Prevention of copying in Emulators A8 Files

[Rybags]

I can't stand software which requires you to be online to use it.

 

There's a big backlash against modern games that do so.

 

Other software does it too, and even fails. My old versions of PowerDVD are just useless now because whatever it is they do online doesn't work any more.

 

The other downside is that you then have to maintain a server that takes care of it... have any availability issues there and your reputation can soon turn to mud.

[phaeron]

Note that adding online authentication to an emulator would likely require modifying that emulator, and in particular, making a closed-source version of it. AFAIK, none of the modern Atari 8-bit emulators are released under a license that would permit this without a license exemption from the authors, and for some of them it may be impossible to do so due to the number of contributors.

[Rybags]

It'd also be an unprecedented move.

 

People buy Atari software to have something tangible that works on a real machine.

 

Having something that's emulator only... it'd just feel like a Flash game.

[analmux]

It's worth noting that adding a protection scheme can be like waving a red rag at a bull as well...

Exactly. And I'd like to add that investing time in a (heavy) protection scheme might be more expensive than the money you get in return.

 

So, indeed, I'd say sell the product on real disk or cartridge, as a collectors item. Then you're free to release a binary or not. One possible idea would be selling the disk or cartridge first, then wait a few months and then release it as a binary. Just thinking of the ABBUC way. They release real disks of software every year, after the software contest. The ABBUC members are supposed not to publish the data as a binary.

Edited December 30, 2010 by analmux

[Shawn Jefferson]

It's worth noting that adding a protection scheme can be like waving a red rag at a bull as well...

Exactly. And I'd like to add that investing time in a (heavy) protection scheme might be more expensive than the money you get in return.

 

Have we really learned nothing in the last 30 years? Software protection is NOT worth the time and effort to program it. It will be cracked, absolutely. You may end up designing a "game" within the game, I guess, for other programmers. With modern emulators, cracking games are now easier than ever, and back in the day, on real hardware, talented crackers could have protection removed in hours. It's a waste of time in my opinion.

 

Let's be realistic though: it's my opinion that no one is making any money in the 8-bit industry; hardware or software. What's the upper limit on the number of copies of a game being sold? 100? 200? Let's say 200 to be conservative, although I think that is probably high, and $50 a copy. 200 x $50 = $10,000. 40% of that cost is probably packaging and hardware costs (probably more). That leaves $6,000. Now factor in the TIME spent assembling the packaging, hardware, burning eproms, going to the post office, etc... Let's say a half hour per game? 100 hours for all those games. $6,000 / 100 hours = $60/hour. Well, not bad! $60 an hour is a pretty good wage. oops, the programmer didn't get paid any money yet. How many hours did the programmer put in? 100 hours is probably way, way too low. 200? Any major release probably has an artist and a muscian as well and their time needs to be factored in. Let's say, for argument's sake, that all coding, art and music is 300 hours. $6000/400 hours = $15/hour. Certainly not something you are going to live on... and I think my estimatations are probably quite high on the number of copies, and low on the overhead and time spent developing the game. So, all this time that is spent is leisure time... and I know my leisure time is worth more to me than $15/hour, since I have a family.

 

I'd like to see what the actual numbers are though. Gr8, Atlantis, Atarimax, Atariage, etc.. How many copies of games do you sell? What's the overhead in producing them? How much goes to the programmers/artists/musicians? How many hours are spent developing the game? Packaging/Assembling?

 

Jose, the bottom line here, I think, is that instead of trying to pay a programmer to realize your ideas, you need to either entice one into your project, or join an existing project as an artist (always needed... programmer usually suck at art.) It's very unlikely you are going to entice a programmer for monetary gain... it's much more likely that they are doing it for the love of the hobby. And with hobbies, they come second (or maybe third even)... and sometimes get dropped for months at a time, and maybe for ever depending on what life brings. Also, people tend to do what makes them happy in their hobbies. If they don't love the Last Ninja, they probably aren't that interested. Of course, there is always the path of learning to program yourself, and realizing your dreams of 8-bit game splendor that way...

Edited January 1, 2011 by Shawn Jefferson

[+JAC!]

Shawn is right with both things.

• There is no protection and it's no use to think about one. Which is a pity as is always was nice to find how to break them. Anybody every tried to apply to poke/cheat of Bounty Bob Strikes back when loading from casette? It decodes while it loads by EXORing the full code with the checksum of everything on the tape. I remember when I wrote a BASIC program which installed a handler on the BREAK key/irq and trigged the cassette boot routine. I had to press the key in the moment when the last block was loaded to POKE the right value . I think that's also a good example of "for the love of the hobby".
  
• Programmer usually suck at art (at least those I know, me included)
  

[candle]

It's worth noting that adding a protection scheme can be like waving a red rag at a bull as well...

Exactly. And I'd like to add that investing time in a (heavy) protection scheme might be more expensive than the money you get in return.

 

... $6000/400 hours = $15/hour. Certainly not something you are going to live on... and I think my estimatations are probably quite high on the number of copies, and low on the overhead and time spent developing the game. So, all this time that is spent is leisure time... and I know my leisure time is worth more to me than $15/hour, since I have a family.

...

 

well, i better start writing some games my wage is one third of this

[Creature XL]

In general, donations are the way to go.

 

In this special case: Are you willing to reveal what it is and how much it cost? Maybe others would spend some money beforehand if they like the idea and think the coder/team can do it. However, you should consider that there are maybe 10-20 atari demo/games coders in the scene who all code for no money and would maybe fell bad/strange paying other 8-Bit coders money

 

You mentioned licensing... I would prolly give money to a coder/team but, say, giving money to SONY or someone else just to get the rights to use a character, gfx or whatever is a no-no for me. those big guys have enough coins

 

Wouldn't the ABBUC competition be possibility? i think you can in up to 500 EUROs.

[Shawn Jefferson]

It's worth noting that adding a protection scheme can be like waving a red rag at a bull as well...

Exactly. And I'd like to add that investing time in a (heavy) protection scheme might be more expensive than the money you get in return.

 

... $6000/400 hours = $15/hour. Certainly not something you are going to live on... and I think my estimatations are probably quite high on the number of copies, and low on the overhead and time spent developing the game. So, all this time that is spent is leisure time... and I know my leisure time is worth more to me than $15/hour, since I have a family.

...

 

well, i better start writing some games my wage is one third of this

 

Well, that's a shame if true. What about your 8-bit endeavors though, are you willing to answer the questions I posed before?

 

How many VBXE units did you sell?

What were the overhead costs (PCB fab, parts costs, etc)?

How many hours did you put in per board for assembly/packaging/shipping?

How many hours did you put in for design?

[candle]

Sorry Shawn, I'm not following forums this days as throughly as I would like to

 

How many - aprox. 120pcs

overhead costs - huge, especially that i have to try hard to get some parts, some have MPQ of 60pcs, can't get you exact figure though - not that i don't want to - i just didn't calculate it for this run

how many hours - 40 hours per panel for assembly, 10 hours for testing that panel (panel is 15pcs), packing and shipping it is a nightmare in Poland - way too many forms to fill in at post office

how many hours in design - a week for PCB design (prototype), then week for board bring-up, a couple of days for enchancments and fix-ups to have production PCB, then few weeks for firmware development, as i had to write it from scratch (i've changed MCU on VBXE - on v1.x its PIC, on v2 its AVR)

 

i've enjoyed working with it, but really hand assembling a pile of boards is not that funny

 

in the end its something close to 30% when it comes to income - minus license fee for electron (its 20% of income)

 

wages in Poland aren't very high, compared to my wife i earn a lot

well at least we have prices at european level

 

lol

i've did an estimate on my wage when doing vbxe2 - its 9$ for a hour still have to move into software - you don't need any special equipment for that

Edited January 2, 2011 by candle

[Creature XL]

i've did an estimate on my wage when doing vbxe2 - its 9$ for a hour still have to move into software - you don't need any special equipment for that

 

If you have a degree from an university you should learn German (I think English would be enough in most cases though) and move over here. Hardwaredesign and embedded jobs are plenty here.

Although Lublin is quite far from Germany (was there once, on a day trip from Warszawa).

[candle]

well, i don't

currently i'm working for corporation as hardware designer doing android tablets and ebook readers - just to give you a scale

[flashjazzcat]

My wife is earning the only wage in the household at the moment, and I apply for the kinds of jobs I wouldn't even entertain in more opulent times.

 

I get sent the occasional bit of hardware, peripheral, or prototype for free and when I do buy something, I usually get a good deal. As far as I'm concerned, that - along with the odd donation - is payback for my coding/consulting time. When I did the SIO2SD/XM301 conversions last year, I charged on average 55GBP for the work. A few pounds of this went on parts and tooling (15GBP recently on a drill set), and the rest covered the labour/time, probably working out at 5GBP per hour after overheads. I did about ten of those one after another, and it was starting to wear a bit thin by the end. Of course, when there's been a lull of a few months, I don't mind doing another (which I am: an 1064 version this month). But as a business plan, it sucked.

Edited January 3, 2011 by flashjazzcat