Ian, Obviously, games which have nearly all of the content hosted only on the server, such as muds, are much more piracy proof, but there are a lot of shades of grey in between fully server side and fully client side. Yes, there will always be ways to hack game executables, but some are a lot harder than others.
One of the easiest ways is to use some form of downloadable content, with unique crypto keys per client and per account. The idea would be that when it's time to play chapter 2 for the first time, you have to download and decrypt the chapter from the server, and the encryption is tied to your account. You give the file to somebody else, it doesn't work. You give your keys to somebody else, it doesn't work. You hack out the little piece of code that does authentication, and you can no longer decrypt the file, and it doesn't work. There's a lot of weaker ways of handling things too, and no sane developer would expect any of these to be perfect - they merely have to be hard enough to work around that it isn't easy to just give the crack to someone else. If LeetHacker6 manages to crack and decrypt the game, that's fine - but if he can't easily give the crack to other people, it's not going to be as big a problem as just posting valid keys to a bulletin board. The final piece of the puzzle is that all of this stuff has to be completely invisible to real players. Real players buy the game, start it up, and want to play. If the protections fail or go stupid, all the player knows is that the game sucks and won't work right. Dennis Towne Alter Aeon MUD http://www.alteraeon.com On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 8:15 PM, Ian Reed <supp...@blindaudiogames.com> wrote: > Hi Dennis, > > You said: This is why I won't bother to produce any standalone games unless > I > > intend to give them away. Anyone who thinks they can sell standalone > games without strong 'phone home' server authorization and make money > is fooling themselves. > > I say: Very interesting comment. > I'd like to break down the strong 'phone home' server authorization term to > understand it better. > > Obviously game clients that require a server in order to play are very > piracy proof. > Your Alter Aeon is a good example of this though you do not charge for > player accounts, but if you did it should be easy to ensure any created > account had to be paid for. > > Were you also implying that a standalone game that for instance, contacts a > server every time it is opened and does not let someone play unless the > server could be contacted would be pirated less than one that just uses an > unlock code? > Or did the line stop with a game client that actually requires the server to > play? > > From things I read ages ago I got the impression that a game could be > patched to take out the small bit of logic that contacts the server just as > elete hackers can reverse engineer your executable to see what key > generation scheme you use. > If that is the case then I don't know of any anti piracy mechanism that > would stop elete hackers except for the game really being on the server and > the player only having access to the client. > And if piracy rates are as high as you say it is a pretty difficult problem. > > Ian Reed --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
