How do i prevent my game from being copied?
Community Forums/General Help/How do i prevent my game from being copied?
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| Just wondering how I might prevent my completed games from being copied. Not that this has happened yet, but since I'm going to try selling my games soon I want to prevent anyone from copying them and cheating me out of money. Thanks if you can answer this, WERDNA |
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| Realistically, you don't: even multi-billion dollar companies like Microsoft and Adobe can't keep people from copying & cracking their software, so it's an illusion to think that you can. That said, there are things that can help prevent copying: 1) Using unique serial numbers, and verify them upon installation to make sure they're valid. To prevent unauthorized use you can check them against and online database you're hosting and make sure that the # of installs is < your maximum allowed 2) Lock the game against the user hardware Now, both of these have massive drawbacks as well: #1 would require internet access, you always end up with people that have a valid reason to reinstall > allowed times, leading to (rightfully) annoyed users and support issues #2 would crap all over itself if the user upgrades to a new computer, or replaces whatever parts you are checking against. Obviously, people get annoyed if they buy a new video card and all of a sudden the game they bought stops working, or if they upgrade to a new computer and can't take their program with them. Unless you have a good support mechanism in place to handle the inevitable problems in short notice and are very, very careful that you know what you're doing, I strongly recommend against going overboard in this area... there are special 3rd party wrappers available that can protect a game including the entire serial number validation and such, but there really isn't a single 'perfect' solution: One way or another, it's likely to be a hindrence to some of your legit customers sooner or later. (And in the end: those people are your customers, the pirates aren't) Do know this: ANY software protection WILL be broken if the game is interesting enough. It may take a little time, but nothing holds forever. You need to make sure that the walls you put up aren't to intrusive to legitimate users, or many may forgo the game altogether. (Case in point: There was a huge stink about Spore's DRM when it was released. Many, many people didn't end up buying it because of that. At the end of the day the big question is still whether or not the DRM helped the company due to reduced copying more or less than that the customers they lost by implementing DRM in the first place. be careful not to make the genuine product significantly less appealing than the cracked version. :-? |
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| Just wondering how I might prevent my completed games from being copied. Keep them on your computer, and never connect that computer to the internet. Strip search everyone who enters the house, and confiscate all blank media from them. Keep your computer locked down so that no one can access it when you're not there. Or just accept that people will copy it, and spend the time you could have spent trying to stop them making the game better so that more of the people who won't copy it will buy it. |
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| i agree that you dont this along with the logo thread, unless the game is nigh on ready to ship sounds like putting the cart before the horse. people dont tend to copy s**te games or activly seek torrents, so if you find yourself with a game thats got 100:1 piracy ratio, then although not making much money youve made a great game 'propper' movie dvd's have unskippable "you wouldnt steal a car" clips and other gumph before you can even watch the damn movie you didnt steal a car to get, it would be nice if they just said "thank you for paying for this dvd have 30 seconds of softcore porn as a way of thanks" (although not on a less than 15 rating dvd obviously ;) ) that and get rid of that hot sweaty fat man with his branding iron, he pops up at the end of the dvd and tbh popcorn dont taste nice coming back up |
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| While I agree that you won't stop any software from being cracked no matter how hard you try, you can still stop 'schoolyard piracy' by using DRM software such as Armadillo/Software Passport. That will at least stop somebody who has bought the software from passing it around to anybody that wants it. But you'll never prevent DRM from being cracked so don't give yourself an ulcer over it when it inevitably happens. Another tip is to upload fake torrents that are the equivalent size of your game, but don't work after download, or are a file full of random crap, or only download as far as 98% etc. The only abuse you'll get from this, will be from warezers who insist that you are robbing them of their 'freedoms' and 'privacy'. |
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| madonna did that years ago with her music or american life album songs were correctly titled and the same length but 30 seconds or so into the song she bitches at the listener bout 'stealing her music' or something got a bit of a backlash/publicity etc, and iir people started searching for the fakes so they could remix her :D |
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| 'propper' movie dvd's have unskippable "you wouldnt steal a car" clips and other gumph before you can even watch the damn movie you didnt steal a car to get, it would be nice if they just said "thank you for paying for this dvd have 30 seconds of softcore porn as a way of thanks" (although not on a less than 15 rating dvd obviously ;) ) that and get rid of that hot sweaty fat man with his branding iron, he pops up at the end of the dvd and tbh popcorn dont taste nice coming back up Good example of anti-piracy measures annoying legitimate customers. The only people to get irritated by this are the ones who paid for it. |
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| Just wondering how I might prevent my completed games from being copied I think you're getting way ahead of yourself, you've spent the past week or so working on a logo for an imaginary company that currently has nothing but imaginary titles. Personally, I think you should worry about this when you're significantly closer to having something worth publishing. And as a footnote, a couple of things I've published have turned up on torrents and frankly I was quite flattered that people thought it was good enough to bother with! |
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| And as a footnote, a couple of things I've published have turned up on torrents and frankly I was quite flattered that people thought it was good enough to bother with! I guess it could be kinda flattering, along with a 'any publicity is good publicity' kinda thing! |
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| And as a footnote, a couple of things I've published have turned up on torrents and frankly I was quite flattered that people thought it was good enough to bother with! Out of interest, were you being paid royalties or had you received a one-off sum, and had no further financial interest in sales at this point? |
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| Yeah I wouldn't worry about it too much... focus on selling the game first, that's the real hurdle to overcome. Then there's writing a business plan, registering your business, applying for a DBA, getting the website up, setting up an e-commerce service, and all the hassle that goes with publishing your game. Piracy should be the last thing you're thinking about, especially being a small developer and selling your games for a low cost. |
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| There's nothing you can do. Go finish your game. |
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| lol. You all have a very good point, that by worrying too much about this, I will likely go overboard and deter customers. It would actually be almost flattering to know that people consider my games worth stealing :) I think you're getting way ahead of yourself, you've spent the past week or so working on a logo for an imaginary company that currently has nothing but imaginary titles. Personally, I think you should worry about this when you're significantly closer to having something worth publishing. I am close to having something worth publishing :) All I'm waiting on is a final logo, the time it will take to post a video on youtube, a bit more coding, and the annoyance of making my 'company' official. Although I do have one question about that. Do ALL blitzers bother to go through the proccess of registering their business, or do they just start selling their games? I was of the opinion that those of you with small, one man operations just started selling your games right off the bat. Please correct me on this if I am mistaken. WERDNA |
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| You don't need to register a company if you don't wish to. There are benefits to doing so, but it's not mandatory and - depending on your age - may not even be possible. |
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| Good! Thats what I thought. In that case I even closer to actually selling my games! Thanks Gabriel! WERDNA (My first game is likely going to sell for a dollar :) |
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| Quick suggestion: don't sell your game for a dollar. Polish it up to be worth ten dollars - and then sell it for seven. |
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| You don't need to register a company if you don't wish to. There are benefits to doing so, but it's not mandatory and - depending on your age - may not even be possible. You should check your local laws on that... sometimes you have to register your business, even as a sole proprietor. But you will definitely need a DBA (doing business as) unless you run your company under your real name. That can run you about 100 U.S. dollars. But other than that you only need to fill out an additional tax form to make your business legitimate. |
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| What if my business is Illegitimate? Could that lead to legal problems? And how would I go about getting a DBA? Thanks, WERDNA |
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| I'm not entirely sure of the consequences, but chances are you would have to shut down your operations and possibly get fined. You can file a DBA online, a Google search will find the resources you need. You might just want to start off "illegitimate" and see if you can sell your product. Chances are no one will stop you, seeing as you probably won't operate locally, your business will be driven mostly through the internet, and it'll be small at first. It would be really bad to spend all this money on logos and DBA's to find out that it's not going to work out as planned. |
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| Thats what I was planning to do, lol. I'll wait until I actually start making sells, then I'll go about filing a DBA and everything else I might need to do. Thanks Sauer, WERDNA |
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| Just make sure you keep proper accounting from the get-go, because you will be liable to pay sales tax / VAT on sold copies once things start taking off... |
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| I will. Thanks for checking though xlsior! |
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| Cant you just run it as a hobby? In Oz at least you can... |
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| If I could that would be great! |
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