You're not getting my MONEY! Buyer Beware!

[JSkorna 137]

Fair enough Andy!

[CoolP 283]

CoolIP, I can’t tell if you’re arguing for “no protection” or “user-friendly protection”. :(

Valid questioning of course.The idealism in me speaks for free products, I guess, while the realism votes for the customer-friendly version of all protective methods (examples were given above). I'd guess that most Avsim users vote for the second version, without complains. A good target to aim for. I join in happily there.I hopefully remained somehow sane in my arguments and I appreciate every input of course. Some of this input may receive questions and as one can see from the above posts, some of my questions may have some content to think about since the whole piracy talk usually stays on very basic, "ideal" black/white picture levels. Anybody in doubt there?Concerning your comments about the outcome of the brave free- and donationware guys, I can honestly say 'true!'. They can't live with that money but they didn't intend to do so also.To stay in the context I was using them (was that house locking thingy), these guys aren't locking theirs and they are also expecting you to take some stuff out of this house. Some may say that's dumb, I say that's honorable, to say the least. Look at that fan base this generous behaviour creates. Amazing in some aspects, isn't it?The payware people need some outcome and therefore it might be clever to protect at least some areas of the house. Not a problem there, but lets take a look at their business related basis. Which is .. the customer itself (that's the honest and friendly guy). This customer is the one who pays them and also visits them from time to time to check for updates.If you keep him being a fan, he will always come back, doesn't "protect" his wallet when you speak about something new (he trusts you) and he also is the one to enable this magic word of mouth thing in the small flight sim community.Put up some locks at your house to, accidentally, keep those fans out and you'll see how fast that last item changes directions.Conclusion? Keep the guys happy and the locks down to a minimum level (not speaking about no locks here).If one would ask me whether to buy a plane from e. g. A2A or one of Pete's products, what would I say, being a fan? Yes! of course.Now, same question, but other 'locks on the house' and speaking about VRS now (after DJ Jose posted his example and after reading about some other "support" related issue). You may guess the answer. More than a 'maybe, but look closely' isn't available, sorry.I once again praise the answer from Jim, stating that devs can't do it right in terms of protection. He's so true! But, if devs can chose the sort of protection (and you may have some costs for the fancy stuff too, am I right?) which creates the highest amount of happy customers, they should choose it.Forget about the pirates, they will always find a way because they've proved this ability for decades now. Not a single fancy protection out there being able to withstand their motivation.Ah, motivation, that may be their driving force and you can catch it by word of mouth only, turning it over. If you stay on the 'we need (more) heavy protection' side, you don't gain any trust there, therefore the motivation to break your stuff and ride for free even increases. Doubts? Proof for them?Why don't you break locks, houses, steal things and so on? Protection and laws force you to stay away from this? Maybe, but this isn't the only and primary source of your not-motivation to do those things, right?You just don't steal and break things and you also just don't harm friendly fellows because 'we don't do this to others', that's a morality thing. That's the thing which keeps you away from doing this, the primary source. And this thing is the one to aim for, the one to maintain and keep alive, in your very customer basis.Currently, people at some places care about if their locks on their houses are ok and able to withstand some force. They should care about each other, so that locks aren't necessary at all. Idealism again, but when we add some realism now, we still don't start to believing that locks are the thing which will help us, do we?So, in short, that whole protection stuff shouldn't harm your beloved customers at all as this would be the worst damage possible concerning your business.I can only hope for some guys to think about this as the thread itself just proved the existence of at least one unhappy customer, probably never visiting the devs house again although he was a fan.

"So why not get rid of the known trouble makers (like those limits for legal customers) and enjoy a much happier user base while the piracy outcome remains the same?"Pirates, you win, here is everything for free, enjoy.

Wrong conclusion, Jim. Please read again since I'm not talking about giving away your things for free and also not about giving up the protection.Once again, pure black/white thinking from your side. Is there anything in between 0 and 100% for you? :wink:At least read what you are partially quoting. Thanks.From your post and your still not given answers to my questions (while I answered yours, even praised one statement) I think that you are high on the emotions now. No problem of course, but also no basis to discuss things.If your arguments and "facts" fail, that's not my fault and running away only shows .. well, let that up to decide for others.By Alan.

A2A might not be going down the drain, but do a search on 'A2A torrent' on Google and you'll see that nearly all their stuff is on the pirate bay and other sites.

And so does the "heavily protected" stuff it's all there. My tenor: As all protection seems to fail, why use the fancy and expensive stuff which raises the possibility for valid customers to run into trouble?Try a search for ASE for example, Jim seemed very confident about the protection there. Less results? I doubt. But more activation related trouble for valid customers and support work for Jim. He seems to like it though.Examples for protection based trouble can be found in the forums. See happy customers there? Not in those threads. So those people will think twice when buying the next flight sim addon. And forcing them by protection (with the naive believe that pirate offers then fail) is a more than wonky business basis, don't you think?I'm proclaiming a 'back to the roots' if you like. Sadly, some guys still read 'everything for free' there. Can't help them, must be reading skill.

[dmaher 0]

CoolIP, I figure this hobby has both freeware and payware.Each has its genuine benefits and limitations.There’s always considerable pressure to make freeware more like payware. And vice versa.Having a licensed option (and all the annoyances that go with it) has really allowed people to invest in making FS better.And that’s ultimately raised the bar for both – both freeware and payware.From your posts I think you'd agree with all that.It may sound trite to bring up freeware.But it’s not.FS freeware encompasses all the good aspects of internet style open licenses…we have that in spades already.These are authors (by and large) that fully embrace these ideas that copy protection is an obstruction.Supporting freeware better will bring more high quality hassle free add-ons.That’s the most direct path to the goal.And it’s the best way to test these ideas...make freeware thrive.

[CoolP 283]

Fully agreed and well said.Praises to those which run a business far away from the sim and also find enough time to spend on some software for the community.It may well be that some freeware stuff "harms" (not by intention, don't get me wrong) sales too. When looking at that mentioned flight planner or the Open Clouds weather tool one is able to catch an impression about good and valuable (free or donation based) quality.So maybe some guys don't need all those payware bells and whistles but rather load their software freely while donating the price of the payware thing to the authors. Why not? (Sadly, the Open Clouds example doesn't have a donate option though.)They are both in the business, somehow, and both are showing their policy here and there. If you can get rid of the bells and whistles train and start to look for basic functions, this freeware may offer you endless pleasure while supporting the right guys then. Win-win in my eyes, but just a side note of course. I'm running both.For me, this thread already showed some interesting tendencies, from the dev and the user side of course.DJ Jose was and still is right to complain about some strange policy in the whole product protection aspect of his mentioned product. That's where the thread started. If this is an item to warn other guys about? Let the readers decide.The other outcome of the thread is the negatively biased viewpoint at some dev's end (not yours, dmaher) stating some very strange 'force honest guys to stay honest' or even 'all customers are bad, as long as they don't prove the opposite' (through paying or waiting for activation, it seems) mentality. Also, I didn't get the impression that some of the gentlemen were reading, but only assuming, what was "said".A clear black and white world appeared on their side and you can either chose to be 100% good or 100% of the opposite, it seems. "Nice choice" (ironically), but very strange indeed that some devs seem to be very ok with forcing valid customers to show their devotion. So you pay and you may then be allowed to suffer, to say it in a very rude way. Sorry. It only takes 15 seconds to suffer, if that helps. :biggrin:Running a business isn't easy, that's for sure, but doing it blindly won't increase chances to survive and while the 'I have heavy protection' believers still rely on that believe (well, what else is there?), some other companies focus on the main thing for customer happiness: the product itself, keeping protection very basic as all protection was proven to fail. Examples were given and you can expect me to support those examples while thinking about the other ones. That's just my very personal viewpoint and I'm once again glad for some things that showed up in this very thread and also appreciate the input of e. g. you and Alan.

[n4gix 4,947]

Guys, the entire purpose of "protection" (of any kind) isn't really to stop theft......it's to slow down the thieves long enough that a higher number of sales can be made before the product is cracked.Two similar products of nearly identical levels of complexity were released simultaneously.Product A is cracked and available within a week (being generous here).Product B is only cracked six months after release.Which product do you think had the highest number of actual sales at the end of the six month period?NOTA BENE: This is not simply an abstract or hypothetical example. Without naming the products, both of which were from the same developer, Product B was hands down the winner in sales.Once again I will point out that the vast majority of "Google hits" for any given product do not lead to actual downloadable files. They lead instead to websites where one has to hand over their CC information prior to being provided access to the (non-existent) downloads......by which time these thieves have your CC information and have made a charge against it just to add injury to insult!Even in those few cases where the "customer" is actually provided with a working link to a cracked product, it is the same link one could have gotten freely were they not too lazy to look for it, or have joined one of the many "semi-secret" usegroups where such information is exchanged freely between members......most of whom actually host parts of the torrent files themselves!

[Tierborn 188]

I have to question the credibility or reality of this point.I happen to be a Certified Flight Instructor (CFII) and I can count on my hand the amount of pilots that I've come in contact that use or even are familiar with FSX.I certainly don't have 50 close friends and if I did, I doubt that they would invest in a modern computer in order to run FSX acceptably.This community is passionate about this hobby. We can come up with all sorts of possible scenarios that would compromise the terms of the agreement, but I prefer to keep it simple and even civil.

Ok ..two of your closest friends. 

[CFIJose 5,485]

Customer A: Buys software legitimately, gives his personal information, then later in unable to use the software.Non-Customer A: Steals the software and is able to use it.Company A: Makes it hard for Customer A to install the purchased software, while unable to do anything about non-customer.Company B: Cares more about the customer and does not worry so much about what they can't control. They sell the software with a code and offer excellent support to the customer.I prefer to deal with Company B.BTW, I wanted to thank everyone for their input on this sticky situation. It's been quite enlightening.

[jjjallen 37]

Seems like a pretty tired subject IMO. I do like the F1 purchase wrapper that allows multiple reinstalls though. Heck I'm still installing stuff that I bought 5+ years ago.Cheersjja

[ahuimanu 50]

The only 100% secure protection method would be via the use of what's commonly referred to as a 'dongle'. This would be, in essence, a USB flash drive type device that the user would have to plug into their computer for the software to function. Without the drive, the software wouldn't function. It is the absolute least intrusive method of protection. In fact, it essentially covers all the concerns in this thread. Except one.It's expensive.Aside from the expense, you'd have to create a dongle for each product owned. The dongle isn't configurable on the user's system (that's part of the protection process) and this if you purchased more than one product from a vendor using dongles, you'd either have a separate dongle for each product... or you'd get a new dongle that was configured for each product you purchased. Either way, cost would go up significantly.Since people scream bloody murder about paying $50 for an addon... I don't think they're willing to pay for the cost of the convenience of a dongle-based protection system. It would literally eliminate all of their current complaints. All of them... but drive the cost up accordingly.As for hardware based locking... sure, almost all protection systems currently do that. However, it's done during the installation process. It's the only time the software can confirm licensing should be allowed based on purchase information, etc.For those that argue that protection hurts sales... in fact it's the exact opposite. Lack of protection hurts sales.

http://www.codemeter.de/us/a one-dongle/many titles solution

[CoolP 283]

Customer A: Buys software legitimately, gives his personal information, then later in unable to use the software.Non-Customer A: Steals the software and is able to use it.Company A: Makes it hard for Customer A to install the purchased software, while unable to do anything about non-customer.Company B: Cares more about the customer and does not worry so much about what they can't control. They sell the software with a code and offer excellent support to the customer.I prefer to deal with Company B.

Right to the point of it, DJ Jose. I fully understand and support your thinking there. Thumbs up for the devs already (or still) acting like this.N4gix, after getting the whole protection thing "explained" ('the pure purpose of p. is ..') from this and that side, triggering a variation after each one of my questions, those "simple" reasons for the more or less heavy stuff still aren't there, while the factor of valid customer annoyance in most cases is.Talking about cliché knowledge ('bad and stupid pirates, all downloads don't work, they just collect your CC information and the heavy protection really works, for months') shows that some complainers around are not fully aware of the treat they want to fight and, therefore, may well be a part of the problem, of their sales.As said, there are companies out there which don't have a whole forum section or at least recurrent thread topics in their place to "inform" and support the guys running into protection trouble (theses guys are your customers by the way), because they just don't use that fancy stuff which is blown away in nearly the same time as the easy things.So they can concentrate on the real thing, the product and, from the sheer presence of some very emotional dev guys around, also seem to sleep much better. :rolleyes:These "small protection companies" show how it's done. Friendly mood in the forums, happy customers and also some active anti-piracy fighters since they stand up against ever guy trying to spoil their favorite dev. They are motivated and don't get put down by any strange limits which makes them feel like just being tolerated, because they've payed.And none of those nice companies goes down the drain because their protection is low. Mostly, the opposite will happen since the support from those happy customers is great, not only in financial aspects.So, this thread isn't "tired" in an way, it's absolutely current and on the spot of some of the main sources of customer annoyance. By just breaking it down to the simple 'pirates hurt us all' logics and black/white thinking (and knowledge), you're (speaking of some devs in general) explaining some kind of helplessness since your main question seems to be 'how can I protect my things' while it should be 'how can I make my customer basis even more happy?', as shown by the good devs around.Since some devs fail on producing happy customers, they then tend to blame the 'bloody pirates' for lack of sales and support while forgetting about the motivation thing. Can be seen not only in the flight sim industry by the way.

[Gazzareth 808]

Seems like a pretty tired subject IMO. I do like the F1 purchase wrapper that allows multiple reinstalls though. Heck I'm still installing stuff that I bought 5+ years ago.

Got to agree with you there - the F1 system can't be beaten, then again I have had little problem with any 3rd party copy protection and when I have (twice with the same product) a quick e-mail to the developer has sorted it out quickly both times without the sort of hysteria that some people seem to think these issues warrant.What I like to see from the developers are the high end, high quality add ons - but this is a niche market so in this day and age the developers are going to need to at least consider protecting their product, so hopefully they can make a decent profit out of their hard work otherwise what would be the point. I dare say that there are developers who's attitude to product protection leaves a lot to be desired, but from my experience they are few and far between. If you want to blame someone for the extra steps that you need to jump through to install/reinstall a product then blame the thieves that upload/download the torrents or those that think it is ok to give a copy to their mates. G

[dmaher 0]

Right to the point of it, DJ Jose. I fully understand and support your thinking there. Thumbs up for the devs already (or still) acting like this.N4gix, after getting the whole protection thing "explained" ('the pure purpose of p. is ..') from this and that side, triggering a variation after each one of my questions, those "simple" reasons for the more or less heavy stuff still aren't there, while the factor of valid customer annoyance in most cases is.Talking about cliché knowledge ('bad and stupid pirates, all downloads don't work, they just collect your CC information and the heavy protection really works, for months') shows that some complainers around are not fully aware of the treat they want to fight and, therefore, may well be a part of the problem, of their sales.As said, there are companies out there which don't have a whole forum section or at least recurrent thread topics in their place to "inform" and support the guys running into protection trouble (theses guys are your customers by the way), because they just don't use that fancy stuff which is blown away in nearly the same time as the easy things.So they can concentrate on the real thing, the product and, from the sheer presence of some very emotional dev guys around, also seem to sleep much better. :rolleyes:These "small protection companies" show how it's done. Friendly mood in the forums, happy customers and also some active anti-piracy fighters since they stand up against ever guy trying to spoil their favorite dev. They are motivated and don't get put down by any strange limits which makes them feel like just being tolerated, because they've payed.And none of those nice companies goes down the drain because their protection is low. Mostly, the opposite will happen since the support from those happy customers is great, not only in financial aspects.So, this thread isn't "tired" in an way, it's absolutely current and on the spot of some of the main sources of customer annoyance. By just breaking it down to the simple 'pirates hurt us all' logics and black/white thinking (and knowledge), you're (speaking of some devs in general) explaining some kind of helplessness since your main question seems to be 'how can I protect my things' while it should be 'how can I make my customer basis even more happy?', as shown by the good devs around.Since some devs fail on producing happy customers, they then tend to blame the 'bloody pirates' for lack of sales and support while forgetting about the motivation thing. Can be seen not only in the flight sim industry by the way.

I want my....I want my MTV :rolleyes:Sorry for being random :( It’s just that you’re asking for all this cooperation but not willing to offer any.In this case an email after all the installs have run out - not the end of the world IMO.They're not really Walmart...just a small indie developer.And this is how they've gone about protecting their work.Let's hope it's still working...because it works in layers it'll be hard to know.I'm sure their activation system can be improved - I'm not familiar with it.But I can abide by that.Edit…CollIP, You’ve focused on the wrong lyric :( …chicks for free...so I deleted it.I realize you don’t want people to work for free.I have a bad habbit of posting before I finish writing. :(

[CoolP 283]

Just to confirm, dmaher. Do you read my texts as a praise for 'everything for free, please!'. Just wondering since I've stressed the correct tenor (which isn't 'give me all for free') more than once now. I'd hoped you to be far away from a superficial reader. Was I wrong?As can be seen above, I'm fully into the "company B" mentioned by DJ Jose. A realistic and fair viewpoint in my eyes, far away from 'free for all!'By the way, the song you're mentioning is cool of course.

If you want to blame someone for the extra steps that you need to jump through to install/reinstall a product then blame the thieves that upload/download the torrents or those that think it is ok to give a copy to their mates.

Pirates don't spoil customers by setting up "steps", companies do while still not getting rid of the pirates but producing unhappy customers from time to time. That's the short version of the correct facts here. Details above.As simple as the sketchy 'pirates harm you, Mr. customer' may sound, it's wrong when being told that simple.As the market shows you, some (good) devs go easy on protection (which does not mean that they are unprotected, some still seem to read this here, wonder why) and spoiled customers while others still believe that their fancy stuff brings them "sales".Think that VRS does any sales with the thread starter in the future? I really doubt and I fully understand his reasons there.Customers don't get in touch with pirates at all, even companies don't. As a valid customer, the only "spoil element" you are experiencing is the copy protection mechanism which does get explained so "logically" by the companies using it.If heavy protection was the cure to all piracy problems, one has to ask why it still fails on really curing the thing, for decades. Seems like those tales about dumb pirates then lack a stable basis, huh? What about naive "heavy protecting" companies and their factor in the while piracy game then? Open question since I don't get the impression that some of the "heavy" dev guys around are aware of what they claim to be their treat to fight against.As told and seen, the simple protection basis offers the most happy customers and those happy people are the ones that buy and also promote your stuff by word of mouth, even convincing some pirates to become clear.Heavy protection never was able to do this, it may well be that it never will. No person gets happy with a thing it was forced to do.

[Gazzareth 808]

Pirates don't spoil customers by setting up "steps", companies do while still not getting rid of the pirates but producing unhappy customers from time to time. That's the short version of the correct facts here. Details above.

No, that is the facts as you have decided that they are. Devs have stated in this thread that copy protection at least slows down the thieves enabling them to make more of a return on their investment. Sure copy protection will annoy some users, but some people get annoyed for the sake of it....

Think that VRS does any sales with the thread starter in the future? I really doubt and I fully understand his reasons there.

From what the OP has stated he would rather lose his $30 rather than send an e-mail ?? If VRS came back and said he would have to pay to reactivate his software then fair enough, that is a (very) bad customer experience, they haven't because (apparently) he can't be bothered to e-mail them. The only "reason" I can make out is .. .. .. .. well some people get annoyed for the sake of it !!G

[CoolP 283]

well some people get annoyed for the sake of it !!

Looks more like a case of believing what you are supposed to believe. Are you politically interested by the way? The statements of the mentioned devs lack of facts. There isn't a single valid proof for this one.

copy protection at least slows down the thieves enabling them to make more of a return on their investment.

I've asked them how they measure piracy losses or "gains" of protection. See any answer there? Do you think they can measure the "delaying" of pirates then? The whole software industry can't do this since piracy exists. Talking about no numbers there, not even rough ones.My personal viewpoint still is that they are talking about things they aren't aware of. If you look at this over-confident 'all links are dead ends' statement, you may catch some of this naive drift.Raising sales through heavy copy protection? What an "open minded" business policy. Especially when looking at the outcome of the mentioned spoiled customers from time to time.I really respect other viewpoints, but I can't say that I've read convincing things so far. Once again, "Company B" is the one to aim for. I may state that it even gains more attraction through threads like this one.If there was a benefit of heavy protection, all companies running low measures had to be called stupid. But, from appearance and forum mood, I doubt that e. g. A2A are stupid people. Orbx aren't too. They also seem to be running their business quite happily and successful. Any doubts?Now, there actually is proof for spoiled customers by fancy protection methods (see this thread for example), so what are we supposed to do now? Start "getting annoyed" or start reading things more closely? You may decide, Sir. I will respect your viewpoint of course and appreciate your input.DJ Jose does not complain about a small email (which would be a example based discussion only), he questions the general need for it. A huge difference, as pointed out before (means talking about a thing in general). And his viewpoints are valid, reasonable and correct (for me).Edited: Ah, dmaher, got your edit there. Now it's better, the song is still cool though. :( Your viewpoints are tolerant, respecting them therefore is easy.You've said that I'm currently not offering any cooperation. Can you define that in some more detail since I've always pointed out some facts or spoke about common misconceptions in this "easy" (it's far away from that state) piracy area.Got the impression that some of my fellow discussion "opponents" just have chosen to run away instead of trying to work on their "clear" arguments.The only upset factor here may be that they are asking questions while not offering answers. Fancy statements and oh so logical explanations don't lead to the point of the problem, they only distract, maybe intentionally, I don't know.Referring to the whole numbers and sales arguments there. Ain't no proof, ain't no numbers, but strong believe, it seems.Are they aware of their lack of knowledge and are they aware of some spoiled customers too? Doesn't look like, but I'm only interpreting some more or less overbearing attitude so far.Have to admit, if they stay away, the thread may be at its end here since all sides posted their viewpoints, statements and facts (partially or just attempted) and I'm running the risk for repeating even more of my written things. May some reader decide about the impression he gets when some things are "so easy to explain". DJ Jose's viewpoint was made clear again and I'm a proud supporter of it now. All "Company Bs" out there, we like you! :( The A ones may have some potential to learn, I hope. Luckily, the market still offers valid role models (B type) to look at.