What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Apparently menus randomly disappear on some turns in 3.06 if you play with a bad(pirated) CD-KEY.

I´m wondering what this should accomplish, because I see lots of negative effects of this copy protection.
Here are some that immediately come to mind:

1.Bad word of mouth.
People don´t know that it´s copyprotection, so people assume it´s a bug. That certainly will drive people off, who are thinking about buying the game, but hearing from their pirate friends that it´s a really buggy game. For example check out this thread on the somethingawful forums, where multiple people complain about the "bug", but are otherwise enthusiastic about the game:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...p;pagenumber=4

2. Alienating semilegitimate users:
Unless it has changed recently, it can take quite a while for the copy to arrive when ordering from some publishers. Since many people aren´t very patient, it´s pretty likely that they will use a pirated copy until the real one arrives. Now guess what happens when they find out that the 55Euro game they just ordered has strange bugs/crashes.

3. Wasting programming time:
I don´t know much about programming, but implementing and checking that the copyprotection works correctly must take some time. With the huge list of bugs/requested features I´m pretty certain that the programming time could be better spent elsewhere for legitimate users.

4. Not trusting customers:
I think the dominions series is a pretty big success partly because the Illwinter guys are seen as nice guys, who passionately work to create their dream game and aren´t that interested in making money off it. Now if that perception changes and people see Illwinter as just another company out there to make money, I guess people will be less patient with UI issues/bad graphics etc, or less interested in making mods to enhance the game experience.

I can see two good effects though:

1. The developers can get the feeling of satisfaction that no pirate is enjoying their hard work.

2. There may be some guys, who have a pirated version, come to this forum to complain about the bug, get told that it´s because of their pirated version and then proceed to buy the game to get the benefit of the patches.


The reason I´m interested in this is that I´m a student of economics and I have focused on behavioral economics, which deals with issues like fairness/trust/reciprocity in an economic background. And given the results of the papers/experiments I have to read there regarding trust and reciprocity, I just can´t see how the new copy protection scheme makes sense.

For example why don´t you put at least an errormessage like Nagot gik fel:badcdkey after the error, so that the pirates know it´s not a bug and you don´t get the bad word of mouth effect?

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

This form of copy-protection is by FAR preferable to the hardware-based one usually found on computer games.

There are enough companies that have to issue no-cd hacks just so customer can play or install the games, because their hardware isn't compatibel with Starforce or securom or whatever. Both of which may (or may not, depending on your source) seriously affect your PCs performance or establish a filter driver between windows and the cd-rom, making it potentially unstable and unsafe to uninstall.

Also, we don't need a cd to play dom3. Try that with any other modern game, out of the box.

So, the point is, it protects the developers efforts while not afflicting legitimate customers AT ALL.

As a software-developer and computer gamer, I salute Illwinter for the form of copy protection they have chosen (and developed themselves, if I'm not mistaken).

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Hmm this wasn´t supposed to be a rant against the copy protection, which is as you point out still very benevolent compared to other copyprotection and doesn´t affect legitimate users.

I was just curious how the copyprotection should help sales, because as far as I can tell it only tells pirates: "This is a buggy game" and not "Your game is buggy, because you are a pirate, go buy a copy and it works fine".

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I have to agree it's a weird way to do it, it would make a lot more sense if it at least told you why it was behaving badly.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

It's just that this game is one of the most lenient when it comes to compatibility, ever. (Windows/Mac/Linux, no CD required etc.)


As for the point about appearing buggy: There is a demo (there is, right?), and as soon as you come to the official forum and spend a few minutes searching, you KNOW it is your fault, not the games.

Also, in my opinion, Dom3 fits in a market where there are decidedly less pirates than for example first-person-shooters or real-time-strategy. At least it doesn't get a bad reputation for wrecking you cd-rom drive like other games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



PS: Maybe, in the next patch, Illwinter could change it so that the orders of all your commanders read "AWOL, buying the game", without the ability to change them, much like insanity.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Is this the bug where the map stays present, but the controls etc vanish so nothing can actually be done? I've had that a couple of times despite playing with a legitimate copy... if this is supposed to be 'copy protection' then it's not very good for two reasons:
- Firstly, as I said, I had it a few times
- secondly, quitting and restarting the program fixes the problem, so as bugs go, it's not that much hassle.


Of course, you could be talking about something else entirely... Have you official confirmation that this is intentional? I've seen several forums accept the 'fact' that a recent, quite serious, bug in Football Manager 2007 was put in by the developers to affect pirated games, despite this not being at all true and the bug also affecting legitimate users. This sort of rumour can be quite nasty if a user asks for help about the bug and gets flamed as a 'pirate'.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Discussions of the copy protection dont tend to last long. But this is the publishers forum so I dont hav a problem with that.

But just for now.. Umm.. are you sure thats the action? All the tests I can do seem to just say that it wont work with a bad key. Ive seen guesswork that some bad events might be a bad key but I havent been able to duplicate it. But I do tink they should do some simple cryptograhy with the key file.

On the other hand, if they were to do something interesting I remember one game (I think it was a space game) that a bad key meant you got a load of the games bad events piled on you every turn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I know that I stepped in to sub in a MP game because the previous player was "having problems" with the 3.06 patch. First turn I step in I get a message (based on the previous turn, the one I didn't play) that the CD key was bad, so no orders had been processed. Guess we know what problems the guy was having. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Johan K mentions the bug being copyprotection in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

Heh if not even Gandalf Parker, a moderator of the board knows about this, how is the casual pirate supposed to figure out the game is wonky because of copyprotection.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Hmm I still cant dupicate it that way.

By the way, moderator isnt based on knowledge. Expert moderators tend to create an unsocial forum. They dont moderate (I mean the definition of the word) very well.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

It doesn't sounds like a very good way to do it, either.

For a good way to do it, consider the ancient game "Stars!". If it detected key problems you would have problems with your orders because there was doubt as to whether you were the true ruler of your empire. (I forget the wording of the message and never even saw it myself, just discussions of it.) IIRC if you didn't fix it units started defecting also.

Don't make it buggy, make it disobedient.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

People at http://forums.somethingawful.com/ pay to register on a forum but not for games. It may be a religious thing, or perhaps psychiatric, nothing can be done imho.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

This is definitely deliberate?? If so, it seems to have been implemented buggily, as I've had it a few times and my copy is direct from shrapnel.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

That depends on what you regard as expert moderators. An expert as a moderator can easily work as long as he/she can keep the expertise and the social aspect of moderator duties separated and has both the maturity and temperament to enable him to avoid appealing to his own authority. Sadly, there are rather few who can avoid both pitfalls. Usually you just get one or the other but not both. Accountability is also a big issue. A moderator who abuses power has to be immediately and permanently stripped of his rank and privileges or abuses will happen.

As long as you have the right setup in place, things can run well. It'll be impossible to accommodate everyone, of course, but it is not impossible by any stretch to get it to work.

Edi

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I can confirm this is apparently a cd-key protection/bug.

I own the game, and at one point I installed it at work from the CD. I forgot the manual so I just hopped on the "internets" and got a key. It was running fine at work until 3.06 came out and it started to bug out exactly as was described. So I deinstalled it and reinstalled it with my good key and worked just fine.

Personally I think its an awesome Copy-write protection for the game to allow you to play for a little while and then pop up with a message saying something like "We hope like the game... please buy it!" and quit. Unfortuantly it just bugs out.

My thought is that this wasn't intended, as it would be a quite silly protection idea as it looks exactly like a bug. If I didn't see it listed in the forums I would have assumed Dom3 is the problem - not the cd-key.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I tend to agree that copyprotection should be clearly marked as copyprotection, and not pose as a bug, but in this case, it's a pretty lenient protection anyway - basically, the patch comes with a list of known pirated CD keys, and checks for them. No serious effort is made to make the life of legitimate users, and this is, IMHO, the #1 thing that copy protection should ensure - and, most of the time, fails miserably.

The game has a pretty functional demo. Pirating a game until your copy arrives is still pirating a game, and doesn't qualify as legitimate use (it's something I wouldn't do, anyway); I completely fail to feel sorry for the "semilegitimate users" you are describing, and, honestly, I'm not sure many really exist.

Frankly, programming in this kind of copy protection takes negligible time. Even I could probably do it, and I don't know much about programming (I only teach it, which, believe me, doesn't mean much about my skills).

It's still a completely nonintrusive copy protection. You can install the game on several computers if you like, and don't need the CD to play (something I'm pretty happy with when I go on a mission and take my laptop with me - I can still play in my MP games, even if I don't take my laptop CD drive with me). I'll repeat myself, but this copy protection doesn't hurt legitimate users in any way, so anyone who can rightly feel "not trusted" has to be an illegitimate user; again, not feeling sorry for them.

I really don't know anything about economics (OK, I dabble in game theory), but the purpose of this kind of (half-serious) copy protection is to make life slightly harder for the pirate; no half-user-friendly scheme (that I know of) has any chance of achieving more than that. And most likely, the scheme itself is a result of Illwinter having "few" developers (like, one) and not much interest in programming anything more serious in (I mean, UI programming isn't fun, but at least you get to use the better UI after it's done; when you put in hours of work into a copy protection scheme, you're working on feature you are 100% sure you won't use personally when you use the software).

Here I tend to agree, but then, if the pirate can too easily identify the "problem" as coming from a "bad CD key" (which I'm pretty sure means "known pirated CD key from a finite list"), this basically tells him to find another one which isn't on the list...

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Yes I like games that shift a bad cd key into demo mode. It would be great if Dom3 could support it.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I just received the game in the mail 2 days ago...immediately patched to 3.06. I've experienced this "copy protection" once as I started a MA Vanheim single player game. Didn't even get past the first turn. If it's copy protection, it's buggy.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

What are you talking about? Nobody there encourages piracy, which is banned on sight. There is no reason that people there pirate more compared to anywhere else and there have been threads which have encouraged other people to buy the game.

Oh wait I just checked the thread I see what you mean

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Any Paradox game.. Just off the top of my head

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Stardock also doesn't use CD-based copy protection, and don't use an intrusive protection either. But then, they also like to send their games through download, so requiring the CD to be in the drive would be a bit harsh...

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Just putting my $0.02 in: I haven't seen this "bug", but from what I've seen described of it, it is a pretty silly method of copy protection. Bug reports damage the reputation of a game. If pirates go onto a board complaining of weird effects in their game, current users are going to fear that theirs might start acting up, and prospective buyers can get scared off. Not a good strategy.

Also keep in mind that pirates are "prospective" buyers, if they can be "scared straight". That is, you let their version work, but encourage them to buy a working version... say, by slapping horror marks on their commanders randomly every turn. Display a little message -- "Horrors have eaten 13 computer game pirating commanders". They'll get the picture,and if they still like the game, they'll buy it.

Bugs just confuse them and encourage them to walk away from the game altogether, which is not what you want to do.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Come on, if Illwinter wants to try punishing people for pirating let them. It's their game after all.

However, as some pirates may get scared, annoyed, bugged to buying the game, I believe the majority of them will just wait for a new crack to come out. I mean, it is computer code after all, it can be cracked.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Eh, if they think its a bug, they will just assume the game is crappy and quit playing.

I don't think anyone is saying that Illwinter isn't well within thier rights to do whatever they want to pirates, we just question the practical business reasoning of the method currently employeed.

I like Krpeters idea about the horror marked pirate captians http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Exactly. Anti-piracy measures should make it clear that that's what they are, they shouldn't look like bugs.

Consider the old Command and Conquer game. There was some sort of anti-pirate thing in it that would cause all your units to explode maybe 30 seconds into the game. It caused all sorts of gripes in discussion forums because people would trip it. Not true pirates but those who had a problem with Windows that they fixed by doing an over-the-top install. (This was W98SE, before the days of a repair install. Same concept, though.)

You knew you had a legit game that had been working--it's not the sort of thing you would think to blame on the reinstall.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

This kind of copy protection is present in most games to some degree these days, usually on top of the usual disk protection or similar.

Generally, if people had 'pirate friends' I doubt they'd bother buying the game. Why spend money when your friend can give you a copy? It's the same as the "pirates might buy a game" argument - the small number of people who would fit into this description would hardly register on the sales front.
Generally, most purchasers would use reviews on websites or magazines for their 'word of mouth'. You tend to find a lot of people would put such bugs down to the difference between systems (especially if the problem somehow implies the friend's system is inferior. E-penis envy should never be underestimated!)
They've already ordered it. Presumably they'd figure it out when the legit copy arrives. If not, in the words of Johnny Rotten "We have your money". If they pre-ordered it then they may cancel, but after that the sale is made (I doubt you'd be required to refund the consumer if you could state the problem was an illegitimate key being used). The odds on them having the game prior to it's release (the point when the order is despatched or otherwise 'too late to cancel') is fairly slim.
99% of requested features are always ignored anyway. It's not normally a factor to programming time, since the developer usually knows precisely what they want to add to the game from it's initial development stage, usually.
To implement this kind of protection is rarely time intensive at all (presumably it just checks the key against a blacklist). Even with more advanced types (such as those which actively scan the memory and system environment) it's not necessarily a waste of time - not only are you protecting your investment, but the methods used for the protection are often part of something else (in other words, the protection is more of a secondary feature to another bit of coding).
Not really an issue. It's like saying manufacturer's should stop using car alarms because it will alienate car thieves : a legitimate user should never encounter the security feature, while illegitimate users (i.e. those who haven't paid for your product) are prevented from using it. You have a small percentage of false positives, but this is comparable to the small percentage of problems any feature would cause to people with particular system configurations.
Not really, unless Illwinter issue a patch everytime someone produces a keygen or key then it's never going to be up to date. What you can do is make it just that little bit harder for the game to be pirated, which generally reduces the amount of people who use a pirated copy.
The main problem with this is you're telling the real pirates (those who produce the keygens/cracks) precisely what the problem is, making their job easier. I guess the idea is that these guys get fed up with the buggy game, and decide not to bother.
There's also a secondary purpose, though I only know of one company which has ever used it. If someone reports the problem, then you can usually identify them (for example, their IP address from a forum post) and take legal action.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I remember that at least one game (Master of Orion?) had a copy protection scheme that turned the difficulty level up to completely impossible after a certain number of turns if you played with a pirated copy.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

While I agree with most everything you said previously, I can't see how this makes sense from a business perspective.

Games sell based on a number of factors... one of them is hype. This copyright protection causes negative hype - because it isn't easliy identifable. What you have is lots of pirates flooding the boards (both here and all the other game sites) with messages like "this game is buggy and broken." This hurts business directly when legitimate demo players assume that the game has bugs. It also confuses other players who might have somewhat simliar video issues.

Being fairly familiar with the pirate scene (hacker culture and all) I can say this really will have no effect because, quite franky, Dom3 just isn't popular enough to crack more than once. I.E. if Ilwinter implemented a different copy write protection for every patch in all likelyhood the crackers wouldn't bother because the title is so obscure. Whatever group cracked the game got the credit already, which is all they care about.

The only real effect this has is to annoy some pirate users (which is a laudable enough goal) but the downside is negative hype about the stability of the game.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Well people are different, so even if I have pirate friends, I might have higher morals/more disposable income and want to buy the game in a legit manner.
In addition dominions is really a niche game with very few reviews on mostly nonmainstream sites so word of mouth or forum posting hype is very important. It´s the way I came to the series and I guess many others got into the series that way as well.
For example the somethingawful thread I linked to has currently about 6000 views, which is more than most of the stickies in this forum. If it wasn´t for Tombom´s explanation people would assume that dominions 3 is a cool, but buggy game. I can´t see how that helps sales.


Well I don´t know how many people exist out there to whom the scenario applies, but it is a somewhat likely scenario to lose sales or the goodwill of paying customers.
You also presume that the customers find out that their problems are due to an illegal cd-key or bother using their legit one after the game is already installed. And before my thread the only mentioning of it being a cd-key issue was a post three pages back.



Well I certainly don´t know if the copyprotection is part of anything else which is useful.
But there have been quite a lot of reports of the bug appearing even with legit keys, so I guess the developers should have spent more time testing the code. So it seems that implementing and properly testing copyprotection takes a significant amount of time.

Granted it´s a pretty weak point and only important to me, because I´m interested in the subject due to my studies. Since the copyprotection isn´t affecting legitimate users I don´t have a big problem with it.

It really makes no sense not to have a logical errormessage that tells the error is due to a bad cd-key. If you tell people that anyway via the forum, then the pirates can certainly figure it out.
Of course if you want to take legal action vs pirates, then it would make sense, but that really seems pretty farfetched.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Unlikely. Pretty much every mainstream game since 2000 has incorporated similar protection, and this hasn't really happened yet. I doubt you'd see this sort of thing happening, most pirates I know would simply delete the game once they encountered the bugs rather than go complaining on the forum.
One would hope that the amount of legitimate users would far outnumber those of pirate users on any mainstream forum. In other words, the main negative hype would likely be on pirate sites themselves, which one could rationalise by the fact that you wouldn't be losing paying customers. Thing is, I'd expect that anyone familiar with this kind of thing would be able to figure out precisely what was happening from this.

In this specific instance then it might not, but then Illwinter have always stated they're not that bothered about sales. With a mainstream title, then you always have a legitimate fanbase who'll usually point out that the reported bug isn't affecting them (in greater numbers than the pirates one would hope).
Given that they'd have potential problems with multiplayer otherwise one would expect they'd switch keys as soon as they had the legit one in this case. I guess you could also assume that legit users in this situation would either find out themselves (by looking for users with similar problems) or else contact support and be told why they're having the problem.
In this case probably not, but it's not a complicated mechanism.
In an example I gave with a more complicated mechanism (the memory/environment scan) it can detect hacks and similar cheat methods too. If you had an online game, then you'd want to implement this kind of thing as a fair play measure anyway, so it doesn't take too much (if any) modification to apply it to looking for game cracks. Similarly, back in the olden days when video or similar content needed to run from the CD while the game was being played, it doesn't take too much more effort to check the CD being played is legit.
Depends on why it's being triggered. If your checking against a list of known suspect keys, then those people with legitimate keys who are being flagged have either had their key stolen or else have made it available to the public (breaching their EULA). Since I don't know what exactly Illwinter has implemented I can't say for sure why or what they are going to do about it. I know with other companies employing similar protection they're usually happy to issue a new key or similar if you can prove ownership.
Most would probably figure it out without the error message to be honest. I guess it's purely down to the preference of the authors. I suppose one thing which you would avoid is someone trying to break the protection again - if you get an error saying "wrong CD Key" then there would be nothing stopping you looking for another key until you found a working one. You could of course simply say "illegal version detected" or similar, which wouldn't tell the user precisely how it detected it.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Most mainstream games have intentional bugs if the program thinks you're a pirate? I find that hard to believe.

Couldn't at least a few legitimate users have their cd key be identical to a widespread one created by a key-generator?

Yeah, support can probably solve such cases. But I dont want everyone to email support everytime a patch introduces an odd bug.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Turin - I am an example of a person who was persuaded to buy by this 3.06 copy protection. I don't care much about the money, but international payments here are a hassle, if you don't want to open a big hole into your account (credit card - I don't trust them). But 3.06 was such a hassle that I persuaded my friend to order it for me. So, this scheme might be considered to be somewhat successful, because it's defense in depth, and no cracker will bother to look for all the checks inside the code.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

The discussion needs to stay more on whether or not the copy protection should announce itself rather than act in a way that could be considered a bug by someone.

Discussion of whether or not copy protection is effective will close this thread.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

So are you saying you wouldn't have bought the game if - instead of crashing - it stopped working and told you that "you are using a bad cd-key"?

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

To be honest the error message (by not specifying what the problem was) had me convinced that this was simply a buggy game with dodgy patches. Crash causing error messages in foreign languages generally have that effect on me.

However I looked it up on the 'net and found out what was up. I then patiently waited for my copy of dom3 to arrive (I live in a pretty out of the way corner of the earth) and afterwards it was all good. An error message saying 'bad cd key' would have caused me less of a headache and I think bugging a game is a godawful form of copy protection. Galactic Civilisations II had a good system (patches/support clearly marked as only for legit users)

Slightly edited with permission of the poster

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

So someone that grabbed a bad key off the net might be led to think its a bad game and not join us here? heehee.
Somehow thats not bothering me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

They're not intentional bugs. Many developers treat it as a kind of Easter Egg. To take Vietcong for example, if the protection triggered it reduced the hitboxes to a single pixel, gradually enlarged characters heads over time and other strangeness like low gravity grenades. I've actually seen cases where tech support has been asked how the protection can be triggered because players want to see the game in that mode.
I guess it depends on the developer - plenty probably see it as an 'officially sanctioned' method of goofing about with the code.
The small number of false positives I was talking about. Most keygens wouldn't come up with an actual key though (they're designed to trick the checking method rather than duplicate the keys themselves).
The problem there though is telling them the key entered is fake - they have the manual in front of them, your likely to confuse the matter. In that case, you'd need the user to get in touch so you could identify the problem - instead most would likely attempt to return or exchange the game thinking the key was broken.
Happens whether there's a bug or not :lol: You can see the difference on these forums though - if it's an actual bug, everyone can replicate it and people tend to wait for official word from the developer (it becomes a case of the bug becoming "known"). In the case of the copy protection, you find only a couple of people with the problem and others stating that it's working fine for them, which would hopefully encourage those with the problem to contact support.
At the end of the day, I suppose the logic is that pirates aren't going to pay for the game, so why bother marketing to them? Rather than using the protection as a method to enforce a shareware licence (ie encourage people to buy the full game) it's used simply to prevent illegitimate users from playing the game. Yes, it might lead them to think the game is unplayably buggy, but since you're not counting them as part of your potential market in the first place, you don't really care.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Cant hold it against the developers for having some fun with the only people they can pick on. I know I would if I ever programmed something Id charge for.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Is it confirmed to be a game protection thing?

If I'd be a developer, I'd have a random event for pirates to be attacked by... pirates. Ghost Ship Armada random for pirates. Or that a pirates' units are slowly transformed into pirates which all have lost an eye, a hand and a leg... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Pirates /are/ potential customers though. Music pirates in particular tend to also spend more money on music than most people, according to some news article I read a few years back (probably bbc, I forget). I've met a few people who pirate games, or who borrow them from friends (essentially the same thing) and they were hardcore gamers who also bought more games than I do.

I recall reading an article about how copy protection that allows some play of the game could be viewed as essentially turning it into a type of demo. The aim is to stop the pirate from playing the full game, while still allowing them to 'get hooked' and thus decide to buy the full version.

The damaging effect of piracy on sales can be reduced if a product has high perceived quality, as some pirates will decide to buy the game if they are impressed and others may buy future versions. Furthermore, people who go to the effort of pirating games are less likely to be casual gamers. Such an individual will play lots of games; as these are an important part of their life they'll also be something they'll talk about with their friends, many of whom may not be pirates. A pirate who loves the game could generate several sales by word of mouth.

So, it will help sales if even pirates view the game as high-quality. The sales may be less than if there was no piracy, but as piracy cannot really be stopped, Illwinter might as well try to reduce their losses from it.

That said, I'm still not convinced that this is genuinely copy protection: I'd have thought the game simply wouldn't work.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I doubt there is enough market there to bother explaining things to illegal users. And Im not sure Id want them around here anyway.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

The article was using skewed results. While it's true that most music pirates spend more money on music than average, they're not spending it on the music they already have. It's the same with games - pirates do tend to buy more software, but either buy games they haven't yet downloaded or else wait until the title is reduced from release price. Either way, they're not usually in anyones target audience.
But you already have a demo for Dominions 3. Most shareware works on the principle you've described, but the problem in these cases is that what you already have is essentially the full game, with the protection simply restricting certain parts of the code. It's a lot easier to pirate the game, since all you need do is remove or fool the protection. With a demo system such as Dominions, where the demo is a standalone product, then you add a further obstacle to pirates as they also need to obtain a full version of the game.
Pure speculation. There's not really any figures to support the suggestion, although those studies which do exist tend to support the opposite - the majority of pirates won't pay for software they already have.
In fact, the most reliable study I have seen suggests that the pirated copy has a 'diminished' value. Most regular pirates (regular as in regularly pirate games) tend to treat the games as more of a throwaway item than those who purchased it legitimately. It was used by Toshiba (I think) as evidence that blank optical media wasn't an inducement to piracy.
Nowhere near the amount that even a small legitimate source could provide though. Even the smaller gaming websites tend towards a readership of hundreds.
Your only taking a loss if the person was going to buy the game anyway. If they had no intention of doing so (or were unaware of the game) it's not a loss, since you had nothing to gain. As for helping sales, I suspect you'd lose far more sales to people pirating the game themselves than you'd gain from the odd few people who'd choose to buy the game instead, especially if the game was widely available in pirated format.
It depends a lot on the type of protection used and when you check though. Sometimes it's impossible to run the copy protection without starting the game first, other times you run the copy protection before you allow the game to launch. I know Dominions 2 performed the check when you tried to launch a game, presumably this is the same. I'd hazard a guess that it's an addition to the key check which the game already does when launching a new game (the one which checks if anyone else connecting to the game is using the same CD key).

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I have to agree. I think it's probably a buggy copy protection idea.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

Archonsod, it's not that uncommon to infringe copyright and then purchase the thing whose copyright was infringed shortly thereafter: a friend or a website recommends a band, you download the album, listen to it, buy it if you like it (after a check on riaaradar.com to make sure it's safe). Or, a game comes out, looks interesting, doesn't have a demo; you download it, try it out, buy it if you like it. Or, a software tool comes out that seems like it might be useful, but you're not sure; you download it, if it does what you need, you pony up for it.

Willie Wanker sitting in his parents' basement trying to download every single piece of software that shows up on the bittorrent tracker of his choice obviously doesn't fit this category. Plenty of people do, though. I realize I'm venturing a little far afield, since Dominions has a pretty nice demo and thus it's hard to justify doing this, but it's not inconceivable that someone might download the demo, decide it looks interesting, but not be convinced that it merits $55 without seeing the endgame. Admittedly, probably a small category...

I don't have any problem with Dominions having copy protection. I do think it would make more sense if it made it clear that it was copy protection, but I don't think it's a big deal (for reasons that lots of people have already mentioned). It's obviously pretty bad if legit users are bit by it... I'm more writing this rambling response in disagreement with Archonsod's assertion that people don't buy things that they already have. I completely agree with his other statement that people tend to treat things they got for free with the respect they'd have for something that's not worth much. This is actually, at least for some, good motivation to buy something that you've already got - spending money on something is a good way to induce yourself to dedicate time to appreciating it.

Re: What´s the point of the new copy protection?
 

I don't mind copy protection as long as it doesn't hurt legitimate users, which it often does...

For instance, Starforce has kept me from buying several games. It's malware and I wont install it.