Bad news for Automation :-(

[Daffyflyer]

I also had a look at your website and while I like the idea somewhat, I dont see how you want to survive if you don't let in everybody. This community isnt exactly huge, and if you dont accept everyone you will have to make do with a few dozens of users.

It's a website for people to post stuff they made in the game. And to make things in the game, they need to.... own the game.
10s of thousands of people own the game, not dozens. Yes I'm sure some of them can't be bothered to sign up to another website, and if that's the barrier for entry to them using a community site, so be it.
I don't think there are a large number of people who are wishing to post their car designs on AutomationHub, but are unable to, because they don't own Automation..




We're not going to lock down the official forums to people who own the game. That would be dumb, and would annoy all the people who want to ask questions about the game, join the community to talk to people or whatever they like. And locking down tech support to people who own the game is dumb, because then demo players can't get problems looked at.

[BurningBridges]

I have no hard data but I wouldnt worry this will actually be hurting sales. There are 8 billion people in the world today of which ca 10,000 play Automation. I calculated that this means the other 7,999,990,000 dont have Automation yet. So even if 1 million would pirate it, it's safe to expect at least 10,000 of those would eventually buy the full version, so that could actually be fantastic for sales. This game is too special and sophisticated to really become pirated a lot. 99% of the downloaders will look at it for 5 minutes, then uninstall just as with 99% of the demo users.

[WizzyThaMan]

All you do right now is pure speculation. Besides all that billion people don't all own a PC and don't all share the same interest in a game like this.
Though, given for a fact that casual tycoon games are something a lot of people like, I wouldn't say that it's 'too special and sophisticated'. Of course you can't compare this game to Call of Duty and expect it to be pirated a lot. That has to do with marketing and having a very big name like Activision or Infinity Ward. Camshoft Software is by no means on that level of the market and the way I see it, they don't intend to. They want to stay indie developers. Look how many people are interested in Minecraft. That was one of those game that became a hit and look at how far Notch has come. In a sort of way, Automation is that special game in its market, too. What other game is so sophesticated that it can match Automation? This is their Unique Selling Point and this is what generated them sales. They offer creativity and also a way to learn more about cars. And how many people do actually love cars? I'm sure you have a real nice calculation for that too!

As for pirating, it will always happen. It already happened with Playstation 1 discs and before that even Twilight discs for PC. You can't stop it, nor should you really try to. Just offer people things they can't have with the pirated version and show them the game is worthwhile buying because it actually offers decent gameplay and hours and hours of replayability (Something your COD doesn't have after version 21499, except for multiplayer, which also became dull IMO)

I'm not saying you cannot have your opinion about this matter, but at least it would be great if you weren't so negative. The fact is that pirating occurs and the devs want to make a game that people have longed for for years. They are doing that thing right now and even if it is only 50K people in total buying the game, they did what they liked and they have a nice little community that supports their work.

[RobtheFiend]

Test Drive Unlimited (PC version) had a odd way of punishing pirates. All the cars costing $1000000 or more, cost in the cracked version 10 times as much.
Yes i have the full, legal, version. We found this when trying to install, and crack, the game on my friends computer, so we could play multiplayer.

[HellBoyBG]

Test Drive Unlimited (PC version) had a odd way of punishing pirates. All the cars costing $1000000 or more, cost in the cracked version 10 times as much.
Yes i have the full, legal, version. We found this when trying to install, and crack, the game on my friends computer, so we could play multiplayer.

Either this was removed in TDU 2 or the crack is good.

[TrackpadUser]

Most of the time this is what happens.

First crack circumvent the disk checker. Then people play the game, notice something very wrong, like the Haze in Take-on Helicopters, or the useless bat-cape in Arkham asylium, and then they release an other crack that fixes that problem.

You can't really stop pirates, like many other said, the best way to reduce piracy is to offer a good games and incentives for not pirating like easy access to mods through the workshop and multiplayer.

[WizzyThaMan]

A good way could be to implement a piece of code that deactivates after first signing in with the game being online so it can be checked you own a legal copy.
If not, then it could do some weird stuff with the demography of countries, prices and costs so it becomes unplayable if you really want to mess the game up.

A more subtle approach could be that you get random acts of terror against your company, like factories burning down, cars becoming total failures or research tech being stolen meaning you have to re-research it again. This would be much better in my opinion. Playable, but not really

[TrackpadUser]

A good way could be to implement a piece of code that deactivates after first signing in with the game being online so it can be checked you own a legal copy.
If not, then it could do some weird stuff with the demography of countries, prices and costs so it becomes unplayable if you really want to mess the game up.

A more subtle approach could be that you get random acts of terror against your company, like factories burning down, cars becoming total failures or research tech being stolen meaning you have to re-research it again. This would be much better in my opinion. Playable, but not really

Like I said in my post, this would just result in the good cracked version appearing later and a flood of clueless pirates posting here wondering why this stuff is happening.

I think it took a week for crackers to "fix" the DRM in game dev tycoon where your company ended up bankrupt because of piracy.

Offering a good game with fun mutliplayer and a good workshop support is the way to go IMHO.

[PMP1337]

A good way could be to implement a piece of code that deactivates after first signing in with the game being online so it can be checked you own a legal copy.
If not, then it could do some weird stuff with the demography of countries, prices and costs so it becomes unplayable if you really want to mess the game up.

A more subtle approach could be that you get random acts of terror against your company, like factories burning down, cars becoming total failures or research tech being stolen meaning you have to re-research it again. This would be much better in my opinion. Playable, but not really

I'm going to be straight with you. I pirated lots of games in the past. Before I had money to buy them. I still have spectrum pirated games on Sony cassettes. You even know what that is?
I've pirated half the games people mentioned here that have anti piracy measures. And I never encountered anti-pirate measures people mention. They are a waste of resources. Camshaft Software can't have the luxury to waste resources. I tell you this. It's like killrob says. Make a good multiplayer experience, steam workshop integration.
People that pirated the game and like it will buy it for those features.
I pirated GTA4 and EFLC and end up buying it for the mods and multiplayer. Got it on sales from steam 9€ all GTA games for PC.
The game is on Steam. You have to be a complete cheapskate developer to not sell games on steam. I bought Hotline Miami for 1€ and didn't even touch it. I passed the game on the pirated version. I only payed for it because I felt they deserved it. And they made a second.

You know. You keep bashing people's ideas for new features for the game because they cost to much to implement. But you came up in a single post with a bunch of DRM heavy ideas that ONLY ruin the experience for people that legitimately paid for it. AND THAT WASTE DEV'S TIME.
It's bad enough I can't play it offline. Pirates can...

[BurningBridges]

^Finally someone who understands.
Yes the idea of game dev tycoon was funny, a pity it is also a myth. They uploaded the "special" version themselves to get people to torrent it in the first place. It's as if the police secretly sold baking soda as crack to troll junkies, funny but pointless. There is no reliable ways to really make the required checks, you probably end up with some genuine customers noticing mysterious behavior and when they find out it is crippled software it might hurt you very dearly in the long run. Because of course no one buys from douchebag developers again who does such things.

I can say that I visit other communities where some people are open that they pirate games and it often works wonders to make fun of them. There were a lot of Polish Russian bros who suddenly got genuine versions because they want to be considered experts for a certain game/genre and it ruins all credibility if you cant pay for it. So what I am saying is, you get a lot more people by their pride than by sabotaging their computer.

[PMP1337]

It's bad enough I can't play it offline. Pirates can...

Just checked. Apparently now with Steam YOU CAN play offline.

[WizzyThaMan]

Funny PMP, you are waiting for a post of me to retaliate with all your anger.
Anyway, I don't 'bash' people, I point them out to facts like a search bar and saving the devs time from replying to the same question over and over.

Anyway, I agree on good multiplayer and Mod support, that can't be really piratd maybe (but if everything is pirate-able, then why not mod and multipler support?)
But because things can get pirated, this means you have to release your game without any protection because it gets pirated anyway?
That's like keeping your front door open, because if theyw ant to break in and steal your stuff, you can anyway. That would be plain ridculous in my eyes.

Also, the little code to just mess a little with the game, really isn't that hard to make. But long story short: Games will be pirated, but I don't think they should just leave the front door open.

[Killrob]

It's bad enough I can't play it offline. Pirates can...

Just checked. Apparently now with Steam YOU CAN play offline.

Of course you can play offline with Steam, you can also play offline without Steam, that is supported for all games that aren't multiplayer focused.
In the stand-alone version you can also play offline to my knowledge, it only requires you to have logged into the game once with your account on that machine.

[BurningBridges]

No I think it is about not becoming paranoid. For example when abroad or in trains I now leave my stuff like my camera lying around for long times, because I realized no one cares for them anyway. I dont lock my bicycle, etc. Since I do that I am a much more relaxed and have more time for other things.

[TrackpadUser]

Wizzy, IMHO the current layer of DRM is more than enough, aka Steam or the standalone login.

The door isn't being left wide open as it requires a little effort from pirates, as well as keeping them out of all things online.

Adding more DRM will just result in the crackers fixing their crack to circumvent that DRM.

The time required to add more DRM is better spent trying to add more cool stuff.