60 minute demos are actually 180+ minutes.

[Pi Eye Games]

Hello,

I recently added some extra metrics to my games (via the feedback option) and was surprised by the number of people playing further into the games by downloading the different portal builds.

I've just added some code to prevent this in future ... saved games are now tied to their particular portal build. Players can still play for longer, but when playing a new portal build they will need to start the game from the beginning.

But ... is this a common thing to do? Is there actually an advantage to allowing extended/further play in this way? Could preventing this be frowned upon by the portals at all?

It would be interesting to here what your experiences are, or maybe if you've just realized you're allowing the same thing, what your take on it is.

Thanks :)
George.

[papillon]

Sure, it's common. Some people get very cranky all over message boards when a game comes out portal-exclusive and they can't find anywhere to get some extra minutes from. :)

[Olivier]

... saved games are now tied to their particular portal build. Players can still play for longer, but when playing a new portal build they will need to start the game from the beginning.
I did it too. And thanks to these boards I made it before portal release. I didn't ask them but I think portals won't mind if you do it.

[cliffski]

I think a better system is to avoid the silliness of a 60 minute demo and have a feature-limited demo instead.
I've bought whole retail games I've only played for 60 minutes.
Having a separately delivered full version would fix all these problems. Any canny user can run software that detects all registry or file entries a demo makes on install, then roll all that back and reinstall to get a perpetual demo. Granted, a lot of people would not bother, but why give your game away free to those who do? Thanks to message boards and sites like yahoo answers, anyone can find step by step instructions to do this anyway.
Some people will go to great lengths to avoid paying their way.

[Pi Eye Games]

Some people get very cranky all over message boards when a game comes out portal-exclusive and they can't find anywhere to get some extra minutes from.
Yay, free marketing ... an unexpected side effect ;)

I didn't ask them but I think portals won't mind if you do it.
I guess it's only going to benefit them too. I think it's just something I over looked at first. Luckily I've got it in there before sending out updated Vista builds.

roll all that back and reinstall to get a perpetual demo.
It was while trying to prevent this that I found some people where simply using the portal builds to extend time (or more realistically, my build to extend the portal builds time ;) ) ... hopefully the same system prevents rolling back too, the games are all locked to prevent play beyond certain levels unless registered now.

Cheers,
George.

[JoKa]

I've just added some code to prevent this in future ... saved games are now tied to their particular portal build. Players can still play for longer, but when playing a new portal build they will need to start the game from the beginning.
Never thought about that, but so far I wasn't listed on many portals anyway. I'll add such a check to my current game before sending it to portals. Thanks for pointing this out :)

[arcadetown]

Very proactive and smart thing to do IMO. Wish more developers paid attention to such details.

[Pi Eye Games]

I just got worried that my title "60 minute demos are actually 180+ minutes" might be misleading ...

I'm not talking about limiting the game to 60 minutes in total ... that would lead to all sorts of nightmares and I don't think it's a bad thing that the player can play for longer than 60 minutes. It shows they're enjoying the game ;)

I'm just talking about starting them at the beginning each time they play a different build so in their 2nd 60 minutes they're not playing levels 15-30, then levels 30-45 in the 3rd build (cheeky monkeys).

I'll add such a check to my current game before sending it to portals.
Good to hear I'm not the only one who missed it :)

Wish more developers paid attention to such details.
I wish I did before releasing 4 games to the portals! :p

[Nexic]

It shows they're enjoying the game

It also shows they aren't paying for it!

[Pogacha]

I think a better system is to avoid the silliness of a 60 minute demo and have a feature-limited demo instead.
I guess the answer is to have both time and feature limited demo.
Some kids are happy playing the first level only. They play until the end and then they start again. They don't claim to their parents and so they don't buy the game.

[James C. Smith]

Hello,

I recently added some extra metrics to my games (via the feedback option) and was surprised by the number of people playing further into the games by downloading the different portal builds.

What exactly is this 'feedback option'? Are players just typing in comments or is your game reporting stats back to you? How do you know that 'different portal builds' is the way they are able to play further into the game? Did the player tell you this or are you just assuming that if they played more than 60 minutes then they must be using multiple portal builds?

It is very easy to play for more than 60 minutes with a single portal build. Most portals that have a "60 minute" demo actually allow each play session to be as long as the player wants it to be and the DRM only checks the time at the end of the play session. Some have other holes that make it easy for a player to get 12 play sessions of unlimited length without buying or “cracking” the game. At the end of the 12th session you are forced to buy it but by then they have already played many, many hours.

I think content limiting is a great option if you are really concerned about this kind of stuff. Most portals don't promote this to the developers but do support it as an option.

[cliffski]

If it's vaguely an option to do it, I'm going to try and get any portal builds of any future games to be feature-limited. I think the 60 minute model is fundamentally broken in many ways, not least keygens and other DRM issues.
As I recall arcadetown defaults to that anyway?

[James C. Smith]

DRMs I know of that support feature limiting include
Reflexive's proprietary DRM
Armadillo
Active mark (trymedia)

I think this covers AracdeTown, Reflexive, Yahoo, MSN, Oberon, Pogo, AOL and basically everyone except Real. Real may also have a solution.

[cliffski]

Cheers, that's very good to know.

[soniCron]

I think this covers AracdeTown, Reflexive, Yahoo, MSN, Oberon, Real, Pogo, AOL and basically everyone except Real. Real may also have a solution. Apparently so! ;)

[James C. Smith]

Edited to remove Real from the list of portals who I believe use either Armadillo, Active mark or Reflexive DRM. That was a typo. I know Real has their own DRM. Last time I asked them it did not support content limiting but since that I have been told of unconfirmed rare cases of games on Real using content limiting.

[Pi Eye Games]

What exactly is this 'feedback option'? Are players just typing in comments or is your game reporting stats back to you?
It's a feedback option which is initiated when the game senses it's being played too far. This is only present in the Pi Eye builds (non-affiliated) and I'm about to replace it with a jump to the relevant purchase page. I contacted the first couple of players who submitted this and they kindly let me know they'd been playing other portals builds, which I'd never really thought about before, hence the post.

I do think however that most of these reports are probably down to hacks rather than multiple portal builds. I doubt it's a huge issue really.

Most portals that have a "60 minute" demo actually allow each play session to be as long as the player wants it to be and the DRM only checks the time at the end of the play session.
I did have one player tell me she'd played Mirror Mixup all day in this way :eek: ... I guess a player who plays a game all day to avoid paying probably falls into the 'would never have bought it anyway' category.

I think content limiting is a great option if you are really concerned about this kind of stuff. Most portals don't promote this to the developers but do support it as an option.
I personally like to keep portal builds as simple as possible (less to go wrong), but I didn't realise there were so few DRMs being used. I might look into this for future games ... thanks for the list James :)

For me, tying player profiles and save data to particular builds could be a quick fix which should take care of most cases ... but has anyone tried this before? I am worried that if a potential customer plays another build and appears to lose her progress, she'll ditch the game. I'm probably over thinking this though :p

[JoKa]

I am worried that if a potential customer plays another build and appears to lose her progress, she'll ditch the game. I'm probably over thinking this though :p
I'd expect someone who's smart enough to cheat in this way will understand that this misbehaviour is most likely related to cheating, especially because it happens right after changing versions. I'll only reset the player's progress and not the profiles or the hall of fame, so it should be even more obvious that it's not a bug, only an effect caused by mixing up different versions. You could also show a short notification, so they can see their cheating has been detected :)

[electronicStar]

It's a feedback option which is initiated when the game senses it's being played too far.
You mean the game is "phoning home" ?

[Roman Budzowski]

What about displaying a message:
"Your initial trial period has expired. You'll be able to play only first stage of the game. Your existing profiles are not affected, but are not active. Buy the full version to resume your progress."

I would like it to have built in, but will portals like it?

best
Roman

[Pi Eye Games]

You mean the game is "phoning home" ?
No ... players know the game is going to an internet page (and are asked if this is okay), and on that page they are presented with an option to submit the data or not (so in effect it's a double opt-in). All data is presented as is to them before submitting and there is no personal data included - unless they decide they want to sign up for the newsletter of course :)

[Pi Eye Games]

I would like it to have built in, but will portals like it?
I personally wouldn't recommend adding any sort of 'got you' messages to portal builds, the last thing you want is for people to email those portals, complaining about your games. However, I will be putting something like this in all Pi Eye builds and will point them towards the purchase page ... I see it as a similar thing to a 'naughty pirate' page, but far less 'naughty' :p

Limiting the players profile to specific builds could also make the game more sticky. If the player tries a different build and realises they can't continue using their profile, they might just go back and purchase the game at the original portal.

But again, I don't think this whole thing is very important, or common. I was 'surprised by the numbers', but only because I didn't realise it went on in the first place. The numbers were quite low (25 reports over 1 month). 2 out of 2 people asked mentioned playing multiple builds, but I do think some of these reports would have been sent after using non-working hacks.

[GameFoolsjs]

I think the best thing you could do would be to handle save files in a way that once the game is reinstalled, the save file is reset. This way every time someone downloads your game from a different portal, they have to start from scratch.

[Pi Eye Games]

I think the best thing you could do would be to handle save files in a way that once the game is reinstalled, the save file is reset. This way every time someone downloads your game from a different portal, they have to start from scratch.
This is sort of what I've done, but I've made it so if they go back and purchase the game from the original portal (or the Pi Eye build) then their old save data re-appears :) The game is set not to read in profiles created on a different build, but the files still exist as is.

[HarmonicFlow]

I think content limiting and integrating with each portal wrapper is a very good way. However, it's abit of overhead for the portal and developer, atleast the first time as you need to fight some for it, sign NDA and get SDK's.

Just to check if game is purchased or not and this way limit the game abit and show nagscreen on game exit for example. And also ability to call the purchase screen from ingame.

Most commonly used wrappers are Armadillo, Trymedia Activemark and Reflexive DRM atleast from what I know of and have worked with. It's very easy to integrate I think and worth the time.