Digital Download

[JudgeDredd]

Great news. Now lets hope HTTR will be in the list. That way I'll be able to get this game at long last!

[CriticalMass]

And big ditto to that!

[David Heath]

Our new Euro store and warehouse will be online any day now and all of our overseas customers can order direct from us and do not need to worry about paying large shipping fees anymore. [:D]

HTTR will not be a Digital Download but it will make all of our game line easy to receive.

David

[JudgeDredd]

David

Why will only some games be digital download and are you talking about a specific line? Why can't HTTR be a digital download?

I may be selfish here, but I have 600 broadband connection and recently downloaded a 500MB file - started it in the morning - complete when I got home from work. Digital download is ideal for me!

With the advent of broadband and cd-writers etc downloading your own game is a fantastic idea.

Just curious - I'm sure your reasons are valid!

[JeF]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
Why will only some games be digital download and are you talking about a specific line? Why can't HTTR be a digital download?

With the advent of broadband and cd-writers, fear of pirates maybe ?

I'm curious about the way anti-piracy is handled in the case of Digital Download only.

And maybe, they have to try it out on "smaller/cheaper" games first. And not risk everything at once.

JeF.

[Mr.Frag]

ORIGINAL: JeF

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
Why will only some games be digital download and are you talking about a specific line? Why can't HTTR be a digital download?

With the advent of broadband and cd-writers, fear of pirates maybe ?

I'm curious about the way anti-piracy is handled in the case of Digital Download only.

And maybe, they have to try it out on "smaller/cheaper" games first. And not risk everything at once.

JeF.

Funny enough, it is a lot easier to secure download only software then CD media these days because you control the whole process end to end better. CD's being mechanical items are generic in nature - there is no ability to embed who bought it at the store. With digital downloads, it is a very simple matter to embed the information about who purchased it directly into the code making it a very simple matter to track back to the offender and take them to court because it is blatently obvious that THEY were the person who donated it to the pirate sites.

[MarkShot]

Just curious ... can you charge someone with copyright violation based on that alone? What if their system was hacked and that's how the game got lifted from it? (There are a lot of hacked and infected PCs out on the Net.)

[JudgeDredd]

Game copiers - definitely the bane of my bloody life!

I understand how developers of games must feel. I'm a developer also, and I'd be really pissed off that someone was getting enjoyment out of my game without even doing me the favour of paying for it.

I wish they'd bloody piss off!! Make my life alot easier and yours a lot more profitable!!

[Mr.Frag]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Just curious ... can you charge someone with copyright violation based on that alone? What if their system was hacked and that's how the game got lifted from it? (There are a lot of hacked and infected PCs out on the Net.)

Oh, the old "my dog ate it" defense eh? [:D]

Try that one in a court ... you have a legal obligation to fufill the terms of the agreement assuming you are not a minor (in which case you can not even enter into an agreement). Breach of the agreement is your fault. Since the code can be digitally fingerprinted to you & your machine, it could not come from any other source unless you allowed it.

Reasonable guilt in civil law is all that has to be established, just go ask O.J. Simpson [:D]

[vamp07]

I think the priracy issues with digital downloads is silly. Games will be pirated no matter how they are distributed. If you can embed more security in downloads by tying the programs to the user that bought that copy then excellent. All I know is that I want to start buying games online. I'm tired of going to local retailrs looking for games that they may never stock. When was HTTR released? I was able to buy it 2 days ago because that is when my local distributor got it. I'm not a fan of mail order because of the high shipping costs. It's time to make the switch to online distribution. Maybe not exclusively but it needs to be an option. You also need to start dropping the prices. Companies should split the savings of online distribution with the user. That way we all win.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: vamp07
also need to start dropping the prices. Companies should split the savings of online distribution with the user. That way we all win.

vamp07,

I can see how when you look at it in isolation you could come to this view. However, you need to realise that wargames are a niche market. They require a huge investment of time and money to produce and yet the volume is low compared to other game genres. The fact is that if we were to make the same profit margins as other games in the industry we should be charging two to five times what we currently do. We have a long way to go in terms of improving our profit margins before we would ever be in a position to reduce the price. And we run a lean mean operation here. The term "on the smell of an oily rag" comes to mind. [:)]

[vamp07]

Well here is my assumption. When I pay $49 at Babages for this game, you get $20 maybe? Why not sell it as a download and charge me $34.99? Not only that but since it is a download your printing costs just went to $0.00 so add that to your profit margin too. I have no problem with PDF manuals as long as the game lets me atl-tab out.

[Willard]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Just curious ... can you charge someone with copyright violation based on that alone? What if their system was hacked and that's how the game got lifted from it? (There are a lot of hacked and infected PCs out on the Net.)

Oh, the old "my dog ate it" defense eh? [:D]

Try that one in a court ... you have a legal obligation to fufill the terms of the agreement assuming you are not a minor (in which case you can not even enter into an agreement). Breach of the agreement is your fault. Since the code can be digitally fingerprinted to you & your machine, it could not come from any other source unless you allowed it.

Reasonable guilt in civil law is all that has to be established, just go ask O.J. Simpson [:D]

Actually Mr. Frag, not to be a stickler, but you are not entirely correct with your comments.

First off, the burden of proof is basically two-tiered---

The burden of proof for a criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt" or in mathemetical terms the guilt of the defendent is determined to be >99%.

The burden of proof for a civil trial is "preponderance of the evidence" or in mathementical terms the liability of a party must be determined to be >50.1%.

The reason for the two standards is due to the fact that the "penalties" for criminal and civil trials are very different. Generally civil trials impose financial penalties on the liable party. Criminal trials impose restictions on the liberty of the guilty party---to include the ultimate penalty of capitol punishment.

As for the legal obligation to fulfill the terms of the agreement---in a civil trial, simply demonstrating that you took reasonable steps to do so should suffice. Though "breach of the agreement"...i.e. your computer had the software, it is your responsibility to protect it, the software was duplicated, hence it is your fault...maybe technically accurate, the issue of whether you are "liable" for damages is another thing entirely. If the software was duplicated by hackers without your permission and you can demonstrate that you took reasonable steps to prevent it, then assessing liability would be a bit difficult. Now you would be hard pressed to claim no liability if you gave permission to the hacker, with knowledge of what actions he was going take.

The situation you describe is analagous to someone having their house broken into, a gun stolen, and said gun used in a crime. Is it possible down the road that the victims of the crime could bring a civil suit against the owner??? Yes it is possible, because the gun owner has a tacit obligation to secure the weapon. However, if the gun owner could demonstrate that he took all reasonable precautions to secure the weapon and his house, than there would be no liability. However if the gun owner knowingly gave the gun to the perpetrators, than the gun owner would be criminally and civil responsible for his actions. If it wasnt for this distinction, than there would be a heck of alot of "liable" people walking around...people who have had guns stolen or knives or cars, etc, etc, etc

[Mr.Frag]

Willard. A program that is installed electronically into your computer with registry keys and electronic fingerprinting can not simply be lifted off your machine. It takes potentially days of unrestricted access.

You would be hard pressed to come up with a credible story as to how you have been victimized. The 51% burden is met pretty much by finding the software located other then your machine.

You also need to keep in mind the realities of a company going after an individual. The odds on the individual being able to afford a defense team are slim at best.

You can see this very thing in action with the current crop of charges being levied againt people who pirate music. 95% of them settle long before court, which realistically is all that is required to recoup losses in these matters. For each $10,000 settlement, thats 500 copies that do not have to be sold in the stores.

Remember, there is also a criminal aspect to this these days, because odds are fairly high that *other* stuff will be found on the computer. Pirate types generally have far more then 1 pirated program ...

[David Heath]

ORIGINAL: vamp07

I think the priracy issues with digital downloads is silly. Games will be pirated no matter how they are distributed. If you can embed more security in downloads by tying the programs to the user that bought that copy then excellent. All I know is that I want to start buying games online. I'm tired of going to local retailrs looking for games that they may never stock. When was HTTR released? I was able to buy it 2 days ago because that is when my local distributor got it. I'm not a fan of mail order because of the high shipping costs. It's time to make the switch to online distribution. Maybe not exclusively but it needs to be an option. You also need to start dropping the prices. Companies should split the savings of online distribution with the user. That way we all win.

Its never that easy. There is now the cost of the bandwidth to consider etc.

David

[vamp07]

How much would it cost a company like matrix the bandwidth necessary to let me download lets say a gig of data?

[MarkShot]

Personally, I would like to see the next game distributed on 100 X 3.5" DS/DD floppies. I think all the fun has gone out of installing software these days.

[Mr.Frag]

Personally, I would like to see the next game distributed on 100 X 3.5" DS/DD floppies. I think all the fun has gone out of installing software these days.

You are bring back fond memories of my SCO Unix installation set ... 78 disks in the dev set, 42 in the base os. Wouldn't you know it, disk 72 had a flaw!

[Arjuna]

Hey, stop your complaining. It could have been disk78. [;)]

At least you had a hard disk to install on. I recall the joy of swapping 400K floppies on my Fat Max. [:D]

[EricGuitarJames]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Hey, stop your complaining. It could have been disk78. [;)]

At least you had a hard disk to install on. I recall the joy of swapping 400K floppies on my Fat Max. [:D]

I think there are counsellers who deal with those kind of personal problems[:D]