Game requiring CD in drive

[Burfelt]

Schools wouldn't put up with having to have the CD in. Maybe if they only had a few computers, but it's just not practical for an entire class, or multiple classes.

We have used this exact approach for our application (Music Edutainment Software). We have had no problems setting it up this way. In the event that some school would have problems using a CDrom drive (really, most schools have them), we would rather figure out some custom solution for those who don't.

A said, it's a quick and dirty sollution. But it does seem to work with minimal issues.

Edit: think about it. Are schools more likely to have CDrom drives in their computer, or are you more likely to buy and maintain a "licence server" running 24/7?

[Splatman]

Not posted here for a while, but as someone who until recently was an IT Tech at a Secondary school in the UK (I'm the friend Dynasoft refers to), I thought my opinion might be of some value.


As mentioned we have no CD Drives in any student machines (apart from 2 in Learning support for software that needs the CD), mostly because of vandalism concerns, from what I've gathered from speaking to other IT techs at edugeek.net its a similar situation in most other schools. We have had kids completely destroy the front of PC cases, and no teach saw it happen or report it to us in one case.

The other problem with a scheme like this is the logistics, A teacher my be in a different IT room from day to day, most teachers I know won't want to have to pick up odd 30 CDs (we averaged 32 PCs in a room) distribute them to a room full of kids (the behaviour of the kids can change between classes as well as the time of the day), and then collect them up at the end of a lesson before the next class comes in. I can state with 100% confidence CDs will go missing/get snapped in half/be rendered unreadable within 2 weeks.

You can also be sure at CD drives will fail (see vandalism) which will result in teachers complaining they can't teach.

When we got new software our install process was pretty much

1. Copy media to server
2. Determine if we can install it using Group Policy Objects (using MSIs to install it to the suites that need it) or if we have to install it on an image and then deploy the new image to the rooms that need it.

In my opinion software requiring a CD to be in the drive will only work in schools where there are less than 10 machines needing the software, for example software designed for a particular department that has its own machines (Learning Support for example). It may be more feasible in primary schools, as they tend to only have one computer room (at least the ones local to me).

[Splatman]

Edit: think about it. Are schools more likely to have CDrom drives in their computer, or are you more likely to buy and maintain a "licence server" running 24/7?

The licence server was some software that came with the software (Sibelius) and ran on one of our existing servers using very little resources. We gave it our licence and it knows how many machines we are licensed for allowing to to only run on that many machines at one time.

[Shawn]

Okay, well from reading the above posts, it seems that MTCMusic is mainly doing this because he had originally had software selling with a one-site license, and the schools had it on several machines, which he felt was a bit too many. Which I understand, you want to make more sales.

However, a volume license approach is far better than CD checks. Allow schools to buy it for 10, 20, etc. PC's. Generally, you can trust educational institutions to not violate these rules as they would be setting themselves up for a big lawsuit. This is far more of a legal concern than say Little Billy downloading the latest PC game from a torrent site in the aspect that it is generally a huge waste of resources to prosecute an individual for small time piracy. However, once you enter the realm of businesses and schools pirating, it is far easier to prosecute and the penalties would be a lot more severe.

Sounds like you may need to work the details out with your publisher since they are the ones wanting the CD check system in place, but CD checks are just a bad idea.

My main concern would be the students vandalizing or stealing the discs out of the disc drives. What does the school do then? You'd have to allow for backup copies to be made, but then, that kind of defeats the point of a CD check system in the first place if you can make as many backups as you want.

Stopping piracy in the consumer market is impossible, but any self-respecting and intelligent school will not violate the licensing agreement because they can easily be prosecuted. And considering most schools are low on funds as it is, they wouldn't even think of taking a risk like that.

One last thing I'd like to add. You pretty much have to accept in the software sales world that your work will be pirated. That's just a fact of the matter and there is nothing you can do about it (unless in the case of a business or school, you can prove they violated their licensing agreement).

Most forms of DRM have been met with bitter attitudes and did absolutely nothing to hinder the pirating of the software, because the honest people will pay for the product and not pirate in the first place, whereas the pirates will always crack any sort of DRM you have in place. This doesn't necessarily apply directly to your situation, but I'm just making the statement for software/game development in general. As developers we just have to focus on our honest, actual customer base. Prosecute those when it is feasible and worth the time and money involved. But DRM really isn't the solution as big name game publishers have found out.

[Shawn]

Why can't you try to make an online activation system? That way the software can only be installed once per code, and if they want to reinstall the software, they need to return to you for a new code. It might be a little more work on your part, but it would lead to a better end-user experience as long as their intentions are legit.

Well, I'm guessing that's far more work than either he or his publisher want to do. Plus, there's the fact that it requires every PC to have an internet connection and that your online activation is never offline.

[uprize]

Why can't you try to make an online activation system? That way the software can only be installed once per code, and if they want to reinstall the software, they need to return to you for a new code. It might be a little more work on your part, but it would lead to a better end-user experience as long as their intentions are legit.

Well, I'm guessing that's far more work than either he or his publisher want to do. Plus, there's the fact that it requires every PC to have an internet connection and that your online activation is never offline.

plus the issue of only being able to install on 1 machine. What if the student had his own laptop they needed to install on? Or needed to install at home? Or simply, the CD's dont get used in the exact same machine each time? Its not worth it.

[Jeff]

I will add 2 cents that I have found most schools to be honest and will honor the terms of your license.

Making it a hassle for them to use your software could cause them to look elsewhere. Yes you should keep honest people honest but don't go overboard and scare your customers away.

[MTCMusic]

I agree that the CD required in the drive is annoying to the end-user, and yes, the CD drives will have a higher failure rate than usual if the software is used by several different groups of students per day. The 10 - 20 - 30 station licences are fine but the problem I was having with that on my other products was that the publisher was selling the software for $39.99 per single copy and $99.99 for a site licence of 25 to 30 computers. So, every school that purchased my programs would buy one copy at $99.99 and install it on their entire network. I make 14% of this $99.99. Not very profitable for all the work it take to develop the product, don't you think? I sell the program in my own school to all the students who take the music class as their "digital textbook". Each student buys their own copy of the program from me directly (I have a clause in my contract permitting me to do this). I generate more income from this sale in one school than from all the sales to a dozen schools using the software on all their stations! I suggested to the publisher to market the product as a software that the school should encourage each student to buy individually, but he tells me that that's up to the individual teachers in the schools to encourage. Most teachers will use softwares for educational aids in their classroom, but not as a homework tool for students. I can do that with my students since i am the author and know exactly how i intended each program to be used to compliment my class projects.

Anyhow, I just would like to find a way to make the schools buy more than 1 copy per school. After reading all your great replies, i do think that CD-in-drive protection isn't the solution. I would love to use an online authentication system but my programming skills are not very good when it comes to online applications (interactions with servers, etc.) The limited licence solution is viable, but again, nothing prevents a school from buying the product with a 10-system licence and then installing it on, say, 15 systems. I use Install Creator PRO to make activation coded installers, but as you know, one code can be used to install all the disks, making it pointless to tell them that they get 10 codes for a 10-system licence.

Thanks so much. Your feedback has been incredibly helpful!

Tom
MTC Music - www.mtcmusic.ca

[pnekdo]

I have created applications that were CDrom dependent before. Basically you can loop through different drives, then recognize CDrom drives and search for the existence of specific files on those.

I used this trick using the File folder object, and it works, except for one mysterius thing :confused: .

First I would like to say, that if a specific file isn't found ( it is located on the cd) I have a comand that pops up a message using Popup Message object.

Now if I ran my aplication at the begining I have an option to run it from the CD (this searches for the file) and if the CD (with the file) isn't in the drive it pops up a mesage. Then I insert the CD and the aplication goes to the next frame.

Now for the strange part. If I remove the cd from the drive (after it was already ran, and the CD was in drive) and ran the aplication again (chose the option to ran it from CD) it doesen't pop up my mesage, but what i bealive is a message from Windows, that say "file wasn't found - No CD" and specifies it as an exe file although the file was txt. In the body of the mesage it asks the user to insert the cd. And if I restart windows and ran my aplication again the aplication will pop up my mesage as long as I don't insert the cd and restart the aplication (and the cd is not in drive).

Now how come that Windows pops up its own message, as if it has remebered that the file is on cd? Can this be removed? It is quite anoying becaus you can't close the message.

p.s. If i ran the aplication in MMF2 everything works fine and Windows doesen't interfere.

[Pkeod]

Tom, you should use a system of online activation instead of CD checks if you insist on a system of DRM. When you sell volume licenses, you can give them x number of keys, which each can only be activated once, and must be deactivated before it can be used on another computer. You can use the Live receiver object to communicate with a PHP/MySQL backend on your main site for activation/deactivation. This sort of system is trivial to code with a regular level of expertise so I'll leave the technical bits to your own development.