oleg, you better hurry, RoF is releasing a ww-2 sim next

[Blackdog_kt]

Copy protection is never a solution, it's merely a deterrent. Especially in niche games like flight sims, where the fan base is usually dedicated to a larger extent than in other games, piracy is not so much of a problem. In games where it is a big problem, the publishers are usually big software houses that can absorb the piracy hit, plus they never manage to keep it under control anyway. The sole purpose of copy protection is to make sure the game won't be freely available during the first weeks of release, because that's where most of the sales occur and the biggest potential for financial damage resides.

Almost everyone has illegaly downloaded games and the reason is simple. There are too many games that don't justify a full price, there's not a demo or people are not sure if they are going to like it enough. The real distinction between a pirate and a customer is the receipt. A person who buys is not a pirate, plain and simple. He may not like the copy protection and used a cracked version of the game, or he may have played a few hours with an illegal copy before deciding to go out and buy it, but anyone with a legally obtained disc and a receipt in hand is a customer, plain and simple.
A friend of mine downloade Empire Total War, he tested it for a week, decided he likes it and then went ahead and bought it. He's not a pirate, he's a customer.

That game is an interesting example for another reason as well. It's a game that requires online verification, much like RoF but a bit more hassle free. It's based on Steam and that platform gives you the option to run your game in offline mode, because as a primarily online platform they know that networks are so multi-layered that there's too many random things that can go wrong and deprive you your enjoyment of the title if they tie it to an online connection at all times.

Guess what happened, the cracked version was out within a week of release, packed with a custom installer and working offline. My friend did buy the game in the end, but a lot of people didn't. And the copy protection was inadequate to deal with it as well. Similar examples are Spore and The Sims 3, supposedly online activated yet freely circulating the internet in illegal copies. Even the addon content for the Sims 3 is available in pirated copies. If EA can't put a stop to that, what makes people think that Neoqb will? The only reason RoF hasn't suffered a similar fate is not because their DRM is good, it's because flight sims are unpopular with the masses. You can be sure that if it grows in popularity everyone and their dog will be able to obtain an illegal copy of the base game, possibly even the add-on planes. So in the long run, the only thing the DRM does is p*ss off the few people that were actually willing to make a legitimate purchase.

Now where is the line drawn between games like these and flight sims? Simple, flight sims have fanatical audiences who realise that in order for them to have something to fly, the developers have to make money. Flight sims are also usually the products of small studios, making the above even more pronounced. Someone might not feel as guilty ripping off a multi billion dollar franchise, but if they are flight sim fans it won't really sit well with them doing the same to a small developer.

Last but not least, in fact it's the most important factor, flight sims are complex enough to not appeal to a massive audience, and hence unpopular for cracking and illegal distribution.

All the above leads me to believe one very simple thing. The vast majority of people who would pirate a flight sim title are not lost sales, but people who would never buy it anyway. They are not lost sales, they were never sales to begin with because they don't care enough to learn a complex game. They will spend two days downloading an illegal copy, go through a couple of missions, uninstall and delete.

Imposing the hassle of such a DRM method on a legitimate customer when your game is hardly as attractive to the pirate audience as the latest first person shooter is unecessary, a simple disc check would suffice and the counter-piracy effect of any method would be the same anyway. It's also simply shooting oneself in the foot and the reason for that is very simple. The people who would pirate it if they could would never buy it anyway, plus you lose a good chunk of potential customers who would make a purchase but are turned off by the DRM implementation.

This is not entirely my own line of reason mind you. It's the model a very succesful and small developer house is using to calculate their business growth and potential. They released some niche games and the only protection was a CD-key during installation. Was it pirated? You bet. Was it pirated more than more popular games? Not by a long shot.

In fact, the company stayed focused on delivering content to the people that they knew would buy their games, instead of wasting time embarking on a wild goose chase against the people who will never buy anything anyway and they did very good as a result. If anyone is interested to read about it, google up Stardock games (the company) and Sins of a Solar Empire (one of their games).

A few quotes from Wikipedia:

Stardock was one of the first companies to distribute its software via a free digital distribution program. The first one was called Component Manager. This was later replaced by Stardock Central. In 2008, Stardock released a third-generation digital distribution platform called Impulse, which allows streamlined patching and the ability to download purchased games to another computer owned by the user for free. Stardock Central is in the process of being phased out, and new patches are now only available through Impulse. Stardock has agreed to publish some games containing certain less intrusive versions of SecuROM on Impulse, although Stardock has a principle of releasing all of its own games with no DRM.

Game publishing

In 2006, following the commercial success of their first self-published game, Galactic Civilizations II, Stardock began publishing games developed by third-parties.

The first third-party game Stardock published was Sins of a Solar Empire. The publishing arrangement worked out between Stardock and Ironclad Games was unusual in that the two companies integrated their teams at every level.The game has an average score of 88 on Metacritic and is a top seller at retail.

Yup, a game with no protection whatsoever is a top seller at retail, because those guys are simply focused on providing quality entertainment for their target audience. On his SimHQ interview, even Oleg Maddox said he would prefer not to have DRM. He's also spot on about the correct way to use an online authentication system. Instead of being online all the time, recurring activations at set time intervals would both reduce piracy a bit and they wouldn't leave you high and dry in the case of network troubles. Here's the page in question from the interview: http://www.simhq.com/_air11/air_341d.html

[tagTaken2]

You know what would have been fun...

the moment RoF announced that they would require constant connection... organise protest. Everyone who would have purchased without requirement puts $50 into escrow account and RoF get a visual on money that they're missing out on. Money gets released back to each flight simmer at 6 month mark if RoF still requires connection.

I read yesterday that they've apparently said they'll patch for offline if the company goes under. First time I've had a vested interest in a flight sim failing

[ElAurens]

Take of distances are only too long if you don't know how to take off in a WW1 style tail dragger that has a skid instead of a tail wheel.

This is pilot error not a game engine problem.

Once folks were shown the differences in take off proceedure that WW1 aircraft need it stopped being an issue of contention.

Next.

[flyingbullseye]

Well said Blackdog, I've been saying the same thing for some time now but you've said it much better. Heck, 1946 doesn't have a CD key and though we all know its been pirated the sales on it will by far have exceeded the pirates. I still say and believe that when SOWBOB is released the pirate activity will be low, it will occur but low as opposed to other releases much to what BG has said. Once some punk kid gets waxed a number of times and stalls and crashes he'll give up and go back to the twitch shooters and the other pirates that actually do fly will have to shut their piehole about stealing the sim or get expelled by the community.

Flyingbullseye

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by flyingbullseye

the other pirates that actually do fly will have to shut their piehole about stealing the sim or get expelled by the community.

Flyingbullseye

In the IL-2 community, they seem to be welcomed and adored for breaking in to the code...I have alway's taken a strong stance against such activity

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

Hi all. Ok, @Feurfalke "Oleg had the chance to play the game before or shortly after it was released in Russia in May. Mid-June US-customers could get a limited number of copies, but sales reached their high not before the last week in June. European customers will get their chance end of July in an English version and End of August the earliest in the localized versions.

So if even more people will give their reviews in August, that is not because these "little soldiers are in agreement" then, but because most of us will take that long to take a personal look at the game and not make a judgment based on second hand information."

That is fair comment Feurfalke, even if by his own admission he didn't play it too long (4 hours) his observations were correct. Mind you, it doesn't take a genius to work out (certainly not one myself lol ). I started playing it on the 29th of June Feurfalke, I was one of the first non-beta testers in Europe to get it delivered from the states......I have noted many things that are wrong with it, as have others. My point is to those who are bashing it, (not saying you are mate) give it more time. All human beings make mistakes, it is indeed "human to err". Game developers are no exception. Unless these detractors come from the planet Krypton, and walk around with a big 'S' on their chests, I'm guessing they have at sometime in a professional capacity too

I get tired of repeating myself to be honest, I haven't got the strength anymore lol. If people don't like it, fine. I people do, great. People who do not like it who haven't even played it bemuse me, but they can have their (somewhat uninformed, like planes will cost "25 bucks each") say too. There is no "war" between SOW and ROF, they are not rivals and there is no need to take any "side". Those who got ROF will undoubtedly get SOW too.

ElAurens, I cannot disagree with any of your criticisms, you are right. I'm just saying give them a chance, and have some patience, maybe things will turn out OK. I know how infuriating a lot of the shortcomings are, tell me about it lol. But I believe we will know better in maybe 6 months, I personally think it will improve a lot. God knows, it needs to. But then for me, the glass is always half full, just the way I am, but of course everybody is different!

My Ha'penny. Peace to all

[flyingbullseye]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

In the IL-2 community, they seem to be welcomed and adored for breaking in to the code...I have alway's taken a strong stance against such activity

I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about the mods, however you don't know for a fact that all have pirated the sim. My bet is very little. There is a difference however fine in anyone's eyes, between pirating a game (stealing) and moding a game that has been purchased, hacked or there otherwise.

Flyingbullseye

[Blackdog_kt]

If modding was the same as cheating there wouldn't be so many modded servers attracting some of the top fliers in the community. If modding was so bad, Oleg wouldn't work to integrate modding support in SoW and he wouldn't hand-pick some of the most talented modders to help him with SoW (his words, not mine, in the simHQ interview again).

For me, the distinction is very simple. The process of modding was a dangerous path, but the results were positive for the most part. I no longer have to fly a Me109E over the Gulf of Finland against Spit MkVs and pretend i'm over the channel fighting against Spit MkIs. I can fly over a map that's the real channel (ok it's scaled down a bit but still it's better than Finland) and see the correct aircraft types around me.

A lot of people who stopped flying IL2 some years ago, finally went out and bought 1946 just for this and got back in the game. Because, no matter how good the graphics, FM or DM, what matters the most in the end is having the tools to recreate as many scenarios and tactical possibilities as possible. That's why modded servers are more popular, you can do things on them that can't be done on the stock ones. I have seen formations of heavy bombers with fighter cover, flying the correct mission profile and using tactics as accurate as can be in a computer game, and all were flown by real human pilots that i had to outsmart to stop them from reaching their targets.

That's the big selling point for any sim really, the ability to recreate more than just the aircraft. That's why sims with just one flyable have become classics, like Falcon4 and Black Shark, that's why a lot of people think RoF is incomplete and that's why the mods are popular. No matter how good your FM is, if there's not a sufficiently well done rendition of the war around the player you're simply flying an FSX clone and not a combat sim. Of course that's a matter of taste, many people are happy with the FM/DM alone, but there's also a lot who enjoy seeing the entire theater of war in motion.

I'm really happy that Oleg's team is trying to go the traditional route and give us something like that, an experience that will be as complete as our processing power allows and maybe even more than that, right from the box.

[virre89]

Originally Posted by flyingbullseye

I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about the mods, however you don't know for a fact that all have pirated the sim. My bet is very little. There is a difference however fine in anyone's eyes, between pirating a game (stealing) and moding a game that has been purchased, hacked or there otherwise.

Flyingbullseye

One thing is for sure, BoB will have some sort of anti piracy protection , wither it will be regular cd-key protection and check vs master servers for online play we'll see soon enough. (that's how most games does it)

Vanilla IL2 doesn't even require CD-Key and it's safe to assume it's been pirated a lot especially on later years, if the game would've been released (stock version) 2005+ i doubt Oleg would've had such a success.

Piracy has escalated a lot the last 5 years.. SoW will not ignore that..