Posting here so it won't scare potential new customers as rarely anyone looks in the offtopic section first.
I am genuinely curious why did you invest time, money and energy nto implementng a DRM for NESMaker. There's literally no reason to implement a DRM these days, not financial, not any.
First of all, I could easily disable that silly DRM with just ILSpy. Not going to do that, but it'd be easy. Next, I'd like to go through every possible reason I can think off for you to implement one and tell you why it's bovine excrements.
- Piracy & lost sales
First of all, NM is a niche product. Niche products are rarely pirated, especially one such as this. Secondly, pirates will always find a way. They broke Denuvo, for pete's sake. True, Voksi is behind bars now, but how long will it be before someone else decides to break Denuvo just because? Lost sales are a myth either - if people won't buy it, they won't buy it, regardless whether or not pirate version is available. I suggest reading this amazing series of articles that may straighten few things up. This was one of the more obvious reasons, now onto the others. Please note that at no point I claim that's why you did that, just going through of all reason that I think are possible.
- You want complete control over how software is used.
If this is one of the reasons you use DRM for NES Maker, it's really worrisome for me. 2 activation limit and having to reactivate the software that otherwise would work on any machine regardless of whether or not is connected to the internet is kinda harsh, don't you think? Not to mention that "use NES Maker to do original content only" thing on the splash, which I think is cute. Listen up, people will use it to make fangames and whatnot, yes even based on Nintendo games (using it as a Zelda Maker is one of the more obvious choices), just like they do it with game maker or Unity. And the only people that could be held accountable for such are developers themselves. You (Joe and co) have nothing to worry about. I mean, is a knife manufacturer responsible for all stabbings or a person who does the stabbing? You can't do anything about that, anyway.
- You think people who downloaded a pirated copy would make some high profile NES homebrew and you wouldn't see a dime.
Again, read this amazing series of articles. Once you do, you will know about CwF+RtB formula (connect with fans + reason to buy). Yes, it was originally coined for music/film industries, but it works for other industries such as game dev as well. The RtB part is obvious - you are the only seller of flashers and blank cartridges that are guaranteed to work with NES Maker. Yes, INL has its own store as well, but their flashers are not guaranteed to work with NM, unlike flashers bought through you. You are pretty good with connecting with fans as well so people will buy NM just to support you - you don't need DRM to force them to do that. Not to mention that if they going to sell a game made with NM, they're getting into large amount of issues and not necessarily only legal ones - imagine someone telling eBay or Amazon that the game being sold was made using pirated software - listings would go down fast.
Also, two activations limit? Seriously???
I am genuinely curious why did you invest time, money and energy nto implementng a DRM for NESMaker. There's literally no reason to implement a DRM these days, not financial, not any.
First of all, I could easily disable that silly DRM with just ILSpy. Not going to do that, but it'd be easy. Next, I'd like to go through every possible reason I can think off for you to implement one and tell you why it's bovine excrements.
- Piracy & lost sales
First of all, NM is a niche product. Niche products are rarely pirated, especially one such as this. Secondly, pirates will always find a way. They broke Denuvo, for pete's sake. True, Voksi is behind bars now, but how long will it be before someone else decides to break Denuvo just because? Lost sales are a myth either - if people won't buy it, they won't buy it, regardless whether or not pirate version is available. I suggest reading this amazing series of articles that may straighten few things up. This was one of the more obvious reasons, now onto the others. Please note that at no point I claim that's why you did that, just going through of all reason that I think are possible.
- You want complete control over how software is used.
If this is one of the reasons you use DRM for NES Maker, it's really worrisome for me. 2 activation limit and having to reactivate the software that otherwise would work on any machine regardless of whether or not is connected to the internet is kinda harsh, don't you think? Not to mention that "use NES Maker to do original content only" thing on the splash, which I think is cute. Listen up, people will use it to make fangames and whatnot, yes even based on Nintendo games (using it as a Zelda Maker is one of the more obvious choices), just like they do it with game maker or Unity. And the only people that could be held accountable for such are developers themselves. You (Joe and co) have nothing to worry about. I mean, is a knife manufacturer responsible for all stabbings or a person who does the stabbing? You can't do anything about that, anyway.
- You think people who downloaded a pirated copy would make some high profile NES homebrew and you wouldn't see a dime.
Again, read this amazing series of articles. Once you do, you will know about CwF+RtB formula (connect with fans + reason to buy). Yes, it was originally coined for music/film industries, but it works for other industries such as game dev as well. The RtB part is obvious - you are the only seller of flashers and blank cartridges that are guaranteed to work with NES Maker. Yes, INL has its own store as well, but their flashers are not guaranteed to work with NM, unlike flashers bought through you. You are pretty good with connecting with fans as well so people will buy NM just to support you - you don't need DRM to force them to do that. Not to mention that if they going to sell a game made with NM, they're getting into large amount of issues and not necessarily only legal ones - imagine someone telling eBay or Amazon that the game being sold was made using pirated software - listings would go down fast.
Also, two activations limit? Seriously???