Do you think hardware/software protection is a big waste of money?

[purbeast0]

I remember hearing about how much $$$ was spent on the protection for blu-ray and HD-DVD (or maybe one or the other, can't remember), and then it was cracked in less than a month.

Now I'm hearing about how Vista is cracked already.

I work at a software company and we have a couple people who are primarily dedicated to protection, and I can go search the usual places and find our software cracked on the net.

The nintendo Wii was cracked in a merely 3 months time as well.

And when it boils down to it ... everything is going to be cracked and is crackable. So do you think the $$$ put into the protection is even worth it, or wuld it be better off being spent elsewhere in the R&D department, or just saved all around?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

The money that is dumped into the "protection" schemes, could be saved thus lowering the price of the software. The lower the cost of software, the more likely someone is to buy it. The people that "warez" software are going to do it regardless and like said, the protection wont stop them for long.

 

[nakedfrog]

Well, it does deter the average joe from pirating stuff, but I don't know if it's at the point where the cost of protecting the product outweighs the lost revenue from mass piracy.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Well, it does deter the average joe from pirating stuff, but I don't know if it's at the point where the cost of protecting the product outweighs the lost revenue from mass piracy.

i was thinking the same thing. you would need to come up with a way to figure out how many people would try to crack it and how many people would give up after learning it has protection.

 

[effowe]

It will always be overcome, but it needs to be in place to prevent people who don't know where to find cracked versions from downloading anything they want.

 

[vi edit]

There will always be somebody that can crack stuff, but the reality is that most people simply don't have the time, motivation, or ability to find and use the methods.

I can't do anything but pull numbers out of my ass, but I think it's safe to say that the number of people sauvy enough to crack things make up a fraction of the overall users.

Most protection does a good enough job of keeping casual users from running around and installing the program on different computers.

I used to download .exe and .ini cracks all the time so that we could load games up for lan parties. But it has become an ever increasing PITA and simply not worth the time or hastle to me any more. I fall into the "don't have the motivation" category.

 

[j00fek]

yep its worthless

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: effowe
It will always be overcome, but it needs to be in place to prevent people who don't know where to find cracked versions from downloading anything they want.

Anyone that knows how to download a game knows how to read the included .nfo file on how to crack the game.

I would assume the only people stopped by the protection is real causual copying between friends. Loan them a game and the like would be stopped.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Steam is a good example of how it can be executed - if the program has online capabilities, protect it there. (Refrain from Steam bashing for other reasons)

Other than that, I think that a bit of protection is good, but putting too much to try and protect from everyone altogether is pointless, because someone, somewhere, will crack it.