offline game

[Erik]

1 hour ago, Jessica O. said:

That's functionally identical to someone taking that first copy for free... If their friends don't have to pay to try the game, why would they? Like I said, Pirating is not universally easy for everyone, hence everyone doesn't pirate, hence some people are MORE (even slightly counts here) compelled to pay, and some would pay where they otherwise wouldn't. Besides Vintage story has a generous refund policy; there's little risk in not getting your $20 back if you hate the game after a day.

So you are saying people would still go for the "cracked" version from shady sites instead of (illegally) sharing a bought copy with friends if there was no authentication required for singleplayer? Then it means the lack of authentication doesn't even mean slightly more pirates as I suggested, but the situation would be no different from how it is now.

1 hour ago, Jessica O. said:

Only with an extra adjustment to make LAN require authentication, which as I said would be fine, but I guarantee people would bitch about it since the purpose of LAN in the first place is low-latency is multiplayer without internet.

One time authentication wouldn't effect latency and when there is already a authentication token it wouldn't even require a internet connection to play LAN, just like singleplayer is setup now.

1 hour ago, Jessica O. said:

What I guess from this is, that there might be SOME cases where piracy has helped, but I doubt that's a trend since there wasn't any statistically significant result.

The actually important note to take away from this study is that it found no statistical evidence that video game piracy actually hurts sales, unlike other forms of media piracy. Even if less DRM on Vintage Story would cause more piracy (which is just speculation), that doesn't mean that the game would suffer lower sales.

1 hour ago, Jessica O. said:

Good news, that's what it already is!

It's not really. Sure, the authentication doesn't expire, but you can't install VS from an USB-stick on a system which is not connected to the internet and play singleplayer. You need to login once to get your authentication token. And if you say that can be easily bypassed, then why is this needed in the first place?

1 hour ago, Jessica O. said:

Why don't you want DRM and how does that weigh against what the developer, who did all the work, risks? 

I just don't want singleplayer requiring authentication, mainly to future-proof Vintage Story. There may come a time when the authentication services are down (maybe permanently) and people can't play their game anymore. It is maybe unlikely for it to happen in the recent future, but not unthinkable. As for the risk of doing that, I think it is really low. Te change causing more piracy is somewhat unlikely and even if it did, more piracy doesn't equal less sales.

[l33tmaan]

40 minutes ago, Erik said:

I just don't want singleplayer requiring authentication, mainly to future-proof Vintage Story. There may come a time when the authentication services are down (maybe permanently) and people can't play their game anymore. It is maybe unlikely for it to happen in the recent future, but not unthinkable. As for the risk of doing that, I think it is really low. Te change causing more piracy is somewhat unlikely and even if it did, more piracy doesn't equal less sales.

This is the most important thing anyone has said in this thread. 

[Jessica O.]

Oh yeah; I totally get the fear of the authentication servers going dead! That said, it's rare for any decent game not to patch out authentication when they make the decision to shut down so I personally am not worried about it; it's all about weighing hypotheticals, fears, worries, vs real-time actualities. I mean the USB thing IS already possible; just copy your installation, authentication and all onto the USB for your completely-offline friend!

I agree that is would be nice and worry free for me personally as the player to have no protections on any of the software I use, since they, by definition, are obstacles between me and use no matter how easy they are to surmount... But as someone who is a staunch believer in Indie gamers and independent artists in general I want to respect their choices and ability to make a living doing what they do.