Protecting my Game

[gaveitatry]

A week ago, I had played my first 2D MMORPG that uses a game engine very much similar to Intersect.  This game was available on Steam for $2 USD.

Let's pretend that I intend to do the same thing.  Create my own 2D MMORPG game and sell it on Steam for $2 USD.  But before I actually made it available on Steam, I decide to zip the client and send a copy to a friend and to also put a copy on my neighbor's computer for testing purposes.  So, let's say that my copy is on my neighbor's computer and her nephew gets on her computer, sees the game, copies it to his USB drive and then gives the copy to three of his friends.  And then each of his friends distribute the copies to even more people.  That could happen right?  I don't want that to happen because then I would lose $2 USD per each copy, and worse yet if I had a lot of custom content in it.  Like, what if I spent a super long time making hundreds of sprites and tile images?  Is there currently any protection from that?  Is there anything that I can do to protect myself from something like that and still be able to put copies on my friends and neighbors computers for testing purposes?

I went into my Steam Apps folder and looked at that guy's 2D MMORPG files, and the folder hierarchy looked very similar to the Intersect folder hierarchy.  But then I noticed that the PNG images were all in a different file format called MIS.  I don't know what the file extension MIS is.  A little humor, I thought that it stood for Mi Shit.  LOL.  Well, this is a theory, but I am thinking that Steam converted the Intersect game files into another format to protect the game.  So if someone I know got a hold of those MIS files, they wouldn't be able to do anything with them because it would probably be near impossible to convert the MIS files back into PNG files.  I would hope.  Is that what Steam does?  But that brings me to yet another question.  Even if another person can't hack into the MIS files and even if the game is unplayable unless played through Steam, couldn't one just copy the MIS files into their Steam Apps folder and then play it for free instead of paying the $2 on the Steam Store?

I just want to know all the various ways that I can protect my game because I don't want it being distributed for free.  Or for people to easily get sprite and tile images from my game.  If it's difficult, great.  But if it is super easy, that won't make me happy.

[jcsnider]

There are multiple questions going on here. One has to do with protecting your assets (graphics, music, etc) and the other has to do with protecting access to your game - we don't want people playing who haven't paid for it, right?

Let me first discuss assets. The MIS files you found, they might be .pngs, .mp3, etc with a different extension. It is possible that the MIS is only there to throw you off and if you changed the extension to .png and opened it up with paint it would work fine. It is also possible that the assets are heavily encrypted and very hard to grab without some type of decryption key. You can encrypt graphics and have your client decrypt them when they are used this way it becomes harder to steal your content. This is not a feature I am going to include in Intersect. Yes, I understand resources are very valuable but I am also a firm believer that if anyone is going to start their project by stealing your work then they don't have the resolve to actually get their project out there. I also know that dealing with encryption and decryption of assets during game design is a major hassle and a big pain in the arse for developers and users alike.

Now let's discuss access to your game. By default anyone with the .exe and resources can create an account and play. This means that your concern of someone making a copy via usb drive and distributing to their friends is a valid one. If you were charging per copy of your game then you could very easily be losing money with this design.  The best solution I have to offer is to have a developer pull in some steam components into your client and server when the source is released. That way all in-game users have steam accounts and they would be checked to make sure they own the game upon signing in/creating a character.  Having a system like that with a central authority like steam someone cannot share the game with others without fully giving up their account. There are other ways to accomplish this too. One terrible method would be to "trap" all new members on a map until you verify that they have paid and then warp them into the actual game world. On the other hand, you could create some other type of membership/authentication system completely to suit your needs. This is something else that we are not going to work on for the initial Intersect release. There are so many different platforms and ways to handle purchases. A lot of games will be free to play, other games will try to collect profit whether it is from selling the game itself or in-game transactions. Everyone will have a specific system they need and we cannot provide nor support them all. We will let those trying to monetize their game do so by hiring a programmer or coding it themselves to make it work however they'd like. We will make sure free to play platforms work well

 

 

[Zetasis]

Currently the way Intersect is setup there is really no way to protect things like images and sound from being copied/stolen. Keep in mind Intersect is/will be open source so you could always hire a programmer to make encryption systems or anything else you desire really. If you're serious about selling your game then investing some money into it is going to be a must I would think.

[gaveitatry]

31 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

It is possible that the MIS is only there to throw you off and if you changed the extension to .png and opened it up with paint it would work fine.

It is as you said.  I tested it now, and his files aren't encrypted.  Thank you for explaining what needs to be done to encrypt games. I am unsure whether I want to encrypt my stuff or not.  You said that it is a hassle for the developers.  I don't mind the hassle.  But you also said that it would be a hassle for the players.  How so?  If it is not too much of a hassle for players, then I think I will opt for encryption.

 

36 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

The best solution I have to offer is to have a developer pull in some steam components into your client and server when the source is released. That way all in-game users have steam accounts and they would be checked to make sure they own the game upon signing in/creating a character.  Having a system like that with a central authority like steam someone cannot share the game with others without fully giving up their account. There are other ways to accomplish this too. (sic)  We will let those trying to monetize their game do so by hiring a programmer or coding it themselves to make it work however they'd like.

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to afford the help of a programmer, so I will try to learn how to code it myself.  Thank you for answering my questions and providing this easy to understand information.

[jcsnider]

8 hours ago, gaveitatry said:

It is as you said.  I tested it now, and his files aren't encrypted.  Thank you for explaining what needs to be done to encrypt games. I am unsure whether I want to encrypt my stuff or not.  You said that it is a hassle for the developers.  I don't mind the hassle.  But you also said that it would be a hassle for the players.  How so?  If it is not too much of a hassle for players, then I think I will opt for encryption.

Sorry if I implied that, I didn't mean to. It should be no hassle for the players, just a large hassle for you when adding/removing graphics and keeping track of what's what. It would also be harder to edit your graphics if you ever had to because you would have to decrypt, open in paint, gimp, photoshop or whatever, make your changes and then encrypt again.

[Damian666]

making a encryption system is pretty easy actually...

 

I got one, for orion only though

[jcsnider]

30 minutes ago, Damian666 said:

making a encryption system is pretty easy actually...

 

I got one, for orion only though

 

Sure. You also had one back in your VB6 days. What you /don't/ remember is the 2+ hours I spent going through code and encrypted files trying to decrypt them so we could port your maps to Orion later on. This is because you had lost the original decrypted copies.

[Damian666]

4 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

 

Sure. You also had one back in your VB6 days. What you /don't/ remember is the 2+ hours I spent going through code and encrypted files trying to decrypt them so we could port your maps to Orion later on. This is because you had lost the original decrypted copies.

lol that's true xd

 

but that wont happen on a active project mate, I had not touched that shit in years