Re: Business models

[Joel Utting <joelu.geo@yahoo.com>]

Pierre Phaneuf wrote:
> 
> Joel Utting wrote:
> 
> > Automatically encrypt the data file using his credit card number and
> > then he can decrypt the levels by entering his card number - thus to
> > share the files he must also share his card number.
> 
> That's one of the better idea I have heard! But it would be annoying to
> have to enter your credit card every time you play the game. It could be
> stored in the player configuration, but many people wouldn't like too
> much having their credit card number laying around on their computer.
> 
> Also: how about expirable keys? You give users a key that expires after
> something like a month. The game can update its key automatically
> through the Internet. But without connectivity, you're fscked.

How about a system where the expire key works on a time system -
somewhere in the exe (maybe several places) you store the total time
(encrypted) the user has run the game, and make it encrypt itself after
a number of hours, only to be unlocked by the next key available on the
web site - that way you could "rent" the game to people for a small
amount ; 24 hours of play for $5 or something. People only rent the game
for as long as it takes to finish it, testing it for 24 hours only costs
a few dollars, levels could be available free because they would be
encrypted, and only a working game could break them open.

So a small game download with the initial payment, plus any single
levels you want to try out, then an extra payment for more renting time,
and free levels as they are made available.

Effectively you could make most of the game engine code open sourced and
free, and only the decrypter would be distributed in the binary game
file, and the levels encrypted using this. The codec could even be open
source, just with the specific keys put into the executable when it is
built by the distributer.

But ! Of course people could make copies of the original file and use
the copies to get extra time. Oh well.

Bye - Joel.

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