5 reasons to not use a cracked version of Fusion 2.5

Quote from Zonacas

probably the drop in sales is due to the humble bundle that occurred in 2016, it was a bad marketing move in my opinion

offering the pirates a price point they could afford was a bad move..... i get the feeling everything we do to try to help our users upsets you

Quote from Triadian

offering the pirates a price point they could afford was a bad move..... i get the feeling everything we do to try to help our users upsets you

I don't think pirates can be convinced not to steal by good prices. To me pirating software is more like a general attitude towards creators and the internet. They would even pirate Fusion if it costs 3 dollars. Anyway, IMO participating in Humble Bundle was not a bad step. Yes, you sold F2.5 underpriced, but I think you generated a lot of awareness for Clickteam through this step and a lot of interest in F3, which is evident in the forums through new registered users and the ongoing impatience for F3;)

The best way against crackers is, simple lock down the community forum for registered users only.
Because everybody needs help at some point and the clickteam forum is the biggest source of information, there isn't really an alternative to that site.

Just think about that yourself, would you still use fusion if there would be no community forum? I wouldn't!

Also there are lot of people, including myself, who are helping on the forum and spending lot of time on that, so it would also not be bad to know if its worth the time, does the opposite even support fusion by buying the product or not!?
There are so much threads spammed by people who don't even have a registered product thats ridiculous.

Change that!

I agree that allowing only users with registered products to be able to post in the forums would be a great step to take. I thought something like this was already in place, but maybe I am mistaken.

It is already in place on the "Open topic community forum" section only.

Piracy is a fairly black and white issue. But as with many issues, the simplicity of this one can often lead people down a misguided path of projecting that binary nature - you're either a parasite (pirate) or a model citizen (everyone else) - onto other, more complicated situations. Software, of all things, is nowhere near that simple, and piracy is only a small part of the picture.

Personally, I'm morally opposed to piracy, because I believe strongly in respecting and supporting the intellectual property of others. And I put my money where my mouth is. I just checked my finances, and since 2014, I've spent $8397.31 on software. And that's not including games - that's just the software I use for gamedev and/or general productivity. And that money doesn't come easy to me - I've barely had any income in that whole time, I live near the poverty line, and that money has mostly come from my dwindling life savings. Yet I've paid it gladly and without hesitation, because I believe that to make the best work, you need the best tools, and I believe in supporting quality innovation by supporting the devs who do it.

So I walk the walk, and I've surely earned the right to talk the talk. Yet I'm hesitant to jump on this bandwagon, because some of the talking here makes me scratch my head. In all the denouncement of piracy as a kick in the pants of devs, I think people can quickly forget about the grey areas and loopholes in their own lives. For example, I know that some of the people voraciously decrying piracy here are regular Photoshop users who are still on CS6, which means that they were happy to support Adobe once upon a time, but have spent the last 5 years seeing how far they can stretch that relationship without having to pay a cent more. I know that others also use Gimp, which in many cases has blatantly ripped off features that were innovated by Adobe devs - devs whose innovation goes unrewarded by every Gimp user.

Is it morally wrong to sit on an dusty old version of Photoshop, or to use an open-source alternative like Gimp? Absolutely not. It's completely, 100% morally acceptable. But does it help support the Adobe devs, who have salaries that continually need to be paid, and families to feed? Absolutely not. It does little to support their work, and it does nothing to encourage further innovation. It may as well be piracy. It's not piracy. But its net result is much the same (I'm over-simplifying here a bit - an argument could be made that open-source alternatives initiate greater competition in the marketplace...or at least they would if they weren't usually so crap). So while on a moral or legal level, there's absolutely nothing wrong with these things, on a practical, real-world level, these things have real, and negative effects. It's murkier points like this that I think get lost in the chest-beating that happens whenever people start talking about piracy. Piracy is such a simple, no-brainer issue that it can become an intellectual cop-out.

What's more important? Whether you're morally in-the-clear, or whether you're helping the industry? I'd argue it's the latter. The moral aspect only really affects you and your conscience, while the pragmatic aspect affects others. Someone who pirates everything does neither. A Gimp user is morally clean, but does little to help the industry. If I went out and pirated something tomorrow, I would be committing a moral offence, yet it it wouldn't do anything to diminish the $8397.31 worth of support that I've given the industry, and I'm arguably a more beneficial consumer than a non-pirate who has spent only $8397.30. There are other complications and grey areas as well, such as with those Fusion users who bought it for peanuts in the Humble Bundle, for example. Or, in the case of console games, used sales, for another example.

And it also occurs to me that some of the people speaking most passionately against piracy on this thread have been among those who have passionately argued against Clickteam ever taking on a subscription or royalty model. Every time either of those topics have come up on that God-forsaken Fusion 3 thread, I've been one of the only people arguing in favour of subscriptions or royalties. My argument has always been that Clickteam is fantastic, gives us years' worth of free updates on an already cheap program, and that we'd all ultimately be better off if they made more money, since it would go back into the product. Each time, people have lost their minds, and I've been roundly lambasted and shouted down, for even daring to discuss a hypothetical scenario where we users might, you know, support the Clickteam devs a bit more. And now I see some of that same passion on this thread, but essentially turned on its head: admonishing those who aren't doing their bit to, you know, support the Clickteam devs. I'm not writing this to dis anyone. It makes perfect sense to be against piracy, and people's arguments have been sound, albeit narrowly focused. I guess I'm just pointing out what I see as a certain lack of intellectual rigor in the discussion.

Most of these issues are not black and white. Arguments can be made both ways about all of the above scenarios. For example, the large lump sum a Photoshop CS6 user paid for the software clearly supports an Adobe dev, and can reasonably be expected to contribute to an Adobe dev's salary for several years, and there's no clear delineation between when that support morphs into a lack of support (someone still using version 3 from 1994 arguably isn't helping the industry; someone on a subscription of CC is; someone using CS6 from 2012 falls somewhere in between, but who knows where?). Arguments can also surely be made in favour of Gimp - though it leeches from Adobe in some ways, it must contribute innovation of its own, and it also perhaps offers hobbyist programmers an accessible foothold into the industry.

Cogent arguments can be also made for used game sales, such as how they encourage first-day purchases of big titles by customers who would otherwise never spend $60 on a game. And while humble bundles are 100% legal and some would say beneficial, arguments can also be made that they do more harm than good to the industry as a whole. Legitimate arguments can even be made both ways for piracy too. Notch is a prominent example of someone who openly praised piracy, saying it helped Minecraft reach a level of virality that would have been hard without it - the guy's net worth is $1.4billion as a result. A prominent counter-example to that is Crysis, which was 2006's most technologically admirable game, yet was also the most pirated game of 2007. One of the reasons given for why it was pirated so much was that players didn't want to put down money for something they weren't sure would run smoothly on their PCs. Far from helping Crytek like it allegedly helped Minecraft, this piracy was incredibly damaging to the industry: instead of being rewarded for raising the bar, Crytek were punished for it. It was a disincentive for the rest of the industry, and Crytek eventually packed up and left the space.

Most of these are complicated issues without satisfying, clear-cut answers, and I think we would do well to talk about them more. But when piracy comes up in discussions, I think people tend to get hung up on the letter of the law at the expense of the spirit of the law. Piracy may be immoral, but that's entirely beside the point. Other than using it as a self-satisfied badge of honour, the moral aspect of piracy is of little consequence. Surely the real consequence of it, and the real reason we should be talking about it, is because it causes tangible damage to the creative industries by failing to reward hard work and innovation. And in this regard, it is hardly alone.

Well worded position, Vol. I would like to point out I use both CS6 AND have a CC subscription. I need current tools for some situations but I loathe that I have to pay a continuous fee for the ability to do so. I miss the days where I could buy a product with a one time, reasonable fee and have the ability to use that product now and again when I need to. Sure, I might not have bought every edition of Photoshop or whatever creative suite I needed to buy to stay current, but I felt compelled to every few versions. I would say the major reason was that Adobe (or rather the smaller houses they bought out and then became the stewards of) didn't innovate in ways that helped me as a user. I have never had interest in all the photo editing/merging/doctoring features PS has added because I only use it for a very specific purpose. Unless my requirements change, that lowers my incentive to purchase every edition of their software. This problem exists in most creative software, actually. Even most studios don't buy new updates every year because they are too busy making things with the last version they bought and it makes little financial sense.

Just the other day I was curious how much a copy of Maya would cost me and realized they no longer sell their software. They rent it out monthly. I need it for a few key times during development, but have no set schedule on when I will need to use it. This makes a subscription a waste of money for my situation. If they had a Maya light package I could buy for a reasonable price, I would. But I don't want to go through the hassle of turning subscriptions on and off when I need to build a 3d mesh. And I don't have the free time to learn Blender or some other free software, because i will be fighting against my extensive experience with Maya. But I am not about to pirate Maya. i just accept the situation as a rational adult and find a solution I can live with. That is what I think a lot of people don't do. They just head to a torrent site and get what they wanted for free.

I wouldn't be against a Clickteam subscription if the ultimate yearly cost was roughly the $400 I pay for the software. But I would also expect the exporters and the updates for free. Unfortunately, I think the user base here are mostly hobbyists, so they probably don't have the commitment level that you or I might.

Sorry, not sure what I was trying to rant about here. Your words just lit a small fire in my belly.

Quote from kreeddem;

- make your software cheaper

no. Just no.

1 - You can't update easily the software.
2 - You're being illegal.
3 - Injustice to people that did suffer to buy the developer version in another country.
4 - You can't have a badge on clickteam community.
5 - You're not being cool.

I don't agree with the argument about CS6 and not moving to Creative Cloud as a grey area. The CS6 is still a paid for and legal bit of software and CC is very much more expensive, for little benefit in many cases if CS6 still does what you need. We have a developer version which barely anyone upgrades to in the grand scheme of things, and that's their choice of course, but it could never be considered a grey area, any more than people who may choose not to buy Fusion 3, or for that matter those who still use MMF2 or even earlier versions.

Quote from Julian82

I don't think pirates can be convinced not to steal by good prices.

I'll just go on record here and say I used to use a Pirated Copy of Fusion 2.5 before having the chance to purchase it while it was on sale on Steam (I checked exactly and my purchase was on June 20th, 2015). so I will say that while I do pirate software from time to time I want to try and purchase the software I had used and wish to continue using when I can simply out of respect for the software, it's developers, and out of some sort of morals I have (though if I had better morals I wouldn't have pirated the software to begin with, sorry D:).

In short, yes but only if they have intent to pay for the software they wrongfully used when they have the funds/ the price is low enough for them to be able to purchase it.

Personally I would pay the subscription for updates, but I think at this stage a subscription model could be disastrous. Fusion has struggles.. hopefully the negative 'outdated beginner tool for newbies' stigma that seems to be attached to mmf 2.5 is gone with the brand new engine for Fusion 3. Since subscription models are currently so unpopular (this attitude will probably slowly change in the future) in the meantime, Fusion 3 being subscription free can be a critical point if difference to grow its userbase at the expense of Construct and others going down thst route.

CT has an uphill battle already - when people ask 'what is the best tool?" GameMaker / Unity / Unreal / Construct Etc. Are the most common responses - I very rarely see Fusion even mentioned outside these forums.

I think if anything a royalty is more palatable. At least with a royalty model they only sting you *after* you're making $$$ from the software

Maybe when Fusion 3 is out CT can have a Patreon type arrangement where backers get bug fix / feature requests attended to with higher priority than the users who only want to pay for the standalone lisence..

GamerH2 - What the hell are you talking about? You need to step down a peg, I was offering suggestions.

Simon  Danny - Why don't you offer better social awareness for Developers using your software, set up a system to get Click games out there to more people. This feature should only be for Clickteam Fusion Developer. - Advertise in a big way, we will market your games on social media if you have developer status (Developer version).

I think that will get more people to get Fusion. Work with your customers to sell their games. THINK BIG!
Clickteam's own Steam! Why don't you colab with Gamejolt or something? More money for your company.

Quote from RadDevVan101

I'll just go on record here and say I used to use a Pirated Copy of Fusion 2.5 before having the chance to purchase it while it was on sale on Steam (I checked exactly and my purchase was on June 20th, 2015). so I will say that while I do pirate software from time to time I want to try and purchase the software I had used and wish to continue using when I can simply out of respect for the software, it's developers, and out of some sort of morals I have (though if I had better morals I wouldn't have pirated the software to begin with, sorry D:).

In short, yes but only if they have intent to pay for the software they wrongfully used when they have the funds/ the price is low enough for them to be able to purchase it.

Good to see you proofed my negative assumption wrong to some extend, there's hope out there^^

I've heard that studios themselves actually releases broken versions of their games sometimes to annoy pirates so much that they are more or less forced to buy a legirimate copy. I know that cracked versions of fusion kills the update function and that is great but it would be freaking hilarious if you would actually let them update...but what they get is an update that completely ruins the program and make it useless for them.

I'm no coder though (That's why I use your awesome software) so I don't know if that would even be possible but since you can't update a cracked version must mean that fusion senses a cracked version so there must be a way to go from there and mess it up for the pirates

Quote from Klownzilla

I've heard that studios themselves actually releases broken versions of their games sometimes to annoy pirates so much that they are more or less forced to buy a legirimate copy. I know that cracked versions of fusion kills the update function and that is great but it would be freaking hilarious if you would actually let them update...but what they get is an update that completely ruins the program and make it useless for them.

I'm no coder though (That's why I use your awesome software) so I don't know if that would even be possible but since you can't update a cracked version must mean that fusion senses a cracked version so there must be a way to go from there and mess it up for the pirates

I agree with this guy here, there must be a way to corrupt their builds and add a message saying some along the lines of

"Purchace the full version or try the free version, don't be a pirate. Have a nice day :)"

That would be awesome.

I can assure you that burning their projects down to the ground will guarantee that they won't buy Fusion at all but instead run around spreading rumours about how evil Clickteam is.

And implementing a bunch of terrible DRM licensing stuff will only harm the user base who actually bought a legal license. Pirates will eventually removes these road blocks for themselves while the rest still has to put up with them. Not to mention the times when agressive DRM fails and thinks a legal user is a pirate(Hi Microsoft). In the end you'll only end up punishing the people that you want to keep engaged in your product.

However you can't really pirate a great community(yet?) so I am all cool with only confirmed users getting into the delicious parts of the forums. After all, new users need all help they can get, pirate or not. So suddenly there is at least one good reason to go fetch that wallet.

How CT liberated the forums. ... sorry for that post, but Dolph Lundgren really shines...

[video]Please login to see this media element.]

Well if they have a message saying something like "your copy is not legitimate. Updating could cause serious problems" i don't think they deserve it though but then they even get a warning for using a pirate version so then there's nothing "evil" about clickteam at all. But there never was in the first place though

Quote from Julian82

How CT liberated the forums. ... sorry for that post, but Dolph Lundgren really shines...

[video]Please login to see this media element.]

so who does dolph represent...clickteam...or the pirates? XD