Why online activation sucks

[AstralWanderer]

Not used GameJackal myself but anyone considering a purchase may wish to act soon. Slysoft's lifetime update policy ends on the 1st January 2009 with customers from then on needing to pay an annual fee to maintain access to updates.

They currently have a 20% discount (due to end on the 31st December).

SlySoft License Change Announcement
SlySoft Homepage

[TippeX]

hmm im in mixed minds if this constitutes as advertising to be honest...
its an ok program (as/when it works), bit clunky for my liking (dt is my main preference)

lets see what the other mods think

[AstralWanderer]

I'd go for Daemon Tools in an instant if the pro version didn't require online activation and the free version didn't include (mandatory) adware. However I'm now considering GJ for those cases where no crack is available (latest versions of Children of the Nile and NWN2 notably) - at least Slysoft's licensing system (a straightforward serial number) doesn't have much scope to go amiss.

[TippeX]

i wouldn't pick gamejackal as a 'better candidate' when no crack is available, they aren't exactly as quick as daemon tools are when it comes to updating

dt online activation i honestly never had a problem with, the lite version doesn't include mandatory adware (the free version has image making capabilities i think, so if its just for simple game playing, install lite)

[DABhand]

If your online whats the problem with online activation? You talked about this a few times, seems you dont like it.

But to be honest GJ = crap. And do you think GJ does not contact home when you enter your serial? There is a huge chance after you think you have activated the software, GJ may contact a home server to report.

[AstralWanderer]

Originally Posted by DABhand

If your online whats the problem with online activation? You talked about this a few times, seems you dont like it.

Online activation has two problems:

• if the company dies, the software goes with it (covered in more detail in this Authorization Servers article). I have no way of knowing how long Daemon Tools (or any other developer/publisher) is going to stay in business, but as a paying customer, I shouldn't need to.
• the company can change the rules on activation any time it wants and enforce them. They could levy extra payments (Stardock does this if it thinks a licence has been transferred), require you to install software (e.g. adware, an "anti-cheat scanner" to check your system for cracks or even the publisher's own electronic store software) or just arbitrarily terminate your licence (as EA were threatening to do to anyone banned in their forums - they withdrew this threat but the fact that they were in a position to make it should give anyone pause for thought). Even if DT's LocutusOfBorg is the most honest, upright person on the Internet, who can guarantee that a more ruthless, money-grabbing, EA-tattoo-touting miscreant can't take over sometime in future?

Originally Posted by DABhand

And do you think GJ does not contact home when you enter your serial? There is a huge chance after you think you have activated the software, GJ may contact a home server to report.

Easy enough for a firewall to detect - have you seen this happen? In addition, no requirement for an Internet connection is given in GJ's requirements - now that doesn't guarantee no-phone-home (plenty of other software has that "let's check for updates automatically" feature) but it would seem to rule against any type of compulsory activation.

Originally Posted by TippeX

dt online activation i honestly never had a problem with, the lite version doesn't include mandatory adware (the free version has image making capabilities i think, so if its just for simple game playing, install lite)

Thanks for the info but does that mean that the note about Daemon Tools on this page needs an update?

[TippeX]

Originally Posted by AstralWanderer

Thanks for the info but does that mean that the note about Daemon Tools on this page needs an update?

yep, think so, because i definately have daemon tools lite 4.30.2 on my x64 machine sptd versoin 1.56 and during install i could choose not to use the adware..

so, to recap (heres how i think it goes)

daemon tools lite -> optional adware, simple image mounting etc..
daemon tools pro standard and daemon tools pro advanced

the standard and advanced version offer a 20 day trial as well as the activation based license

[DABhand]

I wont even bother quoting most of the gibberish you tried to talk about in the vain attempt of looking intelligent.

1. Whatever software you buy there is always a what if scenario. Like say an example like SE4, its great fun and very moddable, but then it dies of death because nobody is making mods for it. So life expectancy is not for ever. That is one what if for non-protected games.

For protected games yes media can get scratched or damaged, just like DVD's, Dinner Plates, Washing Machines, etc etc see where this is going. What people including yourself DO NOT seem to realise is you only have the right to install said software and to use it.

I have never needed to really back up any game in a sense. My older games like Pirates! and Birth of the Federation are over 15 yr old. I can still get the original media and still install them, the discs have little minute scratches from use but they are still usable.

2. Shamus knows what he has digested by reading various sources and tried to put 2 and 2 together to make 5. Sure he seems to you like he is very knowledgeable, but he is spouting out the same excuses that I have seen over the last 12 years on the net. And his fans/followers who reply to him are mostly his loyal hand clapping seals eating up the same excuses to excuse their thefts.

3. You just semi-quoted one of the biggest warez excuse in the world. "If I didnt buy it, then im not hurting sales if I was not going to in the first place, so the company didnt lose money". Yeah and here is my usual answer, how about I come around to your house and hmmm steal your car and maybe while im there take your PC and TV and oh the microwave. I wasnt planning on buying them so its ok? Of course not its theft, your legally owned items I took, just like warez users are stealling legally owned and copyrighted software.

And its because of this seal clapping montage of people who lap up these excuses like candy that more serious protections have to be used, and every year and broadband becoming more readily available and cheaply that more and more warez kiddies surface and think its their right to have everything for free.

4. He didnt have what now? Of course he didnt have that info he was a volunteer mod, but that still doesnt mean he could not have spouted out crap like he did. He lied. I know it must be a hard concept for you to comprehend, but yeah people lie.

5. Inconvience to some yes, but who is to blame, thats right the seal clapping army. And before you go on about it, here is other examples of other ownership items that need more protection over the years. Cars, Houses, Household items, Money, Credit Cards, etc etc all these items have what in common? Thats right thiefs, petty common criminals who steal from others and force others to take more action.

For example the car alarm system, sure it protects the car, but what about the pesky cats that set it off at 4am in the morning while you sleep, making you wake up stumble about look for the keys to turn it off while at the same time pissing off your neighbours. Sound familiar to something else?

6. Yes hard disk problems, etc etc, but these are good reasons for a publisher to allow you to regain reactivations. Not give them to people who have seemed to be able to play the game mostly at the same time from different parts of the planet, and different hardware configurations in a short time.

Again nothing wrong with the system, just the people who abuse it.

7. Yes I buy my games, do you? Im starting to doubt that when the olde excuses start rolling in and you used one of those said excuses. Propaganda la la la PROPAGANDA!

8. There was one great game, which yes I legally purchased, Psychonauts. Fantastic game, didnt sell well, but yet thousands and thousands of people were saying how great the game was but yet, if it did not sell well how did these people enjoy it. And ultimately some even complained about how boring the game was on the developers forums. So it begs the question. If sales were so bad why did many people have it? Thats right the seal clapping brigade strikes again!

And back OT, gamejackal is pish IMHO :P

[Joe Forster/STA]

Originally Posted by DABhand

For protected games yes media can get scratched or damaged, just like DVD's, Dinner Plates, Washing Machines, etc etc see where this is going. What people including yourself DO NOT seem to realise is you only have the right to install said software and to use it.

I have never needed to really back up any game in a sense. My older games like Pirates! and Birth of the Federation are over 15 yr old. I can still get the original media and still install them, the discs have little minute scratches from use but they are still usable.

In a few decades, there will be no (working) devices (at end users) that can read today's CD's (or DVD's), whether copy protected or not. (Read the emulator note in a previous post of mine.)

Originally Posted by DABhand

You just semi-quoted one of the biggest warez excuse in the world. "If I didnt buy it, then im not hurting sales if I was not going to in the first place, so the company didnt lose money". Yeah and here is my usual answer, how about I come around to your house and hmmm steal your car and maybe while im there take your PC and TV and oh the microwave.

You just full-quoted the most ridiculous anti-warez excuse. Physical objects can only be stolen - no copy remains at the previous owner -, while digital information can also be (legally or illegaly) duplicated - the original copy remains at the original owner. (Until Star Trek's replicators - duplicator machines for physical objects, using pure energy as source - are invented, that is.) Smearing the two together is questioning the very reason why digital information was invented and then became so popular so fast.

Originally Posted by DABhand

There was one great game, which yes I legally purchased, Psychonauts. Fantastic game, didnt sell well, but yet thousands and thousands of people were saying how great the game was but yet, if it did not sell well how did these people enjoy it. And ultimately some even complained about how boring the game was on the developers forums. So it begs the question. If sales were so bad why did many people have it?

Exactly how many thousand actual people have you seen praising or critisizing the game? Compare this with: Exactly how many thousand sales would this game have needed for the project to become profitable or, at least, null saldo? I feel this argumentation proved nothing at all. (No wonder, your not working at that company makes you an outsider, too, without much knowledge about what happens inside. See the last sentence in the previous post.)

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by Joe Forster/STA

In a few decades, there will be no (working) devices (at end users) that can read today's CD's (or DVD's), whether copy protected or not. (Read the emulator note in a previous post of mine.)

Perhaps and Perhaps not.

You just full-quoted the most ridiculous anti-warez excuse. Physical objects can only be stolen - no copy remains at the previous owner -, while digital information can also be (legally or illegaly) duplicated - the original copy remains at the original owner. (Until Star Trek's replicators - duplicator machines for physical objects, using pure energy as source - are invented, that is.) Smearing the two together is questioning the very reason why digital information was invented and then became so popular so fast.

I didn't quote the most used anti-warez excuse, but I quoted the most used warez excuse. You see it used all the time.

Not to mention the classic - "I am going to install it and play it to see if I like it, then remove from my PC" - yes of course they are...not, but thats what demo's are for, but then again not all games have demo's but a huge percentage do.

And the blatantly in your face one - "Why should I pay extortionate prices for a game, im not paying that much to play one game". Yeah and I wish I couldn't pay big prices on tobacco or petrol or food or clothes. But hey hum that is life, things cost money.

And it doesn't stop there as you know, they even complain when people make trainers and ask people to pay a small subscription to get the latest one before others. Where this "It should be free" malarky came from I have no idea, in the past you could get them for free as many groups enjoyed making them and giving them out. But things have changed, if someone wants to charge people for hours of debugging and disassembling and finding pointers etc etc, then they have every right to charge people also. Its nice if its free yes, but like all things even workmanship for example mechanics, electricians and engineers they all require money for their time and effort.

Exactly how many thousand actual people have you seen praising or critisizing the game? Compare this with: Exactly how many thousand sales would this game have needed for the project to become profitable or, at least, null saldo? I feel this argumentation proved nothing at all. (No wonder, your not working at that company makes you an outsider, too, without much knowledge about what happens inside. See the last sentence in the previous post.)

Was quite well known, they produced x amount of media and only a fraction sold world wide. They made a very very small profit from sales. And they told others about it, and the fact that it won awards for game design etc and even then the awards peeps recognised that it did not sell well when it should have. And I remember the official forum of countless daily complains and moans when patches arrived - "My game wont recognise my cd, it worked before" excuse, but yet the rest of the legally bought people had no problems what so ever.

Why do I know this? The protection used was the same as retail, no changes, just cosmetic changes to the patch, so only people who had problems was the warez users.

[Joe Forster/STA]

Originally Posted by DABhand

"how about I come around to your house and hmmm steal your car and maybe while im there take your PC and TV and oh the microwave."

[...] I didn't quote the most used anti-warez excuse, but I quoted the most used warez excuse. You see it used all the time.

Again, that above is exactly the most ridiculous anti-warez argument possible. Yes, you see it used on DVD's all the time, unless you activate AnyDVD...

[Fixx]

I know I am stepping into a old discussion here but I stumbled on this because I was looking for a place to vent. And since there is no forum I am aware of for the gaming community to send messages to developers/publishers... it is here I will vent:

Let me start by saying that DABhand actually proved Joe Forster's point with the argument of:

Was quite well known, they produced x amount of media and only a fraction sold world wide

If it is so well known you would think he could have come up with a number instead of the universal symbol for an unknown amount.

A long time ago I learned that if you want your computer to remain stable the only way is to keep it off of the internet. Any version of windows actually works quite well if you can keep every Tom, Dick, and adware company from installing their crap on it. Also for quite a while I didn't have internet because of the cost. So with online activation I have to be very careful about what games I buy (not always easy because they like to put this info in the fine print). It was bad enough when I had to come to terms with companies causing undue wear and tear on my CD/DVD drive so they could be sure I bought their product but requiring a connection to play offline content is intolerable for me. My one experience with Steam was a nightmare. I bought SIN (on a disk in a store) only to find that the disk merely gave me permission to download the game. Fine, I thought, until two weeks of dropped connections only to find I didn't like the game. Waste of time and money - never again. I just bought FUEL (whoops) what kind of moron writes (or ports) a vehicle game for PC's without joystick or wheel support. Sure wish I had downloaded a cracked version to try so I didn't waste my money (yes I know there's a demo but these are generally missing all sorts of game features so missing support wouldn't necessarily mean it would be missing in the full game).

My point here is that I am very quickly getting turned off of the whole gaming experience and it is the fault of the software companies not the pirates. And it is companies like your's, DABhand, that will suffer when I will no longer be playing games. Don't worry about the software companies though since future generations will be born with an IP address and billed for their installation into this world.

__________________________________________________
Capitalism is consuming itself

[Joe Forster/STA]

You're not escaping my communistic lesson this time either...

In today's society, the higher powers create artificial (unnatural, unrealistic) needs for the plebs so that their otherwise meaningless life - being born, growing up, working for decades, raising children and then dying - is given a meaning. Intelligent people have a true meaning for their life anyway, without anyone else needed to tell them thankyouverymuch, but the majority of mankind is not intelligent enough. With more and more people on the planet, this is especially true: born, genetic intelligence has to be nurtured to become real, effective intelligence, which means good food, good education, both of which several billion people don't get today. With the homeland/home continent having become saturated with their goods, multinational companies are now moving into the third world, seeking market, fooling uneducated people with their advertising and generating profit from selling products to people who actually don't need them. This is, however, also true in developed countries: it is called consumerism.

Property, rights and stealing are just a matter of definition, a social consensus. There's no need for property when there's an abundance of all the material that people need. If everyone can have a house, a car, lots of food, good health, good education and whatever else is considered to be useful in life - at least, at this moment - then there is no need to take away something from your neighbor when you also have it all already. Thus, stealing inherently loses its meaning. And, for that matter, so does money. But, as most people cannot imagine a world like this, science fiction writers had to do it for them.

Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg's novel "Robot" (1973) is a very good hard science fiction with philosophical overtones. (It, along with its author, is almost completely unknown so don't be surpised if you haven't heard about it.) At its end, [SPOILERS AHEAD!] it solves the mystery by describing that the city, in/under which the story unfolds, was ripped away from the surface of Earth and sealed into the hangar of an interstellar spaceship. The citizens are taken care of by automized factories which create an abundance of goods: cars, TV's etc., of course, all for free as the abductors neither know nor care about money and their technology is much more advanced than ours. The interesting part is that the citizens are unsatisfied exactly because of the abundance and have no idea how to make sensible use of it: they 1) throw away everything after little use and 2) are (fortunately, not literally) killing each other over small batches of non-standard products. [END OF SPOILERS] This is a sad parody of consumerism where success and good life are symbolised by individuals having as their own property physical objects that others don't have. However, the higher powers here also had their calculations correct: as long as people are busy with their daily routines and are satisfied with their life at some level, they won't notice/bother with the discrepancies, problems on higher levels.

Making pirates the culprits warps the facts to your own ideal of the truth at least as much as pirates do when they say they wouldn't have bought that software anyway. It's interesting what I read the other day on some forum: people report that their "warez collector" friends have tons of software that they have no use for. (Well, having productivity software around is never useless, as you or your friends may some time need it, but that's out of scope here.) Now, compare this to the hero of capitalism, the person that the plebs deifies: the successful businessman who makes money from either money (banker, broker) or by selling goods that someone else created (vendor, reseller), and has several houses on the beach, huge gardens with fountains and swimming pools, limousines with a chauffeur, busty babes around and everything that money can get. (See a few American-made movies and you'll see what I mean.) E.g. this businessman could go to work by bicycle, and also tick off the daily exercise by that, but 1) that's so plebs-like and 2) he has enough time and money to go to a fitness club anyway.

All this above proves my point: in today's society, most people want to have, at any cost, without morals or sense. It is primarily the system, governed by the higher powers, that is corrupt and the need for survival, to counteract the consequences of how the system "works", makes small people corrupt, too, on many levels. Software piracy is just one symptom of this so be more broad-minded about it.

[...] In case someone didn't get it, a very simple example: creating illegal copies of a software is immoral - at least, some people in this era think so - but it is magnitudes more immoral to lie about non-existing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - when it's actually about oil -, which cost estimatedly hundreds of thousands of lives - and the value of human life was supposed to be saint in all eras.