Timeline for How can I minimize the chances of my game getting pirated?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 21, 2011 at 14:44 | comment | added | Ken | We probably want to take a step back and define piracy really quickly, as it seems we're dealing with two slightly different definitions here. My point was more that if you have a highly social game, like an MMORPG or farmville, then people play for both the game and the community. Sure people can "pirate" the game and set up their own servers, but it's little more than a very advanced clone. What you can't do, or if you prefer to be pedantic, what 99%+ of people lack the technical skills to do, is connect to an official WoW server without a trial or having paid for the privilege to do so. | |
| Feb 21, 2011 at 14:40 | comment | added | o0'. | No: since WoW has a HUGE player base, the (relatively) small numbers accrued by the so-called "pirate servers" are negligible. | |
| Feb 21, 2011 at 14:19 | comment | added | Cyclops | @Lo'oris, people liked playing it enough to buy $3M of stuff... And my point anyway, was to disagree with your claim that "server-based games simply can't be pirated... people must connect to your server". The existence of WoW pirate servers shows this isn't really true. :) | |
| Feb 21, 2011 at 12:43 | comment | added | o0'. | @Cyclops: playing WoW in a pirate server is like not playing it at all. The amount of people playing in pirate servers is negligible compared to the people playing legit. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 19:47 | comment | added | Cyclops | World of Warcraft Pirate Servers . The most impressive part (to me) is that this private server, got over $3M in revenue from players... | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 18:55 | comment | added | o0'. | Every server-based game simply can't be pirated, because you give away the client and people must connect to your server (and pay to do that, hopefully). This is a good advice in general, but is only ok for online games. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 18:24 | comment | added | Ken | The point I was trying to make is that if a game is online and requires a login (farmville requires a facebook login, but it's disguised as "installing" the app) then, if you design it well, it's virtually impossible to play "illegally". Even if you take a simple single player dungeon exploring game and host it as a java applet then you can still prevent non-payers from playing the game. It would also be easier to provide a free version or expansions. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 17:57 | comment | added | DMan | Farmville is free online, so no. But if they wanted to, they could download the .swf and change things around. However, the changes would probably only be local. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 17:31 | history | answered | Ken | CC BY-SA 2.5 |