[info] use leechers for your own purpose - HA!

[nGFX]

so your game is leeched?

your bandwidth is drained?

the swf is illegally linked?

or the page the swf was embeded?

you've been told to use it to your advantage?

place links to your homepage, so that "missleaded" visitors could see who is behind the great game?

let me tell you something: forget it! take the game down. put it on a new url every day!
you will NOT have ANY advantage!

ROFL! nothing will happen! NO ONE will visit your homepage!
you don't believe it?

ok, here comes a story ...
as most regular visitors know i have written a game called "DynaMiner" which has been leeched. the game is plastered with links to my HP, the page with the swf was full of links to my HP.
statistics:
although i have replaced the game's page with an empty (except some images of the game and a link to my HP) the game is visited by about 5000 different IP adresses a day. i log EVERY access to that page, i can identify EVERYONE who came from the game's page and visits my HP.
from 5000 visits, at max 5 visit ngfx.de afterwards. out of about 545.000 people who have played the game, 24 people visited the creators HP (maybe to see if there are more games to play)

same goes for splitted images (by far not so popular, but the logs prove the above).

conclusion:
you can let people link to games that are some 100k, it doesn't hurt you, but it doesn't help you either.
but when it comes to games that are large (and i think that the 990k for dynaminer IS large) you'll pay more than you get out of it.

people who visit shovelware / leech sites don't care about YOU as the author, they don't care WHO you are, they don't care for the work you have put into the game, they don't care WHERE the game comes from
AS LONG AS THEY CAN PLAY THE GAME - FREE!

this is not against the players, but fact is you WON'T sell ANYTHING to visitors from leech sites.

i'm ok again, but this must be said: either you protect your work or you can make it opensource ...

so have a nice day, nGFX

PS: forget about posting tips how i could prevent leeching. i'm currently writing a pretty failsave method that prevents linking to the swf and/or the page the swf is embeded in. (i know you could still get it from the cache and decompile it ... BUT you will NOT be able to link it.

[youmex]

When nobody should give tips what's the aim of this thread? To state all are evil? Well, at least they are

P.S. Hasn't there been a similar thread a short time ago which also deals whith Dynaminer?

[nGFX]

nope, except the owners of leech and shovelware sites no one i wrote about is evil.

to be precise it was a statement ([info]) and a conclusion dealing with the nature of players.

the other thread was a discussion, collecting oppinions to that subject. ("[disc] leeching, deeplinking, traffic and a highscore board")

i may have posted it to the coffeelounge, but as i'm mostly hang around here and most of us (means developers) know the problem, i posted it here.

nGFX

[luxregina]

Man, you're doomed !

EDIT : I hope things will get better for you !

[Squize]

Just want to say I agree with you a 100% olli ( About everything you wrote, in both posts ).

Lux, if your host isn't charging you, then great, you really deserve it mate.

Squize.

[SaphuA]

Too bad this is happeneing to you, people taking advantage of other people hard work is just... painfull...

You should make you anti-leech script public man... I guess there are a lot of people who would be interrested in it...

[luxregina]

Just thought i should re-explain my statement with clearer ideas :

The point wasn't to brag with my host, as i've already said, the traffic was quite poor on 2K before being leeched, and it isn't the 40.000 supplementary visitors that will compare with the 545.000 visits nGFX is talking about. And, in my case, i'm rather happy with the new traffic because it gets people to play my game, what wasn't happening much before

My comment was more on the fact that my statistics on how the visitors moved in the site.

Eventhough it's a RPG, which means that players are more likely to investigate for the background story and stuff like that, most of them visited almost all the rubrics of the site, even the forums.

I don't think these visitors where that different from nGFX ones, so i don't think the statement " people (...) don't care about YOU as the author, they don't care WHO you are, they don't care for the work you have put into the game, they don't care WHERE the game comes from" is totally, totally valid.

I understand you are p*ssed, and hurt, but i don't think people are that inconsiderate : i'm pretty sure they care for your work, as the enjoyed playing your game ...
Now, it's true that "Who you are, and where the game is located" is naturally not their obsession : you do not mean more to them than "minijuegos" or any leeching site ...
Though, once they will play your second game, or third game, and still enjoy it, they might remember they saw your name somewhere, and then realize they like your game, and come back directly at you, next time ... i really think this is how you build notoriety

Did the players how played Dinaminer played Cauldron ? if not, is there a way to pimp Cauldron in the Dynaminer game : I believe that that's how you build an audience : making them come back for more, and that's exactly why those leeching sites are leeching

You make good games nGFX, and i hate to see you bitter to that point, because i know next time, you will be less willing to show your next creation, and that's something that won't be positive for us, in FK ...

The point of my rant is just to try to tone down that bitterness that seems to last sorry if I didn't explained that well in the first post

[nGFX]

hey lux!

i'm not as bitter as it may have sounded, really. (i'm still a bit bitter about the "use it to your advantage", but that's another point ) i just thought it would help to shape a certain type of awareness.

I don't think these visitors where that different from nGFX ones, so i don't [...]

i exaggerated the message a bit, but i think that there IS a difference between the visitors from 2k and dynaminer. i have visited a lot of leech-sites during the last weeks (to see who's behind the link) and i think that the "teaser" on the site seperates a lot of players. (even the little picture does).

i think that the people who are willing to play 2k after they have read the teaser, are willing to read the reast of the story, too. (as i really, really like your game this is not meant depreciative and as there is SO much more to explore). dynaminer is just a game amongst many (no need to something about the author).

it seems to be difference regarding to the genre of the games (545.000 in 21 days to 40.000 in (don't know how long 2k is online now)
if "my" players don't get what they want (a action game that is simple to reach and play) they just close the window and open another one. (and i don't see it as a bad point from a visitors point of view, and it means for me that i have done a good job )

Did the players who played Dinaminer played Cauldron ? if not, is there a way to pimp Cauldron in the Dynaminer game : I believe that that's how you build an audience : making them come back for more, and that's exactly why those leeching sites are leeching

nope, they didn't (i have watched that, too)
i have placed a link beside the dynaminer game to the "fish'n'fun" game (you could win something there), this link has been used roughly 15 times. (and if someone who has played DM would have visited ngfx.de, he/she would have found the link to cauldron ...)
cauldron itself has been leach from about 60 different sites (i even found a non working "loader" only swf (ripped) on one site), but still due to the nature of the game the impact wasn't as large as with dynaminer ...

<olli/>

[luxregina]

Good ! i'm happy to see there is no misunderstanding between us

I think you state the point : the type of game could influence the type of visitors you get on a site, and how they behave, once hooked ... don't know, but it could be interesting to sort this out more precisely for marketing purpose ...

[ and to clarify the thing about traffic, since 2K is online (november 2003) I've barely passed 60.000 unique visitors, so i'm not likely to have the same hosting problems than you ...]

Ok, now, i know it will sound really 'over-the-top' : please, read between lines but here is my point of view :

The online gaming craze is just begining, and nGFX, 1C1p, extrajertz, Kazoowie etc are among the main actors that play a role in that expansion.

The seats all those (pseudo?) companies take now (if they carry-on) could be expensive tomorrow - What i mean is that the bases for future success of your game maker activity is building now, and you just got 545.000 (minus some unaware visitors ) personns that saw your name.
For the next game you will make, if it drains around the same amount of visitors, it is likely that a pourcentage of them will remember your name - and then, your activity will get more attention, and for the game even after ...etc...

So will come a day where your name will be known enough to be a kind of garantee for the ones that want to buy/play one of your game, and that huge traffic that was so painfull then could become a commercial proof.

I don't know for you, but i would like to read one day, " Ho, it is the last "place name here", let's check it, it must be good !" or something like "Damn, i need a game to promote my movie/product/activity : let's ask those guys from "name here", they make such good games".
But this cannot happen as long as your name isn't spread among 'gaming sites' and players, or i beliee that is what's happening now

I don't know if it's me that is waaaay to naive, or unrealistic, but i still tend to take all of the hype you got as a good news, minus the price you had to pay with your host ( which i have absolutely no idea ).

[nGFX]

yep, agreed ...

just one quick note about my "beeing p*ssed" about leechers (as good as the exposure is/was ...)
the main idea i had with the game was to sell it ".". therefore i only wanted to make it public through my page (and tried to protect it from beein leeched), cause i wanted to test the "playability" for, say, a month or two, take it down, sell and forget it ...

i have/had contact to some sites that showed interrest and were willing to pay the amount of money i wanted for it. the problem is: you can't sell a game (that's what i was told) that is available online, for free, for 10000000 of people. as soon as the game could be reached from whatever shovel-ware site you choose, there was no point for a site to PAY for a license.

I don't know if it's me that is waaaay to naive, or unrealistic, but i still tend to take all of the hype you got as a good news, minus the price you had to pay with your host ( which i have absolutely no idea ).

me, too. but this news was WAY to expensive for me ... learned my lesson here, the next game will be overly protected ...

<olli/>