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Protect My .Exe

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
So then it did work, it worked for two weeks. And during those two weeks by your own admission there was a noticible drop.
How can you possibly conclude that copy protection didn't work?
DRM is supposed to protect your game, but it doesn't - It's a delaying tactic, nothing more. I also don't really consider 2 weeks a success, not really.

Second, this particular DRM took weeks and weeks to implement. As I said before, you have to weigh the cost of implementation, to how much you'll get back. This was on a AAA F1 game for EA, so the returns could be deemed to be worth "trying", especially as the returns on a PSX game would outweigh the cost of having a senior dev implement some kind of security. Also, this had some "physical" security that we could detect. The disc itself was written in a special way, and when pirates copied it, it wasn't there anymore. You can't do that on normal PC games, about all you can do is "sign" the EXE. This is a good first step, but make no mistake, it's only a first step.

Third, the tools available to crack PSX games at the time were virtually non-existent. It was very hard. But PC games have to cope with some amazing tools, making it very easy to crack the game.

As I said above, it's all down to how much you think you can delay them, vs the cost of you doing so. You can never "protect" your game - ever (short of a server based game), you can only delay. If you can afford a few months dedicated to DRM, knowing that it'll ultimately fail within a week - then fine. In fact, I'll even give you some tips on the bests ways to confuse them.


DRM tips
1) Don't just test and fail. These are incredibly simple to discover and remove.
2) On PC buy a code signing certificate. This lets you know that the EXE has been modified - watch out for anti-virus programs, they can lock your EXE when your trying to check it.
3) Don't put protection code in a DLL, they'll just alter that one file.
4) When you detect a "change" degrade the game - don't fail. Only fail about 5 or 10 min into the game. This makes testing a crack a nightmare. They might think it's all working, but it's not. This is how we held off the hackers for 2 weeks, they had to go into the game and play for a while.
5 Put hundreds of these checks and "flaws" into the game, making it really hard for them to find and spot them all.
6) You want the game to play well at the start, as this means hackers will effectively be putting round a free demo for you.
7) Remember that only a small fraction of those playing the crack will EVER buy your game.
8) weigh up the PR of having DRM free, to what you MIGHT get back in sales. Indie games traditionally won't sell massive numbers, so your weeks of effort might just cost you any sales.
9) PR again - Sometimes folk that play cracks think of them as extended demos, and really appreciate the effort devs go to help if things aren't working - even to those with cracks. You not only get good PR from it, but many will then buy it because you've been so cool over it.
10) Lastly.... if your game is just an installer, or has a key that isn't validated, then protecting the game is pointless - they'll just share the installer and the key.

I will say though.... If they game is easy to share (an installer or key), then DRM can help in stopping "cheats". Hackers usually won't be interested in hacking it as it's easy to copy, and that means cheats are on their own. If the game is signed and protected, then cheating is much harder. They'll end up trying to modify the game as it runs, and you can check that as well.
 
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darthhawk

Guest
This discussion started out with a very legitimate question and went to ridiculousness.

Piracy is stealing. You got something for which payment is required by purposely avoiding to pay for it = stealing and is a crime.

Implementing DRM does not make individuals/business entities bad or helping piracy. The problem is the big companies have implemented DRM in ways over the years that made paying customers suffer. Like blacklisting certain hardware. There's been DRM in the past that would prevent the game from starting or crash the game if it detected CD/DVD drives that could copy the game disk. That was bad business practice and it made it so paying customers couldn't play certain games. Or DRM that would limit the number of installs. That's just dirty and annoying. DRM is a valid and ethical way to market digital products. There's nothing wrong with it. But it needs to be done without dirty tricks. And yes your game will most likely be hacked in the future like all big AAA games have been so are you just going to give up and settle for nothing or $50 when you could have gotten more from your game before pirates cracked it? You have the right to protect your digital asset(s) and get money from it. Giving your game out for free because of fear it's going to be pirated anyway is giving in to the bad guys. Having said that Stardock Games doesn't use DRM in Gal Civ 3, they've actively stated that. But they do require users to register an account.

Don't let anyone ever tell you your game isn't good enough to get on STEAM or because you're making games with Game Maker you're not good enough or your game won't make any money. That's baloney. People make money with Game Maker games all the time. I've made "games" with game maker studio that got me noticed and landed me a job because the individual saw I was creative and knew an efficient way to structure code.

And lastly if you go to a pirating site your computer DOES have a rootkit virus. That's just how they work. Don't visit those sites.
 
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Dreadshadow

Guest
Sigh. Everywhere a topic on copy protection emegerge, it becomes a hot potato.
Okay.
Let me share my opinion on this, by giving an answer as an example.

So an OP question was:

"Is there coding that goes into this? Also, is there a code /DLL/ extension that prevents data from being edited or decompiled?"

Okay. Assume there is an encryption that nobody can break and your game has fully protected your assets, without having the end user suffer from it!
Assume there is the-very-bad-hacker-that-wants-to-rip-your-assets.
The hacker realizes that this is impossible.
Theoretically always for our example.
So... the assets can be accessed by the program. The program can decrypt and use them, so the player can play, right?
Let's say the hacker plays the game and capture a video of it. Then he takes screen shots, and piece after piece rips the assets.
Do you understand what is going on here?
The player also plays the game so the music loops, then cuts pieces of the sound with no sound fx and here is the songs ripped too.
Sound fx might be harder to rip but hey, who cares about them really right?

So what the example above proves is that protecting assets is almost impossible.
And I find no reason why really.

DRM and copy - protection methods is a different kind of protection.
DRM tries to stop piract from hurting the early sales of a software product.
It is a different approach and if you will see, the industry doesn't care of protecting their assets that way.

A lot of games got ripped.
The fact is that nothing can be used to a game, even if the game is for free.
The respective companies, that are the copyright owners, will probably hunt you down legally, in order to protect their intellectual property.

So the safe way to protect your assets, is to ask a lawyer how you can solid copyright them.
Copyrighted stuff can not be used without the copyright owner's permissioon.
If someone spends 1000 hours to make a game using a recolored rip of your assets, then that person's game will not be online for too long, since you can legally move against any host of such a game.
Having a free game out via torrent? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!
But still, the ripped asset will indirectly advertize YOUR game.
Have you seen one common fact with ripped stuff though? Those stuff are from already successful games.
If you earn so much money by a game franchise, you really don't care if somebody uses a rip really. If you do, since you are the copyright owner, you can do as I said. Move legally.

In case you wanna protect your software from piracy, there is only one way in my humble opinion. Make software deserving the money. What do I mean? A bad game will not sell. Especially today that steam has a refund policy. A bad game will make owners feel bad and many people will not even play a pirated copy for too long. Most of them might unintall it. On the other hand, a good game will sell to people that like buying their stuff. The game will eventually be pirated in that case. SO? Here is what can happen. Imagine someone not having the money at the moment to buy your game. But your game is awesome. Many people buy it. So you don't care about that guy who got it pirrated. Then the person ejoys the game. That person might probably feel regret and shame for not thanking you for such an experience. That person might actually pay to get it. Or not! Most will not pay. So here comes Good Old Games.

I had Terraria on Steam. There is a pirated version availabe. I don't even try. I BOUGHT Terraria AGAIN DRM free from GOG. I did not shared it on torrents and I respected the developers. Can you see why? DRM free shows respect and TRUST to me. They do not approach me as a potential disrespectful individual. They approach me with respect, that's why I act according to the circumstances.
I also bought Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 4, Bastion and Transistor. There are pirated copies of them out there. So why do I spend money for them? Well here is why!
IN MY OPINION THEY DESERVE MY MONEY. I WANT TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS!
Bastion was superb. It had its flaws, but it was an extraordinary experience.
Transistor beated me. I was crying in the end. I loved the game!
Heores of Might and Magic 4 is very old. STILL it is awesome and deserves the money.

See? An old game still makes sales. To reach such an acievement though, you should not really care too much for things like piracy. You should care more about giving the player an unforgetable experience. That will give you an edge. Can you imagine Notch hunting down every pirated Minecraft copy? Notch changed the gaming world. Notch made something SO good Microsoft bought it for 1.5 Billion dollars. Would you care then about piracy? :p

You wanna protect your assets? Encrypt the files through an alogrithm, then apply the reverse proccess using GML. It will be somewhat secure... you will eventually get hacked, but still you will have a protection to start with. A protection that will consume more computing resources, without providing the end user with something in compensation. And since you will eventually get hacked, ripped, cracked or whatever, you will end up consuming resources from the devices of the legal users, for no reason. You end up punishing the legal owners of the game. See?

It is a huge debate and a hot potato, but I wonder why are so concerned about that.

P.S.
Cracking something isn't just for fun. Most of the time someone wants to be rewarded for the effort. Meaning an executable file with a crack and a dll might contain something fishy.
Some people talk about anti viruses that detect cracks as false alerts to prevent piracy. Well... maybe. Maybe not though. A tojan horse might never harm your pc. Just when you play Skyrim, 10% of your CPU and GPU will be used to mine bitcoins for the hacker, without you even knowing that. Just a scenario. There are many reasons to avoid pirated products already. Why bother breaking our heads to this cat-mouse situation?
It's better to focus on making good games. For real. If the game is good, money will come. Nobody gets really hurt. But that's my personal humble opinion. :)
 
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fxokz

Guest
Can someone politely explain what a drm is? Im sure im not the only one who doesnt have a clue what it is.
 
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ParodyKnaveBob

Guest
Can someone politely explain what a drm is? Im sure im not the only one who doesnt have a clue what it is.
Digital Rights Management

(In the future, you can type "somenewterm definition" into a popular search engine and generally get an immediate answer.)

Regards!
Bob $:^ J
 
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Dreadshadow

Guest
Can someone politely explain what a drm is? Im sure im not the only one who doesnt have a clue what it is.
As already mentioned, it is an acrony for Digital Rights Management.
For instance, activation keys, USB dongles, On line activation, always on-line authentication, require original CD to run, rootkit-like files injected to your system.
In general, methods that attempt to stop or delay piracy.
Some times such methods bite the butt of the legit end users though, for instance the disaster securom caused (securom was a really bad drm).
 
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