If that principle is applied, as it is with AutomationHub, then that would also affect demo users. And for me, I don’t think it would be a good idea, as I think it would almost give off a similar vibe to downloading a free app and being restricted from ‘premium users’ by doing so.
I think both options have their good points and bad points, but just about everything gets pirated at some point, and it’s becoming more and more frowned upon, that I just think we should leave it to each individual’s moral thought to determine whether they want to support the developers. Those who decide to pirate will unfortunately dent the sales figures, especially since it’s an indie game.
I also think that an added incentive for people to pirate the game right now, is that the game is still in development. Maybe some people only want to test it before they decide to put money into supporting development of a game they may not like, but using that basis, everyone would pirate it, so I think that’s quite a long shot.
Long story short, I feel that we shouldn’t restrict the forum, as it creates a somewhat snobby feel to an otherwise fantastic community. People should just play the game and have fun!
Do you mean they secretly hate prospective customers? Its no different to Ferrari saying no you cannot participate in our track days because you dont have a Ferrari.
Or an Audi booth giving away free champagne and strawberries but only if you drive an Audi (true story).
I see giving access as a carrot, you see denying access as a stick.[/quote]
Quod licet jovi non licet bovi? I always have to laugh when I read such analogies. It’s true Ferrari need not give a sh** what people think. They have more interested buyers currently waiting than cars Lol. But do you think Jugo or Dacia lock out interested people? If you want people to stand in queues to get access, ask yourself first if you are in a position like Ferrari. And yes, as to the original suggestion, I think companies like Paradox for example have extremely little regard for their customers. It’s a really bad idea to try to learn from them if you are an upcoming startup.
[quote=“BurningBridges”]I have no problem with it either. I just won’t use it, and I know a lot of people won’t.
Also he and the poster before suggested locking the Automation forums to only people who go through registration. That will only pi** more people off, and they are more likely to look for unrestricted access.[/quote]
It would be great if you actually read my post better. First of all, Daffy said that we are not part of the development team. It’s a fan created website. We have no means of ‘privatising’ the game like you said just for a premium set of users. As a matter of fact, there has been a discussion about that matter for giving people that supported the game a long time before Steam some sort of private forum area. I was one of the people highly rejecting the idea since I think the community of Automation is a nice and warm place where people can meet and talk about the game, but also about car related topics in general.
As for the website, one of the other reasons we want you to validate, is that people can’t make numerous accounts and manipulate the voting/ranking for example. And, as said, we think if you like the game, you should support the developers and buy it.
Pleb referred to also blocking the demo users. Yes, that is true. They can still visit the website however, and a demo version doesn’t offer you the complete game either, unless you have one of those time based demo’s where you an play the complete game for max 1 hour and then MUST buy it.
We think it is normal to let people check the site and what others made. The only thing we block them from is creating a company and sharing their designs and engines. For downloads, readings news and reviews and getting access to guides tips and tricks, will all be freely accesible.
Are you for or against locking forums to unregistered users?? Because one can’t be both at the same time.
That was what triggered me, that in response to the cracked version some people suggested to lock the forums now.
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.
THat should explain enough, doesn’t it?
Let people join the forums if they wish, pirated or not. Just restrict them from Steam Workshop access and tech support. The latter for when the game is finished, because pirated players can also detect issues with the game and bugs.
The discussion about piracy is not a new one and it has affected not only triple AAA titles by big publishers.
As a few mentioned, I don’t see any reason for any measurements for or against it at all. Perhaps underline that there is a Demo for the game which can bring a lot of tun too. Look at the comments below the carthrottle article, so many are stating that they lack money to buy Automation.
I know for a fact that many eastern european/russian guys are just as much of a petrolhead as can be, but their exchange rates are just down in the toilet a the moment.
You’d also be surprised how many just pirate games to get a first impression and then buy the game, aware that supporting developers (especially independent ones) is crucial.
[quote=“Vroomvroom”]Hoooo there, hold your horses.
The discussion about piracy is not a new one and it has affected not only triple AAA titles by big publishers.
As a few mentioned, I don’t see any reason for any measurements for or against it at all. Perhaps underline that there is a Demo for the game which can bring a lot of tun too. Look at the comments below the carthrottle article, so many are stating that they lack money to buy Automation.
I know for a fact that many eastern european/russian guys are just as much of a petrolhead as can be, but their exchange rates are just down in the toilet a the moment.
You’d also be surprised how many just pirate games to get a first impression and then buy the game, aware that supporting developers (especially independent ones) is crucial.[/quote]
+1 for the truth. I live in Bulgaria. Here 2 Leva (BGN) = 1 EUR. When i bought the game i spend around 50-60 BGN, which are my allowance for 3 weeks (so you have a good perspective) or a pair for good jeans.
[quote=“BurningBridges”]
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.[/quote]
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.
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.
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.
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.
[quote=“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.[/quote]
Either this was removed in TDU 2 or the crack is good.
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.
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
[quote=“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 [/quote]
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.
[quote=“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 [/quote]
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…
^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.
nice! We were in contact with Kelsey for a good two weeks now.
Keep up the good work guys 