Let's suppose you're a game developer who's making a PC game series each 5-6 years. Your games are good, fun and playable. You don't rob, scam or use fraudulent cashcow methods on it.
But the problem is people are very good at cracking the game in less time and put it for free, which is dangerous, bc your company depends on the sales, and if your recent game doesn't sell enough due this piracy this installment will suffer, your company will get bankrupt and you will not make games anymore.
What kind of anti-crack method would you think and put in your upcoming game's system to make the crackers have a big headache for a long time possible? I've thinking about using an encrypt code which is encrypted between 3 or more codes to make it very difficult to decrypt for copy/or cloning.
How crackers get to crack a game in just one day, most of times? It's like no one has think about putting a very complex anti-crack method since 2010... Maybe releasing demos would low the risk of pirating?
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Just make your game free to begin with, just like the RPG Maker dev community of the early 2000s
I did this with my game and I make all my money on the DLC. My boomer parents are still aghast I "did all that work for nothing." I imagine that's what publisher execs are like.
The percentage of people who pirate is negligible. Just accept the risk and move on.
I don't think piracy is generally going to affect overall sales that much to begin with. Most people that want the game will probably just pay for it. I think if your company faces more piracy of your games than direct sales then you probably pissed off the public for some reason and people are doing it to make a point.
>I think if your company faces more piracy of your games than direct sales then you probably pissed off the public for some reason and people are doing it to make a point.
This. There have been studies done that prove piracy has no real effect on actual media sales because most people would rather pay money than put up with the one or two extra steps it takes to pirate, along with the minuscule risk of running cross with the authorities.
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf
Most ppl pirate bc they want to check the product to verify the devs are not lying about the game's contents and they're actually good as says.
You have to fight piracy to keep the legal rights to your intellectual property. But in a capitalist system you'd be fine.
Make a good game
I bought every single good game I played
Often devs are entitled pricks which think that their low effort buggy unoptimized slop which damages my hobby deserves monetary reward.
Denuvo and hope the one guy cracking denuvo right now doesn't crack it.
Make sure people understand that the experience they will have online is far better than singleplayer's.
Like in GTA 5.
>Make sure people understand that the experience they will have online is far better than singleplayer
It shouldn't be the opposite, I mean, the single player very good, while multi just acceptable?
GTAO would be the worst example of if.
you make a good game and release it without drm
if your game fails to sell then simply it's not good enough or does not appeal to anyone or you fricked up on marketing
i'd make it invite only secret club. then the few people who get in, won't share it because then they would lose their secret club haha
>What kind of anti-crack method would you think and put in your upcoming game
I simply make it a good game
Make it political and with an extremely pro-NATO message
I mostly just ignore games with anti-piracy stuff. Not against people using it though because they're just trying to protect their property. That said... I know what kind of person you are, which means I know I'm going to hate the game. Ultimately, this saves me time.
Put up a revenue meter that shows how many copies need to be sold to make a new game. And also add stretch goals of what new features or content will be added to the next game based on sales Mile stones
I would "crack it" myself and spread it in the internet
spread a modified version that has something silly like every character having a pirate hat or something
MAKE
A
Good
Fricking
Game
You won't need to worry about pirates if everyone wants to play your game.
It doesn't matter how good or bad the game is. I pirate games because I deserve everything for free and society refuses to acknowledge that.
this
movies are free, TV is free, books are free, music is free
BUT NOT LE HECKIN GAMERINOS
This, if I can get it for free I sure as frick am going to get it for free.
GTA SA, Fallout New Vegas and Metal Gear Solid Rising were good games and yet they were pirated as frick.
Put it on Steam at a fair price. Some people will always pirate it, oh well, but making it more convenient to get than pirating it will help get sales better.
I thought Steam existed just for avoid pirating in first place....
I would make a good game and release it without drm. Pirates are always going to pirate no matter what might as well just release something that people actually want to buy.
I would unironically not care and endorse it as I already do.
You guys must be browns from Latin America or India.
>Entertainer should've always been free
Then play Chess, Checkers or Choking game instead of videogames.
I literally give my game away for those who want to get it for free. I am a God.
And how you pay your co-workers, the light bill and the janitors who whipped periodically? With brownie points? With your butt?
>ESL legitimately cannot comprehend that there are places in the world where game design isn't done in some run down shack with a wienerroach infestation, where everyone is forced to show up at 6 am and work until 10 pm with no breaks
>ESL doesn't believe that people in first world countries can pick up coding and independently make a game fairly easily if they just try, because they don't have to worry about starving to death or being mugged and shot for the two pesos in their pockets
i'm sorry you have to live the way you do, ESL-anon. I hope things get better for you.
I'd simply implement a troll mode for copies detected as pirated that essentially gave you morrowind quest directions and nothing else to go off of
I mean it also wouldn't have day 1 access to any patches if those are needed down the line, not my problem lol
Fund the making of your game directly with something like Patreon instead of trying to fund your game on the distribution in a digital world where what you sell are copyable bits and nothing can change that
Literally patreon
Oh, just like Pizza Tower.
What about these ideas?
1) Make the game land-locked in certain areas: Europe, certain parts of Asia (Japan, Korea) and North America would have access and availability, while the rest of poor/shithole countries won't?
2) Similar as OP said, make a encrypt that links the game and the PC (where is installed) which the game only will open and work thanks to this personalized encrypt, which was created at the moment of installation, but if someone tries to take the game folder out of it's location and attempts to open it, the game won't start or will give an error message.
This last one could work.
Every single DRM has been cracked. Even Denuvo, which is much much harder to crack than anything you'll make gets cracked.
Japanese H games that are region-locked induce an additional localization hurdle to get them, so it actually works. You are cutting off your foreign audience, but if you are only making e-girl porn anyway its illegal anyway elsewhere.
*flips flag that says my computer isn't japanese*
I'd probably copy factorio,
Create a mod repository that is hosted and integrated with the game, but you need to register for the site with a valid CD key.
I'll just buy one (1) key and mirror the repository for millions of pirates to use, and you will lose millions of potential sales.
Pirates and third worlders are always gonna pirate there is no point in trying to stop them because you just piss off actual paying customers.
I wouldn't even waste 5 seconds worrying about infinitesimal percentage of people who might pirate my shit. I would also offer a demo which would cut it down to a tiny fraction of that percentage. I'd provide the demo anyway regardless of piracy as it's the fair and right thing to do.
Nothing. If you don't have the money, knock yourself out.
Entertainer should've always been free.
There is no way to avoid sharing if you are a small company with not a lot of money. There's a reason big publishers go to Denuvo and their games still get cracked most of the time. This is why DRM is a product of greed and not beneficial in any way to the state of the industry for small developers. DRM is literally only available to those who don't need it to make a great profit. Maintaining super DRM is going to be more trouble than it's worth.
Second, "piracy" is a term invented by big companies to portray those using their freedoms as computer users as crooks and thieves. Refrain from using it in the future please.
Lastly, a "pirate" gained is not a consumer lost. Chances are most "pirates" would have not bought your game anyway, so they do not matter. If they enjoyed your game, they would buy it to support you. You've lost nothing to begin with, so "pirates" are people you should not consider as potential customers.
Addictive gameplay + engaging multiplayer with ranked system.
That is the formula for a succesful game that isn't affected by piracy, i thought that you Black folk had this already figured out.
I would just comment on the most popular torrent/sites/releases with free cd keys for my game.
Why bother going through the hassle of downloading scene releases with custom patches and weird installation methods, when you can just download the game from steam with mods, free updates and more?
Gabe Newell was right, you know.
Make the game so good, that the player would be ashamed not to support the devs
nowadays notoriety goes a long way
don't mind piracy
you'll make more money on a widely pirated widely successful game later down the road
if anything piracy will help you gain the popularity you need to continue being a successful game developer
i would make my game a good game and only charge $15 for it with free updates/content after release
main reason people pirate games are because they look kind of shitty and dont want to drop $90 in a 1 in 10 chance that it's not ass.
look at Starfield for example.
sold like crap because they tried charging $130 for it and it turned out to be pretty shit.
wouldve done a lot better if it was just $30 on release instead.
There is no realistic way to prevent it entirely. All you can really do is ensure it is not in the first three or so pages of any search on Google or other search engines, since after that the majority of people tend to give up.
Avoiding using anti-crack or other anti-piracy measures, especially if they're resource hogs, is a good idea since it builds good will.
Piracy, is just a fact with any digital media and attempting to stop it is an exercise in futility.
I bought all pirated games that I genuinely enjoyed.
And it's a pretty fricking low bar nowdays because most games today are dogshit and expensive. Indies are full of self entitled homosexuals.
Most people don't pirate. Literally don't worry about it.
this was solved by Cyberpunk, just release 10Gb updates every week,. the pirates won't keep up
Why the frick would I want to try to get rid of free publicity for my game? It's going to be hard enough for me to get word out about the game. Why should I try sinking one million dollars into an advertising campaign when F95zone and torrent websites will basically do it all for me?
Piracy doesn't hurt games. If anything, piracy helps spread awareness of games that would otherwise go unnoticed. This might not be true for Super Mario Odyssey and it's hundred million dollar advertising budget, but any sort of small indie scene is going to have literally millions of potential customers who are completely unaware. Sure, looking at a torrent website with 100,000 downloads can make you feel like shit in comparison to sales, but without the piracy, you'd probably only have half the people buying the game.
This is all assuming that it's a decent game and not just a cashgrab or some sort of scam. If you're trying to just get money out of people, then I guess you could shove as much Devuno in there as possible so nobody finds out how crap the game is before you cash out and run.
>Maybe releasing demos would low the risk of pirating?
Probably. Anybody who just wants to try the game is more likely to download a clean demo file and install it over grabbing a pirated version through a sketchy website.
have you spoken to a zoomer recently? 0 knowledge of piracy and that downloading shit for free is even possible.
What those babies still know from the world?
If piracy can bankrupt your company, you shouldn't be spending 5-6 years on one game. But the best way to prevent piracy is psychology. People should feel good when they buy your game and guilty when they pirate your game. Be nice, engage with the community, avoid controversy, give people extra bonuses and little treats. And ALWAYS put out a finished game. People will want to give you money if they think you deserve it. It's like being a waiter at a restaurant -- if you go the extra mile, you'll get bigger tips.
piracy is only a concern for greedy fricks
I would simply release the games on console and work on the PC version as the lowest priority.
Sell the game on a CD. Turns out people don't like paying for air
>Your games are good, fun and playable.
If that's true then you never going to have problems with piracy. People still buy stalker when it's much easier to just pirate it, but game is worth it. Factorio devs swim in money despite dubious decisions. Terraria makes millions a year without resorting to horrible tactics like minecraft does.
If you blame piracy it means your game is not good enough for people to buy it.
>hurr durr muh dream job
Lmao. Lol.
What I don't do: waste money on DRM
Pirates are free advertising.
I do not care because piracy does not meaningfully impact sales. every copy pirated is not a lost sale, the people pirating the game likely weren't going to buy it anyway.
make the game good and people will gladly give you money
>have 75% off sale
It's that easy. $15 or less is enough to convince me to stop going to csrinru to download updates for pirated games.
Its a pointless battle you dont even want to win.
Only games i cant pirate are indies so obscure nobody cares to upload them. And i proceed to forget those games since no pirate way to try them out, and lack of pirate attention hints of worse shit than any pointless shilling here or elsewhere.
>implying I wouldn't be the one uploading the cracked version myself
It's free advertising really
Literally all shit western porn games are free to get, with only latest update with +2 extra scenes that are instantly uploaded to rule34 are patreon locked. And coomers still support the developers more than they would have if they had paywalled it from the start.
Its a lesson all indie developers should grasp: there are people who will consooom, will pay for your slop, so give them a taste and you will get more money than elsewise.
In our 4th Reich, porn games will be permanently prohibited, and the promoters will be prosecuted, tortured and killed.
>catering to people who aren't going to pay to play your shit, instead of people who do
This didnt work when people were torrenting music off of limewire, it sure as frick wont work now
all worrying about those hobos does is make you a fricking moron for implementing easy anticheat, which eats ass, it unironically makes me want to buy the game, and then pirate it (which is what I do when possible) just to not have to deal with that moronic shit when doesnt even boot up properly half the time
Also pirates and cheaters are so mentally ill with their mental gymnastics nothing, not even giving them the game free, is going to stop them from making some kind of moral ground argument about how righteous they are
Piracy doesn't hurt sales.
If someone pirates your game, they would not have bought it in the first place. How hard is it to understand this?
There is a difference between being interested in acquiring something and being a junkie. People who play videogames are not junkies, if they can't afford a game they will live through it. If they are interested and find a way to get it without paying they will, because they are INTERESTED.
How about you give something to these interested people other than the finger? Give something accesible if $60 fricking dollars is not. Make a proper F2P spinoff with product placement and stop whining about piracy.
To solve piracy, it's easier to address the reasons people pirate games in the first place, which are (but not limited to):
>the quality/length of the game's content doesn't outweigh its selling price
I remember people commenting how Hollow Knight's price was reasonable despite the amount of quality content there was.
>Players don't want to support the devs
Simple enough: just don't make opinionated comments on twitter/FB. If you DO feel the need to show off your striped pins on your gamedev profile, at least be consistent with the message or you'll lose all interested groups.
>Players know nothing about the game
Make Pictures / videos / demos of gameplay.
>it's super easy to decrypt
Don't make your game with software tools that have been cracked ages ago. Doing the suggestions other anons made might help too.
>Purchasing the game legally is a hassle
Use an online retailer, or make sure the buying process is quick & painless.
>The game doesn't sell in my region
Add support for multiple languages and release it globally
If I make a product at a fair price worth buying, people will buy it knowing I will not be able to continue making that product without their help and support. If more people pirate it than purchase it, then I didn't make a product worth supporting.
The best defense against piracy is to make a game worth buying. People are going to pirate no matter what. The more popular your game is the more sales you'll see and the more piracy you'll see. If the game is worth playing then the sales will always eclipse the piracy. If your company can't survive a normal and expected amount of piracy then you'll fricking failed as a businessman by over-extending your business by making huge financial mistakes in its development.
>dude just make a good game
>troony
>shit opinion
clockwork
Make the game good enough to be worth supporting to begin with. Treat pirated copies as free advertising.