Idea for Indie Games Protection

[Davaris]

I have an idea for an Indie game protection system. What you do is create an Indie Portal where you create an account and input your credit card information and use it to buy games from the portal. Then when you purchase a game, you unlock it online using the same login and password as your account with its validated credit card info. Periodically the game would ask to be validated, requiring you to send your login details to your account.

I don't think this system would stop crackers, but it would stop casual copying.

So what do you guys think? I know it would annoy some customers (tough luck for them), but would it work?

[soniCron]

Take it completely on-line, and you might have a winner. (Off-line and you could bug people too much to bother.) I've been playing around with the same idea for some time. Maybe once I'm done with Jeweltopia and TIGRS I'll have time to impliment it...

Isn't this what Gametap is doing, btw?

[Davaris]

Isn't this what Gametap is doing, btw?

Don't know. I've never heard of them. I don't play games much anymore.

I got one half of the idea from buying Poser stuff (all the items are purchased using an account in the portal) and I got the other half from Cas' games where it displays your name and street address in the registered version of the game (I thought people would be reluctant to share his games because of the personal info displayed). So I then I extended that idea a bit because people would almost never share a game if it required information that led to their credit card details.

[Genimo]

GameBlast, now Showckwave.com Unlimited, is based on the same model. However I don't think they support off-line play. I think you need to be online to play.

[Huge]

Hi,
That scheme does not really stop piracy does it? ie, the pritate does something like:
ContactInternetAndCheckDetails() { return true; }
Once this is on the internet, your game is as pirated as the next man's.
It only stops people sharing otherwise unprotected full versions - which is a good thing, but requiring an internet connection to play a local game can be a pain.

[svero]

So let me get this straight. If I'm a dirty stealing pirate the game plays great. But if I'm a legit customer I'm constantly hassled to fill in login details. Yeah great system! Punish your legit customers! Make actually buying the game as unpleasant as humanly possible.

[Ricardo C]

What if I have to be offline for a period of time? What if my ISP is down when the game wants me to re-validate? Screw that.

The $20 I paid won't stop "working", so I expect the same to be true of the game I bought.

tough luck for them

No, tough luck for you, since I doubt many people would want to buy software with such extreme security measures in place.

[Reactor]

I second Ricardo's statements. Unless the thing I'm buying is the greatest thing on earth, I usually won't bother jumping through hoops. I think you'd loose as many, if not more sales than what you'd prevent with an anti casual piracy method like this.

[Pyabo]

So let me get this straight. If I'm a dirty stealing pirate the game plays great. But if I'm a legit customer I'm constantly hassled to fill in login details. Yeah great system! Punish your legit customers! Make actually buying the game as unpleasant as humanly possible.

Bought an AAA titles recently?

[Game Producer]

Hi,
That scheme does not really stop piracy does it? ie, the pritate does something like:
ContactInternetAndCheckDetails() { return true; }
Once this is on the internet, your game is as pirated as the next man's.
It only stops people sharing otherwise unprotected full versions - which is a good thing, but requiring an internet connection to play a local game can be a pain.

Yes - that's basically it.

It could work in online games (where your login details would be sent in order for you to gain server lists), but even then I wouldn't manually ask those login details. I would simply store them in your computer and the system could check that 2 players couldn't play same game or same time or something. (Of course even then you would need some system to make sure that if player's computer crashes his status will be changed in the database)

[bignobody]

Bought an AAA titles recently?

Heh, I still remember the painful install process for Half-Life 2. I sat there going "It's a good thing you're Half-Life 2, or I wouldn't be putting up with this crap."