How to protect your hour demo?

[dxgame]

Any tips about protecting your hour demo? I'm concerned that clever users will see registry entries, data files, etc, being written and simply remove them.

I've never coded an hour demo before and just wonder how others do it?

Also...can I go with 30 minutes instead? Is that TOO small? :D

Thanks.

p.s. I guess I could also hard code the demo to a certain number of levels as well. That could be the fail safe incase they hack the hour protection?

[Frozen In Ice]

I too am working on a new demo and it will run for 30 minutes. However, I've only included enough levels to last about 40 minutes. Even if they manage to bypass the time restriction, they won't find much more to warrant the trouble. I'd also be interested in what others have to say on this. :)

[Savant]

Make a good game that people will want to pay for to see the rest of the content?

[Narnach]

If people can make it, other people will break it.

Things like time restrictions and DRM should only be good enough of a protection to keep the casual pirates away: 'to keep honest people honest.' The more serious and knowledgeable pirate will find a way around your fancy protection schemes. So try to think about the normal honest user and don't try to disrupt their experience and/or computer (too much.)

The idea of limiting the amount of content in the demo is a good one. And then just keep a time counter in a file in the install folder for the time limit. That is easy to use for you as the programmer, and easy to uninstall for the user who does not like your demo. If people delete the file to bypass the time restriction, there is still no harm done. The registry is accessible to anyone as well, so 'hiding' it there is just as safe, but less convenient. And stuff in the registry has a tendency to stay there even after you remove a program from your harddrive...

[arcadetown]

Use Armadillo, it's cheap, easy, relatively secure, and you're not reinventing the wheel. Want your game to determine if it's full version or not via Armadillo? Some c++ psuedo code.

char str[256];
if (!GetEnvironmentVariable("ALTUSERNAME", str, sizeof(str)))
// Armadillo environment variable missing so not wrapped
elseif (stricmp(str, "default"))
// is not default username so is registered
else
// is armadillo wrapped and not registered

[Frozen In Ice]

Use Armadillo, it's cheap, easy, relatively secure, and you're not reinventing the wheel. Want your game to determine if it's full version or not via Armadillo? Some c++ psuedo code.

char str[256];
if (!GetEnvironmentVariable("ALTUSERNAME", str, sizeof(str)))
// Armadillo environment variable missing so not wrapped
elseif (stricmp(str, "default"))
// is not default username so is registered
else
// is armadillo wrapped and not registered


I use Armadillo and provide separate versions of my product. My install program removes all traces of the demo upon request for an uninstall. If someone tries again for example 3 months later, it'll probably come up expired, but I've always provided a new demo key for them when they ask. Sometimes it turns into a sale, so I don't see any harm. When they purchase, they receive a completely different edition and a temporary 45 day key. Specifically for any fraudulant purchases. A new permanent key is issued around the 30 day mark. Haven't received any complaints yet. However, I will keep your example Brian as it could prove handy later :)
I know many successful developers who operate the same way as I've done.

[Mike D Smith]

Depending on your type of game, I would only allow people to play your demo for 5 or 10 minutes. Too often I've had my fill of a game after an hour where I might have purchased them if they only have me a little bit of time. Diner Dash and Wik being the exception ^_^.

[papillon]

Expecting someone to go to the trouble of downloading and installing for 5 minutes playtime is going to get people angry enough to start mailbombing you. :)

Now, a browser-based demo that only lets you play for five minutes might work.

Still, if it's not worth playing for over an hour, is it really worth selling?

[Mike D Smith]

Well, 5 or 10 minutes at a single go. Play as many times as you want, but you won't get very far...

[jankoM]

Well, 5 or 10 minutes at a single go. Play as many times as you want, but you won't get very far...

Hmm... very interesting (simple and obvious solution) which doesn't have to rely on anything (registry...) to achieve limitations even after reinstalls and keeps you playing forever... hmmm... I never thougth of this.

[delsydsoftware]

Hmm... very interesting (simple and obvious solution) which doesn't have to rely on anything (registry...) to achieve limitations even after reinstalls and keeps you playing forever... hmmm... I never thougth of this.

Psygnosis pulled this off with the original Destruction Derby demo for the PC. You could do a few races in the demo, but if you played in the big arena, you got 60 seconds of playtime. The game was so much fun that my friends and I tried to see how high we could get our score in 60 seconds. The score locked at 99 points in the demo, so we could only get so far. In the end, we all bought copies of the game. I still think that was one of the most brilliant demos ever created.

[Artinum]

Grand Theft Auto (the first one, not the 3D epics more recently produced) did something similar some years back. You have full play of the first map of the game, with understandably cut back music tracks and so on (for download's sake). The catch is that you can only play for five minutes at a time. That's barely enough time to do one of the main missions. I certainly never managed two in that time. After five minutes, you could play again. And again. And again. But only ever five minutes at a time. Enough to get drawn in but not enough to try everything out.

[Mike D Smith]

Expecting someone to go to the trouble of downloading and installing for 5 minutes playtime is going to get people angry enough to start mailbombing you. :)

To follow up, that would be awesome if they did! I want them to play the game and start to love it and then RIP IT OUT from under them right when they are having the most fun.... oh, but "Click here to get full version!"

People just need a taste. An ice cream shop doesn't give you half a scoop of ice cream for you to decide if you want to buy a full scoop. They just give you a tiny bit on one of those tiny little spoons they have. That's plenty to know what you'll get with the full deal.

For people who don't like the taste of my ice cream, giving them half a scoop won't make them buy a full scoop. For people who like my ice cream, they only need a taste to make them crave it all the more.

[Savant]

Go for it. Do something different. You don't have to buy into the conventional wisdom and you'll never know if it'll work if you don't try it.

[luggage]

Conventional wisdom tells me I'll break my legs if I jump from the roof of my house. I don't need to test that theory to find out.

[Savant]

No, that's physics.

The "1 hour demo" is something that everyone says is best and it's taken for granted. There is absolutely zero reason not to try something new. None.

[luggage]

Physics is conventional wisdom.

If you're going to try something new you have to have something to test against. No point changing the demo time and just looking at sales. You'll want some kind of A\B test. I reckon the portals aren't stupid and it's no accident they've ended up at an hour. Of course, each game can be fine tuned but blindly switching values is pointless.

[Savant]

So we agree it's worth trying then. Great.

[luggage]

Not really - In my opinion 5 minutes is too short to get a feel for a game and I wouldn't buy something that only let me play for that long. Conventional wisdom also says that 30 seconds isn't a good length for a demo but should you test that too?

Conventional wisdom doesn't always require testing. Sometimes it's correct. But if you're going to do a test make sure you can keep track of how successful it is compared to others. Likewise in advertising - no point in paying for adverts if you can't measure it's effectiveness.

So how much conventional wisdom testing have you done with your games?

[Savant]

What's with the aggression? FFS, all I'm saying is that it's a good idea to try new things. Take the hostility down a few notches.

[Skinflint]

Please, let's get back to the point of this thread, which is a good one.

My personal opinion is that a demo time-out period should be tailored on a game-by-game basis. What works well for a game at 30 minutes might be terrible for another. Same thing for an hour.

BUT...this opinion is just based on suppositional data and doesn't jibe with the only decent test we did on our site for this. With our recent release, Mosaic, when we sent out the demo to our audience, we had random people download demo lengths of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 minutes to try and see which had a greater conversion percentage. There were 10's of thousands of downloads rather quickly all spread out among the different time-out lengths. However, in our tests, the different time-out lengths didn't seem to affect the conversion rate. There were trends, but nothing conclusive. (Maybe if the game had been better, the data might have been better. :) )

The only thing we DID get out of it was a few complaints when the demo timed out after 20 minutes, for those that had randomly downloaded that one...but the conversion percentage was about the same as the others.

Of course, I'm a big fan of limiting the game in ways other than just time, but that typically requires more work. This is usually hard to get people to commit to, especially when the results are so ambiguous.

[Mike D Smith]

Not really - In my opinion 5 minutes is too short to get a feel for a game...

Yeah, this is something that should be determined on a game by game basis.

[Greg Squire]

Here's an older post of mine about I game I bought that had a 10 minute demo. (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showpost.php?p=26559&postcount=7) It worked on my wife who's not much of a gamer or even casual gamer, for that matter.

I agree with Mike that the time length should be determined on a game by game basis. For some games 60 minutes is too long and some others it is too short. I personally prefer limiting the demo by levels if at all possible, but this doesn't work for some kinds of games. I would do some beta testing, and ask them where the "Red Line" is for them (see this article here (http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2005/04/red-line-in-game-demos.html) to know what I mean by "red line").

[tentons]

I reckon the portals aren't stupid and it's no accident they've ended up at an hour.
But what works for them may not work for you. It's definitely worth experimenting with.

[Rebrehc's Industries]

RealArcade has demos of Geneforge and Geneforge 2 with unlimited times, but with access to only a smallish portion of the levels, and BigFish just released HammerHeads yesterday with a 30 minute demo, so it is apparent that although the portals very much like the one hour demo concept they are still willing to consider other things. I assume the developers had to prove that there was a good reason for going with those methods.

[BillyColl]

The best game and apps protection solutions today are those from StrongBit http://www.strongbit.com

Take a look there may be it will meet your needs.

As for me I'm using EXECryptor and I'm happy with it

[Robert Cummings]

Lots of pc solutions but no mac solutions for time outs...

[Indiepath]

Lots of pc solutions but no mac solutions for time outs...
Actually I have a custom solution for BMax :P

[LilGames]

I too am working on a new demo and it will run for 30 minutes. However, I've only included enough levels to last about 40 minutes. Even if they manage to bypass the time restriction, they won't find much more to warrant the trouble. I'd also be interested in what others have to say on this. :)

You should read up that marketing thread about "valuable content".
If I played 30 minutes and then bought your game and found out my money only bought me 10 more minutes of play I'd be PISSED. And I'd go and tell everyone I know not to buy your game.

So think about that...

[jankoM]

you missunderstood him lilgames

[dxgame]

Is there any commercial software protection that will:

I don't want to have serial numbers, etc. I want to have the downloadable demo protected with an hour demo time, and then when that is up provide a link to purchase the full version.

?

Thanks.

[Frozen In Ice]

Armadillo will do that. I generate a demo for say 60 mins. The "Buy" button that Armadillo presents contains the purchase link (as well as one I have created inside the game, but that's besides the point). The full version when purchased and downloaded requires a serial number, but you could probably avoid that part in the configuration. I'm not sure if SoftwarePassport does the same thing or not. It was originally designed as the GUI interface to Armadillo, but I haven't looked at SP since last year sometime. I just use the Armadillo interface as I'm used to it.