SecureFile: Attempt to protect AGS games from piracy...

[Dualnames]

This is probably a stupid thread, but I've been thinking about piracy and how it affects AGS games.

So I came up with SecureFile. It's a way to protect AGS games (commercial apparently), and I can implement it really easy. The whole point was to make a protection that wouldn't bother the users but still be unbreakable. So what is this all about?

CAN YOU BREAK IT? CAN YOU PLAY THE GAME WITHOUT KNOWING THE SERIAL? OR CAN YOU MAKE A PIRATED VERSION OF THE GAME THAT YOU CAN DISTRIBUTE?

I'm not planning on handing the code of the EXE , it's out of the question.

New version (1.3)

Attempt HERE

Now its unbreakable via Hex editor.


Comments, suggestions and anything related is welcome.

Can't touch this!!

[m0ds]

IMO, a developer is better off allowing someone who may not have paid for the commercial game to still play it. But thats just through knowing so many game makers and film directors who prefer to have feedback than money.

I ******* hated the Beneath A Steel Sky and Larry security things. What a major 1980's/90's suck!!!1

LOL soz this so seemed like a post by Joey Diperla :|

[Dualnames]

IMO, a developer is better off allowing someone who may not have paid for the commercial game to still play it. But thats just through knowing so many game makers and film directors who prefer to have feedback than money.

I ******* hated the Beneath A Steel Sky and Larry security things. What a major 1980's/90's suck!!!1

LOL soz this so seemed like a post by Joey Diperla :|

I do agree with that opinion, it sort of makes sense, though for example DITR has many versions of pirated copies on the web, some even offer the leaflet in a pdf. And for a game that is worth 18 dollars approx, everytime someone pirates it Alkis is losing that amount.

And I've seen really a lot of pirated versions of DITR across the internet. For an obscure game, it's really more important that people play it, but for other AGS commercial games, isn't it important to get some amount of money? Especially if you have a team that you need to pay, I guess. 

[Gord10]

Well, many big companies like Ubisoft, Valve are using a noticable security precautions on their games, which were successfully cracked eventually, as I know. I don't think a cracker would spend his/her all time on a single shareware game, but they could crack the SecureFile system itself in order to reach the other games that use it.

I wouldn't implement a security protection on my game when I start working on commercial ones, because I believe not a majority of people would pay for my game just because they couldn't pass the security and play the game illegally. Wouldn't want to bother the players with something that can be easily passed.

[Dualnames]

Agreed there Gord10, but who said it's easy to pass?

EDIT: But you have a valid point, sins of a solar empire had very low protection, but the game made money, and was highly succesful. The designers said that we'd rather have people play the game even if that means not buyng it.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Look at World of Goo.  That game reached one of the highest piracy downloads the year it was released.  Without that 'piracy' word of mouth, that game probably wouldn't have sold nearly as much as it did.

Piracy is honestly another way of advertising.  But it's free advertising.  It's word of mouth advertising.  Of course you're losing out on sales by having them download it illegally, but I think overall you'll bring in more money.

Of course this is all my own opinion..

[Dualnames]

Look at World of Goo.  That game reached one of the highest downloads the year it was released.  Without that 'piracy' word of mouth, that game probably wouldn't have sold nearly as much as it did.

Piracy is honestly another way of advertising.  But it's free advertising.  It's word of mouth advertising.  Of course you're losing out on sales by having them download it illegally, but I think overall you'll bring in more money.

Of course this is all my own opinion..

I do have to say, that yes you all guys have a valid point, but I'd love someone who's made a commercial game out of his pocket to share his thoughts.

[m0ds]

I'd be happy to see a piracy system built in to an AGS game, but not as an external factor.

I can't question price but really you can't question worth, an 18 dollar game may be "worth" more to you than it is me. I don't want people here to suffer from their work, but hey, at the same time, I hate it when the world gets more anal about other people. It just creates an anal fest, untrusting world. But hey, maybe it's just cos I'll always be fairly partial to piracy. I'm sure people will use your thing and that what it does is good

Ryan has a good point. In the commercial world, you have to take what comes especially when it comes to your game being more successful through word of mouth than through its sales. I won't let anyone tell me it's different, because it ain't.

[Mr Flibble]

I consider DRM a bit of a waste of time really.

It only really inconveniences the people who wanted to share your game within understandable and legal limits (grey area alert but you know what I mean).

If your game is unpopular then the DRM will do what I said before, and people will be unlikely to pirate it anyway. There won't be a torrent of a game nobody wanted to play.
If your game IS successful then the DRM will be cracked anyway, so you wasted time and effort.

Also what kind of scumbag would pirate a £5 game?

[m0ds]

How much was Escape from Delirum?

[Mr Flibble]

A hundred million pounds?

[m0ds]

So, that's why they never made a sequel then, me and every other player swindled 'em out of it! :p

[Vince Twelve]

Regarding the strength of your security system, Dual, it's very easily breakable.  When a file is pirated and shared with others via bittorrent or whatever file sharing service, it was originally uploaded by someone who bought the game first.  So, to break this security, all the person has to do is buy the game, enter their code, and then upload it to the file sharing site.  If you have to enter the serial in every time you play (that would be really annoying to your legit users) the pirate would just have to include the serial number in a txt file along with the game.  And boom, your game is cracked. 

The one way that I can think of to combat this (And I've considered doing it for Resonance, but do not think that I actually will, because there's not really much point.) would be to have the purchaser's name (the name on the credit card used to purchase) encrypted into the serial number.  So, when they enter it in, the game is essentially tagged with their name.  Then, when the game shows up on a file sharing site, I can download it, find the name of the person who uploaded it and then... I don't know.  Something.  Perhaps, if the name of the purchaser showed up on the game's title screen, like saying "Thanks for buying the game, Bill Henderson!" would be enough to make people not want to upload it to file sharing sites.

Another way that I thought of for combatting piracy (and might do it for Resonance) is uploading versions of the game to file sharing sites around the web myself that look like real copies, but actually only let you play about 1/3 or a few hours of the game, and then tell you to buy it to play the rest.  It's like an extended demo to screw with the pirates!

DITR has many versions of pirated copies on the web, some even offer the leaflet in a pdf. And for a game that is worth 18 dollars approx, everytime someone pirates it Alkis is losing that amount.

That's actually very untrue, there.  When someone downloads Alkis' game, it sucks, definitely, because they're enjoying (or not) someone else's hard work without properly compensating him for it.  However, Alkis isn't cheated out of 18 bucks, because Alkis didn't actually lose anything tangible, like a box or a dvd or anything.  A file was copied.  And it wasn't necessarily a lost sale, because the person downloading the game might not have ever had any intention of buying the game.  So if he didn't download it, he also wouldn't have bought it.  Alkis wouldn't have any more money than he has now.  Therefore, no money lost.  However, like I said, it's still sucky that the pirate is enjoying something that someone else worked hard on.

Also, there's the possible creation of more sales based on people who tried the game who wouldn't have tried it otherwise and enjoyed it so much that they thought it was worth paying for, or decided to buy Alkis' next game, or suggested the game to his friends.  I'd bet that's a pretty small amount of extra sales, but still possible.

So, 1 download = $18 dollar loss is a pretty iffy statement.

[Jared]

What gets me with the piracy issue is the simple fact that people who download en masse to the point where it's noticeable are people who just don't like paying for stuff and/or don't care much about the games. If there was no piracy, in that allegedly wonderful hypothetical world, those people would just be bludging and borrowing the games off others. I think for most games the losses from piracy would be around 1-10% of the figures that companies like to speculate on.

I speak as somebody who knows a lot of people in the warez scene who probably only play a tenth of the games they download, if that.

[Vince Twelve]

Just wanted to add that I think the super small indie game company's biggest defense against piracy is that they're real people.  Like WadjetEye Games is mostly just one dude working on games from his apartment.  Some people pirate because they're sticking it to the man (Fuck the RIAA, Fuck the MPAA, Fuck the ETCETERA!).  But how can you justify ripping off the dude who's making games just to barely make ends meet and does so because he loves games and really wants to share his creations with people?

On the flip side, when you ARE the dude in his apartment just barely making ends meet, you don't have a hojillion slobbering blind fanboys who will shell out $60 for whatever new piece of crap you have to ram down their throats (EA, MICROSOFT, ETCETERA!), and with so few customers, how can you justify treating them like criminals?  ("Thanks for your money, now put in this 20 digit code and then your game will communicate with our online servers every time you start it up to make sure you're not a dirty rotten thief.")  Only the huge developers can get away with that shit.  And by doing so, more people just feel like pirating their games to stick it to them.

So I say, in general, indies should stay DRM free and take the possible small hit to sales in exchange for the good will of their customers, who hopefully will enjoy the game and appreciate your trust enough to return and buy the next game too.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I'll have to admit that I've never purchased software before.    I usually download them...

Games on the other hand, for some reason I seem to be willing to fork over the money.  I usually only buy games for my console (360); mainly because my computer is shite.


And that was a good idea Vince, that if you were to have an encryption code have it contain and display the purchasers name once entered.  It's definitely not going to stop it, but it does put a little fear in their minds if they decided to pirate it for everyone else.

But I'm totally against having to enter an encryption code unless it's for a high end commercial game that doesn't need word of mouth to sell.


I was going to say pretty much everything Vince had Just wrote in his new message while I was typing.  So I deleted it.

[Layabout]

I don't really think its worth the time or effort for Indies to implement DRM systems into their games. Probably the 'best' way to do it would be to have a valve like system where your serial number is linked to your account and you have to use the internets to play. This systems works really well as a detterance as your steam account will be banned if you try to circumvent the DRM. This works particuarly well for multiplayer games on steam, though the single player games can still be cracked and playable.

There is no such thing as an infallable DRM system. You do not have the resources of Valve, so unless you decide to go down the route of only selling on Steam, and if you are able to implement valves DRM into your game, only then will you have this kind of pretection. It's a lot of effort and limits yourself to one retailer. Is it really worth your time, effort and possibly money?

Pirates will find a way. Most of them don't even care about what they are cracking, they just get a massive kick out of cracking other people's software.

[Akatosh]

I... think I've figured out a way to bypass the security. It's worked on two PCs so far, but that could have been luck, and I can't try it out on another.

Do me a favor, will ya?

(Different version, try it if the other b0rks up. Try "just hitting return" with that one, too.)

[Joseph DiPerla]

LOL soz this so seemed like a post by Joey Diperla :|

Heh? Am I a running gag or something now?

[m0ds]

You always have been dude

  8)