Things to know before releasing a game ? Trust certificates, others...

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Elgarion

Guest
Hi everybody,

I'm slowly thinking about releasing my game. It should be released on Windows. I've been told about some kind of trust certificate to avoid blocks. Is it a thing? I didn't find a lot of concrete information about it on the web. Did someone here have to do that ? In this case, a short "how to" would be super-kind.

In general, what are the things I should care about before releasing my piece of s... software ? ;-) Any info would be very welcome (and I'm sure this thread could be very usefull for early game devs.

Have a nice day !
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Advertising it properly is about as important as making a good game to begin with. Start posting screenshots on twitter, put links to it in your forum signatures, that kind of stuff. Otherwise it's just gonna come out and nothing happens.

If people know your download is genuine they'll download it even if it's named "virus.exe" and requires admin rights to run, there's so many false positives with the Windows "hey don't run stuff you downloaded from the internet" screen that a lot of people just ignore it.
 
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Elgarion

Guest
@Yal You're definitly right concerning marketing.

I'v read some docs about Trust Certificate and how to get it, for those who are still interested. I'm on the edge about it, as it appears to be a little bit costly (100 dollars for 1 year key) with no evidence of usefulness. If someone has experience in this field, I'm so eager to read his testimony !

Trust Certificate : what is it and how to get it :
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dxtecharts/authenticode-signing-for-game-developers
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...s/best-security-practices-in-game-development

Simple solution, but relatively expensive for what you get. This being said, I wonder if it's really an ' all in one solution '. Does someone know?
https://www.ksoftware.net/code-signing-certificates/index.html#read_more
 
@Yal You're definitly right concerning marketing.

I'v read some docs about Trust Certificate and how to get it, for those who are still interested. I'm on the edge about it, as it appears to be a little bit costly (100 dollars for 1 year key) with no evidence of usefulness. If someone has experience in this field, I'm so eager to read his testimony !

Trust Certificate : what is it and how to get it :
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dxtecharts/authenticode-signing-for-game-developers
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...s/best-security-practices-in-game-development

Simple solution, but relatively expensive for what you get. This being said, I wonder if it's really an ' all in one solution '. Does someone know?
https://www.ksoftware.net/code-signing-certificates/index.html#read_more
I read the first two web-links on microsoft's website, so I refer to them in the following.

I think the whole idea of providing a TC is a pain in the neck to any software developer who wants to develop software for windows ( this includes games ). You need some program called signtool.exe ( which is provided in Visual Studio 2015 ) to make a TC, but it does not qualify as a certificate of authority. Secondly, the website mentions the depreciation of SHA-1 which is used by signtool.exe ( if I am right ) , even though the website states that people are still using it. It was depreciated because Microsoft discovered a security problem that could be exploited by malware, as I read the documentation. The signtool.exe that I have, is from in their winsdk_web.exe program from Microsoft, but its made for Windows 7 ( which is what I am using ) and .NET Framework 4. You will have to find the right version of signtool.exe that works for your Windows OS if its not supported by this software.
You have to use it through a command line shell ( MS-DOS ). I provided the URL link to the version that I am using , if that is what you need.

See:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/seccrypto/signtool

Let me know if this helps.
 
E

Elgarion

Guest
I read the first two web-links on microsoft's website, so I refer to them in the following.

I think the whole idea of providing a TC is a pain in the neck to any software developer who wants to develop software for windows ( this includes games ). You need some program called signtool.exe ( which is provided in Visual Studio 2015 ) to make a TC, but it does not qualify as a certificate of authority. Secondly, the website mentions the depreciation of SHA-1 which is used by signtool.exe ( if I am right ) , even though the website states that people are still using it. It was depreciated because Microsoft discovered a security problem that could be exploited by malware, as I read the documentation. The signtool.exe that I have, is from in their winsdk_web.exe program from Microsoft, but its made for Windows 7 ( which is what I am using ) and .NET Framework 4. You will have to find the right version of signtool.exe that works for your Windows OS if its not supported by this software.
You have to use it through a command line shell ( MS-DOS ). I provided the URL link to the version that I am using , if that is what you need.

See:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/seccrypto/signtool

Let me know if this helps.
I'm going to read it seriously. Thanks anyway for answering. A pain in the neck, yeah, this is my feeling too. Did you see the commercial tool I linked after the two MS links? It seems to simplify the operation.

Edit : damn, I just read the "Documentation Requirements", the pain is not just in the neck.
 
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Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
@Yal Do you know if the problem of the red Windows block screen persists when downloading via Steam? I know it's the case with Itch.io...
Usually my antivirus gets the apps before Windows does (doing a "preliminary run" kind of thing to see if it's dangerous before letting it REALLY start) so I've not seen that windows block screen at all, I've only seen the "wanna let this thing do changes to your device?" screen when something needs admin rights. A lot of steam games trigger that exact thing, since a lot of them will do an install of whatever version of the 'windows common runtime' yadda-yadda they're using (even though they're backwards compatible).
 
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Elgarion

Guest
Usually my antivirus gets the apps before Windows does (doing a "preliminary run" kind of thing to see if it's dangerous before letting it REALLY start) so I've not seen that windows block screen at all, I've only seen the "wanna let this thing do changes to your device?" screen when something needs admin rights. A lot of steam games trigger that exact thing, since a lot of them will do an install of whatever version of the 'windows common runtime' yadda-yadda they're using (even though they're backwards compatible).
Okay, thank you very much for your answer @Yal. I'm a little bit less worried right now ;-)
 
@Lord KJWilliams @Yal Do you know if the problem of the red Windows block screen persists when downloading via Steam? I know it's the case with Itch.io...
What version of windows are you using?

Late Edit: The link to the third website , the commercial version of getting a TC - is not worth the money if your game is not considered "professional" or its not going to be truly commercial. You have to pay money to get your game on steam. And I would recommend that you try downloading your game and installing it on another computer that can run it , to see how windows behaves. I do not have windows 10 yet, because my friends have told me its a pain.

The other thing, you might want to try is, see if your game will run in a virtual machine emulator of the windows version that your using. It might eliminate the issue of the problems your having, and it acts as a sandbox preventing user issues with viruses. I have no idea if GMS : 2 games will run in a virtual machine, provided that you have enough physical ram ( e.g. 16 GB ). I have a friend who has a virtual machine emulator for his Linux machine, that runs windows 10, that he uses to play his games on. I know that this is not what you want, but it is a work around.
 
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E

Elgarion

Guest
What version of windows are you using?

Late Edit: The link to the third website , the commercial version of getting a TC - is not worth the money if your game is not considered "professional" or its not going to be truly commercial. You have to pay money to get your game on steam. And I would recommend that you try downloading your game and installing it on another computer that can run it , to see how windows behaves. I do not have windows 10 yet, because my friends have told me its a pain.

The other thing, you might want to try is, see if your game will run in a virtual machine emulator of the windows version that your using. It might eliminate the issue of the problems your having, and it acts as a sandbox preventing user issues with viruses. I have no idea if GMS : 2 games will run in a virtual machine, provided that you have enough physical ram ( e.g. 16 GB ). I have a friend who has a virtual machine emulator for his Linux machine, that runs windows 10, that he uses to play his games on. I know that this is not what you want, but it is a work around.
@Lord KJWilliams I'm on windows 10 (family). My game will go though some relatively intense beta test, so as you cleverly said, I will probably figure out how it behaves with different kind of computers. Concerning its scope, it's a very little game (the kind you see between 2 and 4 euros max, I guess) and I'm not a professionnal dev, so I try to maintain short budget lines, indeed.

Thanks again for our answers, it's very kind of you. Have a nice day !
 
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Elgarion

Guest
Had a few tests yesterday. Installing the game on windows without TC is quite meh. Lot's of warning pop ups (AVG, windows), some kind of error message probably because AVG messed up with the installer. Well...

If I put the game on Steam, do I still have to ask for a TC ?
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
If I put the game on Steam, do I still have to ask for a TC ?
This sounds like the kind of thing you'd be able to find info about much faster on Steam's forums (or maybe it's even in a frequently asked questions page somewhere - usually the gritty details are pretty static and documented somewhere).
 
Had a few tests yesterday. Installing the game on windows without TC is quite meh. Lot's of warning pop ups (AVG, windows), some kind of error message probably because AVG messed up with the installer. Well...

If I put the game on Steam, do I still have to ask for a TC ?
If you make your game into a .zip file, you make the installation easier. If you just unzip the folder into a directory that is just the first sub-directory in your local hard drive, ( e.g. C:\myfolder ), mygame.zip goes here when its unzipped. It makes it a lot easier to also uninstall the directory and make modifications ( e.g. bug fixes when you release them - as an idea for your future games that get more complicated ). And you still do not need a TC in this case. But if you need a TC, your still going to need to use signtool.exe ( or whatever program that Microsoft uses and recommends ). Please note: I just suggested the idea of the local hard drive, you should be able to use a USB flash drive, to install and run your game from there, provided that you have enough space on the flash drive.
 
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