- #Get serial numbers for any software and program mac how to#
- #Get serial numbers for any software and program mac serial number#
- #Get serial numbers for any software and program mac generator#
- #Get serial numbers for any software and program mac pro#
I delete the first record, which leaves me with serial number 1 heading the list. FileMaker garbles the first record in the list because it stumbles on the Excel header, so I start my list with 0.
#Get serial numbers for any software and program mac pro#
I import my serial numbers into a FileMaker Pro document.
#Get serial numbers for any software and program mac generator#
Note that Generator is a 68k Mac program, but since it produces about 120,000 serial numbers per minute, it is probably not worth writing an Accelerated for PowerMac version. I recommend that you generate a reasonable quantity of numbers - you probably don't need a million serial numbers yet, nor do you want to devote 25meg to storing the file. You can select start and end numbers from 1 to 999999. Generator cranks out a couple thousand serial numbers per second, and saves them as a tab delineated Excel file. The system should be easy for you, easy for the registered user, and easy for the folks that answer your 800 line, fill out the MasterCard slips, and give out the serial numbers. There should be a minimum of 1000 wrong numbers for every right number or the "Hunt and Peck Hackers" will perform brute force solutions instead of doing their history homework. There should be more invalid numbers possible than valid numbers. The game program needs to accept and reward any valid serial number, and spurn any invalid serial number. The serial number should be unique, and the gratification should be immediate. The easiest and most effective item for this market is a serial number. The opportunity to sell something - an end to the "please register" reminder, a game enhancement, and early access to my next game. Electronic distribution is the same scenario, except the buyer receives a bill from AOL at the end of the month, and I still have nothing. Now I need to encourage the buyer to spend a little more. However, the buyer has my game (and 999 other games), the distributor has $19.95, and I have nothing. Imagine what the book business would be like if books cost publishers six cents a page to print, and every person in the country had a nickel-per-page copy machine at home.Ĭompilation CD's (One Thousand Great Games for $19.95) are an effective way spread around demos and shareware games. However, if distributing games on floppies, compilation CDs, or via modem, the economies of scale work against you.Ī floppy loaded with your data and labeled costs more to produce than a blank floppy (purchased in boxes of 20) costs a potential pirate.
At the current state of the art, your CD costs you under a buck to produce, and a copy costs the freelance pirates about $10 - so, they might as well buy an original. To copy protect a CD-ROM, all you have to do is insist that the CD be present (or some 200meg file on the CD) before the program runs. The glossy box people do not have this problem as much, since they publish mostly on CD-ROM which costs peanuts to reproduce, but much more to copy. It will immediately find its way onto the Internet, and the folks who "crack" your program will think that they belong in the next William Gibson novel. Having a single serial number hard-wired into your program doesn't work. So, the game itself needs to respond to serial number input. While the reward need not be big, it needs to be immediate. However, the main reward is that the game stops asking for a serial number every time you play it. Ambrosia (to use the most successful example in the Mac electronic distribution world) offers contests and the like to registered users. The reward for having a serial number need not be big, but there must be some reward. Ambrosia recently bought a company, Humm-V, from voluntary contributions - folks who were willing to send in $15 to $20 for a serial number. People will respond positively to paying for games if they are reminded gently and given the opportunity to pay at their own pace. These people would never go to their Porsche dealer and take off with a red one, saying, "It's only a Porsche," even though Porsches are supposed to be fun too. Given a choice, the average game player will say, "It's only a game," and never think twice about ethics. People play games for fun, and paying for things isn't much fun. They also need individual serial numbers for individual customers because Games need serial numbers more than any other software. I am offering no glamour here, but I might save you a couple of day's work.
#Get serial numbers for any software and program mac how to#
The computer game business is a dog and pony show, and this is about how to deal with pony poop. This material isn't rocket science - it is just an easy way to do something that you need to do.
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