Quick Jeremy, Lock the thread and delete the 143 posts before this one. I think N400QW (sorry don't know you real name) has summed it up as well as anyone.

Umm...Your sarcasm notwithstanding my real name is in my signature in every post. :(

Umm...Your sarcasm is notwithstanding my real name is in my signature in every post. :(

Your name is Best Regards? :( :( Sorry I called you by the wrong name at Oshkosh!

(I'm sorry if I'm offending here but you did ask ...)It's because we all have problems in life, Bill -- we're all walking wounded. I can't work either but I don't put my problems on public display.

No offense taken, Mike. It's still interesting that you've not addressed the actual point I was trying to make. Let me restate it without the surrounding commentary:

However, if there is one certain effect of piracy, it is the overwhelming sense of "violation" and the concomitant "crushing of the spirit" that is engendered by such acts.

It is my contention that this alone may be the proximate cause for many leaving this cottage industry and finding something less dibilitating to their psyche...

Hello,

while I have no doubt that SteelBeasts has not been "cracked" do you not feel that end users are paying the price for piracy , ie the price which will no doubt include the price of the dongle .Perhaps this is one way of beating piracy ,but the initial cost of the game may dissuade many from purchasing .Still noboby said it is easy

SteelBeasts Price : $125.00 USI read here most devellopers think about 50 % lost of customers (and profit) cause piracy.Actually the cost of a very good FS addon can be between $50 and $100 USThe dongle have a cost .. but it can be integrated in the product and the price of the whole product can be just a little more of non-dongle product .. as it will be a more volume sell (if develloppers numbers are near the reallity concerning the piracy lost profits) the profit will certainly be higher and also the satisfaction to know the product is safe of piracy.If the devellopers gather for the dongle .. due to quantity ... his price will be less .. and this will fulfill their security preoccupations.At least ... IMHO it's the best piracy protection .Must be a way to apply this to the FS products.Also .. think about .. you can't have the butter and the price of the butter ...Regards.Gus.

Let's go back to Freeware. That will for sure take care of piracy once and for all. Also FS Forums were so much fun.Cheers,MAB

Let's go back to Freeware. That will for sure take care of piracy once and for all. Also FS Forums were so much fun.Cheers,MAB

No thank you. Though that is essentially what is slowly happening I believe.

Hello,

Let's go back to Freeware

Regards.Gus.

Let's go back to Freeware. That will for sure take care of piracy once and for all. Also FS Forums were so much fun.Cheers,MAB

Will it? What happens when you see your freeware for sale on ebay? :( I agree though-the forums were very fun... :( The time when the sim had no add ins except as produced by boa and later ms-though sometimes frustrating made things very easy. Maybe not as interesting..

Hello,SteelBeasts Price : $125.00 USI read here most devellopers think about 50 % lost of customers (and profit) cause piracy.Actually the cost of a very good FS addon can be between $50 and $100 USThe dongle have a cost .. but it can be integrated in the product and the price of the whole product can be just a little more of non-dongle product .. as it will be a more volume sell (if develloppers numbers are near the reallity concerning the piracy lost profits) the profit will certainly be higher and also the satisfaction to know the product is safe of piracy.If the devellopers gather for the dongle .. due to quantity ... his price will be less .. and this will fulfill their security preocuppations.At least ... IMHO it's the best piracy protection .Must be a way to apply this to the FS products.Regards.Gus.Gus.

Gus What you say does indeed make sense ,and yes a one off dongle for MSFS that developers could use may well be a magic bullet, but as others have stated there are those who will buy a product because they want it , regardless of price , then there are those who wait for the torrent .All I see is the dongle removing the torrent , which is no bad thing , but my question remains should the honest user have to pay for the extra protection afforded by the dongle .Part of me hopes that most users would say "yes we will help by contributing that bit of extra money ", but If I am honest (read Pessimist) I get the impression that most would say "why should I".As a thought ,IF you were to remove the dongle protection from steelbeasts , do you think that there would be a massive amount of torrents , and if so, would you call these lost sales .

Your name is Best Regards? B) B) Sorry I called you by the wrong name at Oshkosh!

:( :( :(

Actually I came back into MS-FS2002 Professional after twelve years absence from MS-FS. By then there were tonnes of add-ons.and almost new ones everyday. I saw and played FS-2000 but I still didn't like it. FS-8 and 9 were really good times for all of us. By then all excellent freeware developers were put down which I do not believe it was entirely that innocently. FSX unfortunately was/is the old skeleton from FS-8 with lots of artificial testosterone on it but with nothing really new but just little better. I remember those incidents of some people selling models of freeware add-ons copies being sold with no approval of their owner. Heard about it at least but I just didn't fall for it and didn't buy any. So I in favor again of new freeware Flight Sim Models, scenery, airport, etc.Maybe one day again,MAB

Umm...Your sarcasm is notwithstanding my real name is in my signature in every post. :(

Sorry Ron. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. Threads like this can end up being just white noise with hundreds of different opinions and nothing ever changing. I just thought that you had summed up the thread very well. My apologies if I came off as sarcastic and critical. It certainly wasn't my intention.

Sorry Ron. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. Threads like this can end up being just white noise with hundreds of different opinions and nothing ever changing. I just thought that you had summed up the thread very well. My apologies if I came off as sarcastic and critical. It certainly wasn't my intention.

No problem and no offense taken Anthony. Now Geof is another story altogether..... :(

Subscription/licencing/development costs of said protection system (I have no idea at all btw) for said fs product + the time to set it all up + resources to handle activations on the one hand VERSUS the lost revenue of 2000 torrent downloads of said fs product on the other

Can't speak for any system but, our own system works that we and Esellerate get a percentage of the product's price, and that covers everything, from CC processing fees, order processing, payments and adminstrative costs, usage of the activation servers and even bandwidth. There are no upfront costs whatsoever. The total amount is usually comparable ( or even less ) than having to apply a discount to sell the product through any other flight sim portal, which is what all developers are doing now anyway, but with good protection and the chance to offer a Trial verison as well on top of that.We obviously priced our license fees in a way that it would cost about the same, selling with our method, compared to selling to any other channel so, basically, the protection can be seen as being free.The burden of having to reactivate users, depends on what activation policy the developer decides to set up. A manual intervention is only needed when the customer exceed the number of activation granted in the activation policies, otherwise is entirely automatic. That's why we decided on 6 activations because, we found that *most* users only need 2-3 activations over the course of 2-3 years, few need more, and those that exceeds 6 are just an handful so, we found that 6 activations it's more than enough to keep every user happy, because they don't need to contact us very often, and to keep our administrative burden to a minimum level. Of course, that was our choice but, every developer can set whatever number he wants, even different for every product.It doesn't make much sense to have a too strict activation policy, like 1 activation per order and verification for each one, Ariane style. At some point, you'll realize the admin cost becomes significant, requiring to have users pay for reactivation, which would turn them unhappy, with a bad effect on sales. That's why we prefer having a way more liberal activation method, it's best both for users and for us as well.regards,

No offense meant... but you're coming across to me as attempting to actually sell your product in this thread. Which isn't really the purpose of the thread. :(