Time Restricting a game on the Mac
Archives Forums/MacOS X Discussion/Time Restricting a game on the Mac
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| I'm looking to release a demo or time restricted version of my game on Apple.com and wanted to know what would be the best approach. Should a file be created in a secret place and checked to see if the game has expired? I'm not familiar with the registry equivalent on a Mac and would appreciate any advice. Some people have suggested to me that I should have two versions and just have them download the full version. But I wanted to know all my options first. I'm not trying for anything that will stop a determined hacker, just a basic preventative measure. Thanks in advance. |
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| The Mac does not have a registry, which is a good thing. However, there are the folder structures /Library/Application Support and /Users/<Username>/Library/Application Support that could be used for storing that kind of information, preferably as hidden files (files with a leading "."). You'd need superuser rights to access /Library/Application Support, though, which adds complexity to your installer, but you'd be writing a system-wide setting in exchange for the trouble. Shareware is a commonly accepted way of software distribution in the Mac world, which basically translates to that nobody wants to download a second version of the same software when you can just enter an activation code in the version that you already have. (I pretty much prefer that myself.) |
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| Thanks for the information. This is very helpful. For future reference, some people on the Indie Gamer forums had some suggestions as well: http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=12178 |
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