SEIV Only A Nitch Game

Fyron · #1 March 25th, 2004, 04:22 AM

Copy protection actually increases piracy to some degree, as it creates an artificial challenge to break the protection...

Every copy protection scheme ever devised has been broken. Only with company-owned multiplayer servers can CD keys actually have any chance of keeping pirates off of the servers. But the game can still be pirated, and will be. Just not for use on official servers.

[ March 25, 2004, 02:23: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Parasite · #2 March 25th, 2004, 05:23 PM

We use copy protection here at work for some of the programs I do that are for use overseas. I am not saying it can not be broken, but it seems very good. The catch... It costs an extra $10 per license to protect the code, plus all the unlock trouble and relicensing when the customers computer changes processors, harddrives or other information the lock code is attached to.

Ragnarok-X · #3 March 25th, 2004, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

quote:
Originally posted by Ragnarok-X:
Keep in mind this game was not buyable in a normal shop like MoO 3 und GalCiv was. In addition this game is going warez since the release, i remember it was downloaded thousands of times through networks like sharereactor. And it didnt even had ONE copy protection.

Which matters not a whit because copy protection is easily broken. As of right now all it does is inconvience the end user, many of whom go to sites to find cracks for their legitimately bought games.

Uhm, dude at your post count i see you know when SE4 was released.
To help you, this game was released YEARS ago.
YEARS ago cracks were available, but more rarely then today.
See, today you have things like xxxxxx.com, xxxxx.de, xxxxxxxx.com, its just that cracks are available EVERYWHERE and everyone can get up-do-date cracks without being in the scene.
At the time SE 4 was released cracks were not that "well" known and available to each idiot.
Given a better copy protection i think SE4 could have sold more copies. Then again i dont know how much it costs to licence a cd check or whatever.
In addition games like SE4 are less known, and so cracks wont be made as fast because there wont be as many requests, thats how the scene works.

So it matters.

[ May 14, 2004, 17:10: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Fyron · #4 March 25th, 2004, 07:02 PM

No, there have never been any cracks released for SE4, as there is nothing to crack. Pirates can just host a direct ISO of the CD, and it will work flawlessly.

Licensing the better CD protection algorithms (which all get cracked anyways) is very expensive, so it is not very practical for MM to do...

[ March 25, 2004, 17:03: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

tesco samoa · #5 March 25th, 2004, 08:18 PM

i agree with fryon copy protection is a waste of time and effort. Reward those who purchase the game... and keep that useless crap out of the game.

P.S. Proove to me that the warez Version of SE2,SE3,SE4 hurt SE and shrapnel. Also remember that a potential sale does not actually mean a lost sale and lost revenue.
And from what I can see each game has been more sucessful than the previous one.

Timstone · #6 March 25th, 2004, 08:23 PM

In the words of Tesco:
Bring us more SE!!

Captain Kwok · #7 March 25th, 2004, 09:52 PM

I don't think that most serious pirates (those that actively seek pirated games) would be frequent buyers of any game to start. That's why it's a stretch to say that SE:IV's sales would be higher.

*begin not-so-subliminal message to pirates

Of course, those that have pirated SE:IV and played it for any extent have all since felt (or starting to feel) very, very, guilty for having done so and have bought (will purchase) legimate copies.

*end not-so-subliminal message to pirates

[ March 25, 2004, 19:53: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]