... interesting ground

-EridanMan

[Guest MantaRay]

I think the best way to combat warez is to release periodic patches that change the version number. The way that this combats it is because if you want to play MP, you must buy the game. Warez hackers usually move on and dont keep cracking the patches.

Ray

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MantaRays 5 Pages

[Guest mch]

Well,...

If someone burned a CD for you,why couldn't

you get a patch from them as well!

how would you even release the patches?

i guess e-mail..but...

There's no real way(yet)to stop piracy.

If there was,it'd have been done already.

I think the only real way to do something

about it is make shure you aren't doing it.

Don't let anyone copy your game.

I mean,warez people will probably steal it,

but,would they have bought cm in the first place?NO!

if everyone(here at least)dosen't do it

that's ..y'know..how many sales saved?

maybe alot.

I thought it was funny,what was said a few posts up:"my friend asked ..copy..BUT AFTER

READING THIS THREAD..i said no"

you were considering it in the first place?

P.S. i remember that this topic came up not

too long ago.Here's the thread http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/002654.html

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It is no disgrace to be defeated...It is a disgrace to be surprised.

-attr.to Fredrick the Great-

[This message has been edited by mch (edited 04-11-2000).]

[Username]

I am really curious as to what people who really support software like CM will do.

I would not mind downloading something (lets call it an enabler) that allows me to play for the week. No charges or anything for it. Its just something (program/file)that makes the crackers realize its not worth their effort every week to crack. But its extra work for the developers/company. Its a price they would have to pay to get all the profits stolen by thieves.

I dont buy this 'freedom' crap. Software comes from hard work and needs to be compensated to justify it.

Lewis

PS I was also thinking of something like "subscribing to play the supercomputer AI". The software company would allow you to play their super-computer at Combat Mission via email for a fee. Emails returned within one day. Advertise Multi-paralleled multi-GHzed super Combat Mission challenge!!! Of course, it would actually just be me sending you back turns but you wouldnt know the difference.

[This message has been edited by Username (edited 04-11-2000).]

[Guest MantaRay]

Actually MCH, the major warez groups like CLASS and MYTH only copy the first version, and move on to other games. The way they work is to go and buy a game the day it comes out, crack it, and move on. If their initial crack doesnt work, they will fix it, but after that they have done what they wanted.

But you can look at the other side of the coin too. In China and Korea, you can easily find games for 1 or 2 dollars. Now if I lived in these countries, why would I mind paying this price if it is what is availible. The publishers of these games do not get a dime, but I am sure games like UT or Q3 sell as many copies there as they do here.

Warez has been around since I have been in computers, and no US Government agency will ever have the resources to combat this as a whole. And if they did try to stop it, these groups could just go to a country like China and never be bothered one bit by regulations. Look at Office 2000, Microsoft estimates that there are 750,000 or more sites that have an illegal copy for free or for sale. And if you go to a swap-meet in LA, you can find the premium version for $50.

There is no end in site. BTS will have my money for CM, so my conscience is clear.

Ray

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MantaRays 5 Pages

[Dschugaschwili]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Username:

Theres no easy answer but I would do the following. People buy CDROM games and the low upfront cost (lets say $9.99)covers the packaging expenses. They take the game home and load it and they HAVE to get online to register WITH a credit card. Every time they play they have to pay a small fee online (they can pre-order multiple games for airplane trips with laptops). Lets say 25cents a game. There is a "code of the day" that gets them playing. After they have spent 50 bucks (200 plays), they can play for a nickel a game. They can never change credit cards and the game becomes non-transferable.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Doing this has a couple of disadvantages:

1. There are people out there that have to pay their internet access by the time they spend online. That can get extremely expensive after some time. These people won't want to get online everytime they want to play a computer game.

2. Not everybody has a credit card (at least in some countries).

3. Not everybody who has a credit card is willing to send his number to some internet server every time he wants to play a game just because they think about the risks of this.

*Stop speaking generally*

*Start speaking personally*

Actually, I don't even have internet access on my private computer for financial and security reasons. Also, I don't own a credit card and I don't want one anyways, also for security reasons.

Don't tell me I shouldn't be so anxious, I'm studying to become a Master of Computer Science, and I know what can happen when too much information about you gets into the wrong hands (especially credit card numbers etc.). By the way, when I look at my friends, the more they know about internet and stuff, the more careful they are about using those technologies.

Actually, the only thing that can (and perhaps will) keep me from buying Combat Mission is Battlefront's order-by-credit-card policy. For me, there's just nothing like going to a shop, grabbing something, paying some cash for it and leaving without having to worry about the whole transaction being traced back to you.

Enough ranting, I just wanted all those technology enthusiasts to know that there are other people out there. Happy flaming!

Dschugaschwili

[This message has been edited by Dschugaschwili (edited 04-11-2000).]

[Username]

schug

Maybe you need to catch up with the rest of the thread.

I do all my banking, investing, credit cards online. I feel that these transactions are secure. I don't subscribe to this mythical super-geeky hacker without limitations. I think that most pirates arent that sophisticated and they could be stopped. Just like most criminals arent smart ( but some are).

I am also sure terrorists have stilted reasoning based on philisophical/political/whatever ideals that justifies in their minds acts of terrorism.

Lewis

[rdarnese]

Okay I have to chime in here since I know

VERY well the headaches associated with

setting up protected and secure download setups like we had to do for Brigade Combat Team.

It doesn't matter about the costs to secure everything to be honest, the real kicker is the file size. With BCT the WHOLE game is 8M in size, that's it. With a game the size of CM you have all sorts of server related issues also (*also now dons real work hat of Unix Systems and Network Admin*)

For starters EACH download of CM would cost us (at Shrapnel if we did something like that for 82nd for instance) at the minimum and additional dollar per download for bandwidth alone. Add to that that if we had that sort of load we would have to buy additional servers since one server could NEVER handle a large number of multiple 350M downloads. After that if you go through and ISP you would probably have to upramp sharply your plan you are currently on. See not only would it cost YOU bandwidth but to manage such downloads your ISP would have to clear almost everyone off of your area of their network (subnet or however they have it setup) because that much traffic being taken would slow EVERYONE'S web server. I don't even know what an ISP would charge for that.

The other solution is to buy your own T-3 or maybe DS-3 or whatever. The problem there is that yes the traffic would not affect others but you wouldn't have the multiple backup connections that you get with a typical hosting ISP. If your fiber gets cut you are screwed.

Folks it is just not feasible for a game that is 350 M in size. Technically and money wise.

------------------

Richard Arnesen

Shrapnel Games

www.shrapnelgames.com

[Guest mch]

Further O/T...

Any lawyers/paralegals out there?

I'd like to know more about the copyright

protection legislature that governs the internet.Seems like the only anti-pirate

leg.I've heard of just gets tacked on to

anti-porn bills and subsequently dropped.

What about RICO laws?haven't heard about

them in a while.

Probably waiting for a court case to set a precedent.

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It is no disgrace to be defeated...It is a disgrace to be surprised.

-attr.to Fredrick the Great-

[Guest Big Time Software]

Richard brings up a VERY good point. We have the bandwidth available to us, but the cost of a 350MB download is going to be significant. Also, we would have to invest in a specific server to handle nothing but CM downloads. And what happens if a customer tries downloading the thing and gets disconnected or corrupted? Then we have to go through the entire process over again, costing us time and money in the process.

As for the pay as you go thing, the discussion is pointless as we will *NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES* move to such a system, for so many reasons I don't even want to get started. First and foremost is that we will lose sales in a BIG way. I for one wouldn't support a company making such a system. I don't have to pay a usage fee for a movie video tape I buy, so why should I for a game that costs 2 or 3 times as much?

Sorry, it is a horendous idea from a business and customer standpoint and will never take hold, mark my words. And because of that, it would be suicide for us to try it even if we wanted to (which we most certainly do not).

Also... I have a personal beef with pay as you play online games. I have *never* played one and *never* will. They are a social evil in my opinion, ruining some people mentally and/or financially. There are plenty of stories of people getting sucked into their character and investing their whole lives to support their addiction (like heroin). As someone who has a social conscience I would quit working with anybody that wanted to go that route. Thankfully Charles feels the same way as I do, so no problems there

Steve

[Username]

Steve

So is BTS going the "Have CD in drive approach?"

Lewis

[Black Sabot]

Originally posted by Eridani:

Lewis-

I dare anyone here to tell me that they have never done things that they knew were illegal...

*HEY, she told me she was 18!

I have a few friends who are the aformentioned copyright crackers... Absolutely brilliant guys who believe very strongly in freedom of information

*You know, these guys that hack and crack for the sake of "freedom" are some of the biggest hipocrytes in the world. They have no qualms about stealing someones life work yet god forbid the tables were turned on them.

Let them invest the time, money, and everything else that goes into turning a dream into reality and then have some ass****

swipe it for the sake of "freedom". They are thieves no matter what they wrap themselves in.

BTW Eridani, Please don't get the wrong impression. Just because i used some of your quotes to make my point doesn't mean i'm targetting you. I have no beef with anyone here

[This message has been edited by Black Sabot (edited 04-11-2000).]

[Eridani]

Sabot-

LOL, don't worry, no offence taken ...

All I'll say is some of these guys do spend thousands of hours to make their programming dreams reality, they then publish their source code for anyone to take and fix and build upon their idea... Personal gain doesn't matter to them.

As I said, I am completely undecided on the issue... I was just trying to hint at the fact that there are definately two *Intelligent* sides to the matter... (and I love playing devils advocate... but that's just me)...

Either way I do believe that it is a healthy discussion (and its interesting to hear what other people have said, I'm going to pop a few of the points made here on my friends when I see them again)...

-EridanMan

[This message has been edited by Eridani (edited 04-11-2000).]

[DEF BUNGIS]

On the subject of security and software piracy.

What about software that is distributed by CD, then to activate or run the program, the user has to register his product with a host server. At wich time an activation code or security manager code is written to the local hard drive that allows the program to run, or be unlocked. Granted, if the users hard drive crashes or is formatted, he must re-register.

This is similar to other network security systems.

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Better to make the wrong decision than be the sorry son of a bitch to scared to make one at all