anti-piracy features updated

[ddavison]

We just added some new features to block out some of the rampant piracy we've been seeing with our licenses. It is our intention to not hinder any legitimate users, but if you have any problems running FG that suddenly occur, please send an email to [email protected] along with your licensekey and a description of the issues you are seeing.

I don't anticipate there being any issues. Just to be sure, please also update your version of FG to the latest version. Happy Gaming!

-Doug

[GunnarGreybeard]

Not really related but I have sent a few emails to @fantasygrounds.com ([email protected]) email address regarding HarnMaster and CGI and have not received a reply. As I cannot PM you directly with this, would it be possible for you confirm if they are going through and not being spam filtered in case I have to use that support@ address for regular support issues? Email address would be gunnargreybeard (at) gmail (dot) com.

[ddavison]

Hey Gunnar, email located and replied to. Thanks.

[lachancery]

We just added some new features to block out some of the rampant piracy we've been seeing with our licenses.
I'm sorry to hear piracy is an issue for SmiteWorks. It's such a great application supported by a small company. A shame. I've done the reverse of piracy myself; I was goof enough to buy the same thing (module) twice... :confused: It's alright, I like you guys. :D

[GunnarGreybeard]

Back on topic . . . Sad to hear but probably expected given the quality of the product. While the Ultimate License might be considered a bit steep, the other Full/Lite Combos are not. RPG's are group games so you would figure spreading the costs across a regular group would reduce that considerably but then some people just like to steal stuff. :(

[dr_venture]

I too am really disappointed to hear about the pirating issues. There is definitely a mentality among some today that if it's possible to get something for free on the Internet, that it's ok to do so.

I'm in a band that spent *9 years* putting together our 2nd CD (progressive rock - ultra-niche market - just a labor of love, really)... spent many, many thousands of dollars on it, I'm sure thousands of hours, several trips between various band members between east coast/west coast/Canada. At long last we finally released the CD, and within 24 hours somebody had bought an early copy, ripped it, and had it for free download on a torrent site. Just feels like somebody spat in your face.

[unerwünscht]

OHOHOH.... Did you use my anti-piracy suggestions? Because I have been cooking up a bunch of them over the last few months.

[Ardem]

Not condoning piracy by any means here but dr venture is it possible karma may help you draw some more fans that might buy your cd that may not ever heard it before.

I done that with movies I gone too where I never heard a sound before and I bought the band CD and back catalogue.

You never know how karma plays out sometimes. Hope you get some buyers of your music, I understand what its like to work in the creative field and never get the love.

If I was you also I would make a comment on the torrent, basicly saying we are a small band and please invest when you can. Notch did something similar about Piracy of minecraft it was well recieved and may have boosted his sales.

As for FG I bought more licences then I need, so +1 to anti piracy

[phantomwhale]

No updates yet, although I have seen that after exiting a game, the front page has no text on it, and attempts to hit "check for updates" tells me that "FantasyGroundsUpdater.exe can't be found".

Restarting the app gets rid of this strange behaviour - given I've not pulled down any updates (still on 2.8.1) not sure what has caused this to happen. Not a problem, but still something I've not seen before.

[ronnke]

If I was you also I would make a comment on the torrent, basicly saying we are a small band and please invest when you can. Notch did something similar about Piracy of minecraft it was well recieved and may have boosted his sales.

This might also be something the legitimate users in the community can do to help encourage people to support the software.

On a related topic has SmiteWorks ever considered combating piracy by releasing FG free under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license. Then consider another model to acquire the funds to ensure further development of the software. The benefits of free software is generally a larger customer base, and game publishers might use FG to value add there own products, which means even more exposure.

Some other models that come to mind if FG was free are:

1. Advertising is displayed in the software, if you want to be ad free then you pay for the ad-free unlock. This equates to the current license price.

2. Modules, rulesets, and other shop items must be purchased through FG itself and will only work on the FG version that made the purchase.

3. Kickstarter type feature development. ie "We're thinking of adding this major feature x to FG, but need funding amounting to $y before we will undertake it. If you want this feature, show your support by donating/backing this development."

4. Donations.

Just some thoughts.

[dr_venture]

On both the music & software front, there's definitely no question that the line between piracy and promotion is a very blurry one. In the case of our band, the composition and recording process is so lengthy that we don't come out with new product to purchase very often - it's really just an ambitious hobby in which you're lucky if you break even. So even if they like the music and think we're awesome, there's not much else to buy and there are seldom many shows to buy tickets to (and as we usually just play festivals, we just get a flat fee and do not see profits from ticket sales anyway). They've already stolen the thing that is most valuable, so it's a hollow victory. Certainly having another fan is good, and perhaps they'll spread the word to others, but the cost vs. benefit is very unclear at best. The only thing you know for for a fact is that your hard work is being blatantly stolen in front of your eyes, and they're essentially nothing you can do about it except stand around and watch the thieves walk out the door with your goods.

But, whatcha gonna do? Either stop putting out music, or hope it works out for the best and move on. In the case of progressive music, at least a few very talented musicians who used to be able to make a meager living off of music sales have left the business due to rampant theft of their work. There's no soft-peddling the destruction of someone's livelihood due to theft (not that anyone her's doing that - I'm speaking of the general sense out there among so many that pirating MP3s is basically OK. and I don't mean to start a big discussion here over the merits of piracy).

The software side is also unclear. I have it on very good authority that the fact that a certain very expensive photo editing program was very easy to steal for many years wasn't an accident. At that point, freelancers, students, and anyone else wanting to learn and use that type of software were unlikely to be able to afford to purchase it anyway, but large companies who *could* afford it would want to be legal about ownership and would be sure to purchase their copies. Meanwhile all those people who were learning how to use said bootlegged photo program were in the process becoming skilled employees who would then bring their image editing knowledge and preference for that specific image editing program to companies who would then buy real copies. Essentially, over time, those bootlegged copies migrated to being purchased copies. And now that the image editing program has become the industry standard, that is why said program and it's brethren have become so hard to steal in recent years: when the bootlegging strategy no longer works to your benefit and you don't need to attract new users, what you *do* need is to make as much money as possible from existing users. Therefore you decide to finally take care of that long standing problem of easily pirated copies - can't imagine why that took so long to fix.

But there's a big difference between large software companies who make money by selling millions of units to an enormous market, and a company like Smiteworks who probably does most of this largely as a labor of love. Every unit sold matters far more to these guys than it does to a large company. To me it's like the difference between somebody stealing $100 from the till of a large supermarket chain store, or a small neighborhood mom & pop grocery store. Both crimes are wrong, but you know which business will be hurt the most.

Not sure exactly what point I'm making.. just musing in public I guess. My best wishes to Smiteworks in their battle against piracy. It's not an easy fight, and while I suppose I should have expected it, I was saddened to think of folks taking advantage of their work. We're pretty dang lucky they're around doing what they do.

[unerwünscht]

The simplest solution to combating piracy is constant updates. However with a team of two it would be kind of hard to actually maintain constant updates.

[damned]

i cant stand piracy of music, software, videos etc.
however i dont know one person under 30yrs of age who shares my view.
they have about 1400 justifications and i dont get their point of view and they dont get mine.

[Ardem]

This might also be something the legitimate users in the community can do to help encourage people to support the software.

On a related topic has SmiteWorks ever considered combating piracy by releasing FG free under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license. Then consider another model to acquire the funds to ensure further development of the software. The benefits of free software is generally a larger customer base, and game publishers might use FG to value add there own products, which means even more exposure.

Some other models that come to mind if FG was free are:

1. Advertising is displayed in the software, if you want to be ad free then you pay for the ad-free unlock. This equates to the current license price.

2. Modules, rulesets, and other shop items must be purchased through FG itself and will only work on the FG version that made the purchase.

3. Kickstarter type feature development. ie "We're thinking of adding this major feature x to FG, but need funding amounting to $y before we will undertake it. If you want this feature, show your support by donating/backing this development."

4. Donations.

Just some thoughts.

My thoughts on money making for smiteworks is not in the VTT. I know some going to raise there eye brows but you only do a one off purchase and that is it, maybe you get some update purchase down the track.

Where they could be making there money is in adventure modules more then anything, in the help or selling of community created adventure modules, where they link artists and designers to sell on their website.

Yes there is money in rulesets but there is more money in adventure modules, they push the FG out there at the risk for free, and they publish a lot of quality adventure modules for different rulesets, I think that is where the money is made. I would pay anywhere between $5 to $15 for a adventure if done well.

Or I would be leveraging off the community content and taking a 20-50% slice of adventure modules, similar to what steam do.

But it is taking a risk with that business model, as we talking a niche market in many respects. I love FG in the short time I known it, so I want them to succeed. But that how I would look at improving my income.

[Jonathan]

Hello there, I do have a good anti-piracy idea if you are interested. I love FG and am happy to support it (particularly to keep it out of the hands of certain large RPG publishers). I love the small business aspect of it. Feel free to pm me or email at [email protected].

J

[unerwünscht]

I think it might be worth mention that whatever you did appears to have had at least some effect. The IRC room has had a noticeable decrease in traffic. I would call this both good and bad. Good because we don't have to answer a ton of "I cant connect it says version incompatible" questions, bad because we can't strong arm them into buying FG so they can join our games.

[ddavison]

Thanks for the support and suggestion guys. All I really did was add one more hurdle to the process to make it more difficult for pirates to host games. It doesn't make it impossible... it just makes it more noticeable when you are connecting to a pirated game at least by removing alias support.

I did notice that some of the IP addresses that were listed as pirates now own legitimate licenses... so that is good to see. Our community is probably the best way to combat piracy. You guys have repeatedly shifted people over to the legitimate side and we greatly appreciate that.

As for some of the other suggestions, we have thought of some of those. Currently we make most of our money off of licenses and not as much off the add-on content like adventures. From all the add-ons, the token and map packs sell far better than the adventures do for some reason.

Kickstarter programs are something I've been thinking about lately. We don't really know what to expect for these, but we might try out one or two of them this year. The nice feature with Kickstarter programs is that it allows people to sponsor you according to their interest and pocket book. It allows people to basically chip in a dollar, five dollars, or fifty and should help us line up developers in advance once they know how much they will receive.

unerwünscht, I concur about constant updates. That should hopefully help. With regards to the anti-piracy features we discussed, I haven't tried them yet. I don't currently have any torrent software running to try it.

[madman]

As a side note, I looked for a bootleg copy of FG and could not find one. This makes me feel better about things. People do support what they like, though it may not be money they use to do it all the time.

I would love to see a couple of kickstarter's show up. I for one would love to see extra content for supporters. As I would be one for sure. Selfish reasons for sure, I spend my money when I have it on the things I enjoy, Family, Music, Gaming, Paintball, Blah blah.

Thanks for supporting the things that you love, makes one of my hobbies that much better.

Chris

I would throw down some cash for a Pathfinder version of the 4E party sheet by DrZeuss, just throwing that out there!

[RosenMcStern]

Our community is probably the best way to combat piracy. You guys have repeatedly shifted people over to the legitimate side and we greatly appreciate that.

So be it! Providing valuable support is the way to keep the business viable, and the gaming experience enjoyable, no doubt.


From all the add-ons, the token and map packs sell far better than the adventures do for some reason.

Allow us to get into the arena and change these figures, then :D

[unerwünscht]

Another thing for those of us who now own Ultimate Licenses, we can do a lot to help fight off the piracy trend by offering to host open games. I would think people would be much more willing to go the legal route if they can, and still get to try before they buy.

I will do my best to post more open games.

[wbcreighton]

I wonder how hard would it be to allow one unregistered copy of the program to connect to a Full license version ?

The reason I ask is because I own a Full license, and I had thought I would be able to show someone else how the program works, but the way it was explained to me is that I would need to uninstall the program, download and install an unregistered copy, in order to run a demo. Then I have to uninstall it, download it again and enter the license to have my Full license back again. So I have to go through a lot of hoops to demo the program, yet if I didn't have the Full version installed I could do it no problem.
Unfortunately the extra money to convert to an Ultimate license isn't worth it just to demo the program. Maybe if you could buy a floating license that allows 1 unregistered person to connect, I would definitely be interested.

Of course if I demo the program and the person buys the program, then Smiteworks is the beneficiary.

[dr_venture]

Let me also put in some support for the idea of some kind of demo mode for a real game experience... even for regular hosting licenses. For instance, have a demo user mode where the player can join any game for free, but gets an annoying message or a capcha or gets booted back to the 'choose a character' screen every half hour... something that makes it fairly easy to sit in on a game session and get a feel for playing, but *just* annoying enough to not want to have to put up with all the time. I bet I'd be able to turn some of my on-the-fence friends into purchasers.

[unerwünscht]

Just an idea... but one way to work the free demo mode would be to force it to connect through the FG server. I think it would be much harder to exploit if it had to go through you before it could connect to a GM. This would also allow you to add in banner ads and various other forms of revenue generation.

Please do not add banner ads to the payed versions... I hate those things. :)

[ronnke]

Please do not add banner ads to the payed versions... I hate those things. :)

Or make FG free and you pay the license to be able to turn off the ads.

I'd love to see Smiteworks win over more MapTools players. The primary reason that many looking to experiment with VTTs end up with MapTools, is because it is free. Then after a little while they become accustomed to the software, and simply stay with it. Some might try other VTTs, but most don't, and then you have the issues like, not everyone in the group can afford to or wants to pay, so to avoid breaking the group up, the default position stands.

Using FG for free, eliminates piracy, positions the software better against the competition, knocks down the barriers to entry, which all ultimately grow the number of users that can be turned into paying customers.

The great thing about advertising is that it's kind of win win. Most people, if they are happy with the software will at some point pay a license to turn ads off, plus they know it supports the developers to make their loved software even better. Those that don't buy a license still generate revenue through the advertising itself and also from the purchase of products from the shop. This is essentially the model MMO's are increasingly adopting with free to play, because they know that once they have the potential customer, they can then sell them on the value add stuff.

How many here would pay a license to remove banner ads, I know I would and I'm sure many other would too. If FG was entirely open source, I would even donate, to ensure further development, but that's just me.

Anyway, just spewing thoughts. :)

[Dakadin]

I am ignorant when it comes to how much they could possibly make using ads. After looking at the annual report, they would have to make up about $90k that they currently make selling licenses. That is about 85% of their sales so they couldn't really afford to do less than that. Hopefully someone on these forums can share their expertise for how much revenue these types of ads can generate but I would guess that it isn't going to be close to the amount.

I have an ultimate license so my players don't need a license to play in my games but I've bought licenses as Christmas gifts for my players. They were very excited. In fact most of them stopped to talk to me one on one to find out more information about what they could do with the licenses.

[ronnke]

They don't need to make their entire revenue from ads, as there are many like myself that will happily pay a license to be ad free. This could be easily determined from a poll of current users. Would you still pay a license to remove ads if FG was free?

I don't know the market when it comes to VTT's so intimately I'm not an authority on it, but the philosophy is that you get a smaller piece of a larger pie which brings you out on top.

eg.

Current method:
You sell 10 licenses from 15 users (2 users pirate, 3 play with a GM on an ultimate license).

Adware Method
You sell say 15 licenses from 50 users and get ad revenue from the rest. Those 50 people then go on to make additional purchases from the FG store.

Word of mouth is also the best form of advertising, 50 people spreading the word of how great it is to play online for free is a far greater force than 15 saying you need to pay at least $23.95.

The other benefit is you now have a situation where everyone can run a game, so they go off to their social outlets and say, "I want to try my hand at running a game, who is interested? I'm going to use Fantasy Grounds, it's really cool and it's free to use." Then suddenly you have more potential people that will adopt the software. Which is what happens with MapTools.

But, like I said, I don't know what the market can support, so I could just be speaking crap. :)

[Dakadin]

Good points ronnke. I do worry that the only way to know for sure is to take the gamble and just try it. The problem with that is what happens if the numbers don't turn out like they need them to?

One thing that might help would be to give full licenses the ability to have 1 unregistered user. This would all GMs to let 1 person try it. This would allow them to see if it in action before buying but still require licenses for the majority of the group. The extra license could then be used for another user. The issue I see from this approach is having more than one person wanting to be on the free license or begging to join with it.

[unerwünscht]

Dakadin, its easy to fix if the numbers do not work out. When FG Migrates to v.3 or v.4 they kill the ad supported model for the new version. There are also a million other ways to handle that situation. What we are talking about are realistic models to fight piracy while at the same time generate more users, and ultimately paying customers for Fantasy Grounds. So in the end none of the exact details we mention here are going to be the perfect solution for Smite Works, Doug is the only person who will know what is perfect for him. But I would say lets keep feeding them ideas. If they take them awesome, if they don't oh well.

[dr_venture]

I don't believe there is much money in targeted banner/electronic impressions advertising anymore except with very, very large numbers. Even though FG users commonly partake in long playing sessions, they also usually only play occasionally. Those that do play a lot would likely just buy the license, leaving the occasional players to make up the difference in banner impressions. I would imagine that the banner count wouldn't come anywhere even near to what would be needed to make any kind of serious income... low level ad impression numbers are just about nil profit, so it'd basically just be lost income for Smiteworks.

[joshuha]

I know this would probably never happen as it's too far from what is currently the model but I would to see the only license be the Ultimate model and it drop down to an expensive video game price ($60). With lots of Ultimate users hosting games (since its more affordable) then lots of players will come into the software. The question then is how to monetize those players since they aren't paying for a license. I think one great option would be easy gifting in the store to those who do have the Ultimate license. Want to play that cool adventure? Buy it for the GM! Want to play a super villain in a Necessary Evil campaign, Buy it for the GM! Make it so as they purchase it they have a drop down of all the registered Ultimate users who want to have gifting turned on are shown.

I think doing something like this would GREATLY expand the FG playerbase. The question is if the loss in revenue in the hopefully short term would be feasible. But I think the approach should almost be like a start up. Get them all using the software (all being the market of online tabletop gamers) and then sell them products/services as add-ons to monetize them.

[unerwünscht]

Another thing that might help greatly increase sales is to add ways to buy things directly from the FG software. Like.. add a 'Buy Now' tab to the modules window that will show you what is officially available for the current ruleset. This would also go a long way to getting us module makers to submit our modules for sale through smite works. Could also help cut down on piracy there by linking the modules to the license key/account in question ;)

[ronnke]

I don't believe there is much money in targeted banner/electronic impressions advertising anymore except with very, very large numbers.

There doesn't have to be a lot of money in it, as the aim is to convert users to paid licenses form the larger customer base, hopefully resulting in a net increase in licenses. Also, as the user base continues to grow from year to year, the ad revenue will increase proportionately.

If you also combine advertising of your own store products, with the suggested in-game "buy now" button then you are likely to increase general sales just from impulse buying alone. Not to mention most FG users probably have little knowledge of what is actually available from the store.

If Doug does the convention circuit, I can guarantee he sees a better uptake if he's handing out CDs with a "hey buddy, take this and try it out with your friends, it's free". In a niche market, eliminating piracy and removing obstacles to entry is what will grow the customer base which you can monetize in other ways. In a sense, this is what Pathfinder did with the open playtest.

ENnie award for "best free product or web enhancement", FG would win this hands down. :)

[madman]

ENnie award for "best free product or web enhancement", FG would win this hands down. :)
I have to plus +1 this. This would give Fantasy some amazing exposure for sure.

But then I want a refund....JK

Chris

[Moon Wizard]

These are things that Doug and I talk about regularly. Perhaps once we finish our commitment to the previous developers late this year, we might look at alternative licensing.

On the ad-supported idea. From my experience working in a previous ad company, ads were paying cents for a thousand "impressions". I just don't think the market for VTT is big enough to support that model, but I'm sure we'll find someone in the market to talk with once we're ready to explore. If it helped conversions, then it would be worth it anyway. Maybe just nag-ware instead. The real problem is piracy becomes "a lot" easier for ad-supported and nag-ware products that are full featured.

Regards,
JPG

[ronnke]

The real problem is piracy becomes "a lot" easier for ad-supported and nag-ware products that are full featured.

But the motivation to pirate diminishes.

[unerwünscht]

Oh ... no.. that't blanket ad networking, and the worst way to go. No the way to do it is to rent the adspace yourself. I can go into more detail later if you honestly care how it is done.

[Iceman]

I am curious if I would create a problem for myself if I did the following:
I currently run ULTIMATE on my main PC and run my campaign from there and play in other games from that PC primarily. Sometimes I play a character in my own campaign from my laptop while I run the campaign from my main PC, which works fine since the demo/unlicensed works just fine with my ULTIMATE license.

I am considering installing the Ultimate license key on my laptop so that I can run my campaign when I travel, but I think that might cause an issue when my main PC is using it to host my campaign at home and my laptop is trying to play a character, even though my laptop and my main pc would never HOST at the same time.

Would this create a problem and if so, would it be easiest/best for me to install the Ultimate on my laptop under a different user account, and only use that account when travelling?

[GunnarGreybeard]

@Iceman . .

This might help answer your question.


The EULA states that you have a license to use one copy of the software on any one system and that the license is not transferable to any other system. In other words you are not allowed to install the software on several computers. The software itself cannot tell what computer it is running on and as long as no two players in a game are using the same license, the software will assume the above to be true.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/faq.php?faq=license_and_purchasing_issues#faq_lice nse_1 (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/faq.php?faq=license_and_purchasing_issues#faq_lice nse_1)

[lowew79]

Oh, guess I shouldn't run Skulls & Shackles then, encouraging piracy ba-doom boom

[damned]

@[email protected] Im not sure I understand your post?
You can run Skulls and Shackles. You just cant distribute any copyrighted materials outside the game session itself.

[Trenloe]

Oh, guess I shouldn't run Skulls & Shackles then, encouraging piracy ba-doom boom
LOL! Y'arrrrrrr...

[damned]

Doh! My only excuse is the time here...

[Nylanfs]

Skull and Shackles is about playing pirates, hence encouraging piracy. :)