Def
12-18-2005, 11:57 AM
Hi,
I was discussing the protection on my shareware product Amazing Brass (http://www.amazingbrass.co.uk) (not a game) with a friend who visits these forums regularly. He told me people here might be interested in hearing about a protection system. This post is to ask for some thoughts and feedback from the people who might use it.
The protection system includes these features:
- Simple drop-in to existing apps (protect an app starting with 2 lines of code)
- Supports registered/unregistered system - only one exe to distribute
- Developer chooses the protection
- Registration checking and blacklisting
- Individual, per-user registrations (ie: prevent people sharing their keys)
- Local executable Registration wizard for users that works online
- Registration is integrated with a web payment system (PHP, MySQL and paypal) for automatic user purchase
For the developer, the experience is something like this: Code your app without any protection. Decide what features are "registered only". Wrap them with the protection system using a couple of lines of standard code. Protect the app, distribute.
For the user, the experience is something like this. Download and install evaluation version. Decide to register. Load the registration wizard, follow the prompts to enter your details for registration. Wizard takes you to Paypal and waits for you to pay.
For the developer, once a user is registered their details are stored in the database along with the paypal payment details etc. This is necessary to allow you to confirm no funny paypal stuff has happened and to issue the license. You authorise the license through a web page (a couple of mouseclicks).
Once the users payment/license has been authorised, the protection system can automatically download and install the license for the user. The user also gets the license via email for manual install.
The entire process is seamless, it only takes the user a minute to register & pay, and the developer another minute to authorise the license.
The protection itself is secure and uses a number of techniques to make it difficult to crack. The developer has good control over how the protection is implemented, preventing generic all-app cracks. For obvious reasons I won't go into further detail on how it works.
I use this protection for my shareware product - Amazing Brass (http://www.amazingbrass.co.uk) (www.amazingbrass.co.uk), so please feel free to download the exe and take a look, try and crack it if you wish etc.
Now, the feedback part. I would like to hear peoples thoughts on:
1. Would you use this protection?
1b. If no, why not (is it missing a feature etc)?
2. Would you pay to license this protection?
2b. If no, why not (you don't care about licensing etc)?
3. What would you call a reasonable price and terms for licensing?
Really I'm trying to gauge whether it would be worth my time/effort in polishing the protection into a distributable system (it's currently integrated into my app), and what people look for in a protection system.
Thanks for reading!
I was discussing the protection on my shareware product Amazing Brass (http://www.amazingbrass.co.uk) (not a game) with a friend who visits these forums regularly. He told me people here might be interested in hearing about a protection system. This post is to ask for some thoughts and feedback from the people who might use it.
The protection system includes these features:
- Simple drop-in to existing apps (protect an app starting with 2 lines of code)
- Supports registered/unregistered system - only one exe to distribute
- Developer chooses the protection
- Registration checking and blacklisting
- Individual, per-user registrations (ie: prevent people sharing their keys)
- Local executable Registration wizard for users that works online
- Registration is integrated with a web payment system (PHP, MySQL and paypal) for automatic user purchase
For the developer, the experience is something like this: Code your app without any protection. Decide what features are "registered only". Wrap them with the protection system using a couple of lines of standard code. Protect the app, distribute.
For the user, the experience is something like this. Download and install evaluation version. Decide to register. Load the registration wizard, follow the prompts to enter your details for registration. Wizard takes you to Paypal and waits for you to pay.
For the developer, once a user is registered their details are stored in the database along with the paypal payment details etc. This is necessary to allow you to confirm no funny paypal stuff has happened and to issue the license. You authorise the license through a web page (a couple of mouseclicks).
Once the users payment/license has been authorised, the protection system can automatically download and install the license for the user. The user also gets the license via email for manual install.
The entire process is seamless, it only takes the user a minute to register & pay, and the developer another minute to authorise the license.
The protection itself is secure and uses a number of techniques to make it difficult to crack. The developer has good control over how the protection is implemented, preventing generic all-app cracks. For obvious reasons I won't go into further detail on how it works.
I use this protection for my shareware product - Amazing Brass (http://www.amazingbrass.co.uk) (www.amazingbrass.co.uk), so please feel free to download the exe and take a look, try and crack it if you wish etc.
Now, the feedback part. I would like to hear peoples thoughts on:
1. Would you use this protection?
1b. If no, why not (is it missing a feature etc)?
2. Would you pay to license this protection?
2b. If no, why not (you don't care about licensing etc)?
3. What would you call a reasonable price and terms for licensing?
Really I'm trying to gauge whether it would be worth my time/effort in polishing the protection into a distributable system (it's currently integrated into my app), and what people look for in a protection system.
Thanks for reading!