Why all games have an cracked version?
Author
Ý am very curious about how the games are cracked? why all games that are made by professionals get cracked? what are the techniques that are used for preventing crack? and what are the techniques that are used for cracking? is there any tutorial/book that teaches us how to prevent cracking if so please send this url..
There is no standard technique for protecting it, except a bunch of easy to bypass CD checks. All the other stuff needs to be programmed by you.
And those games are cracked because there are people who don't want to buy the game and yet play it(Thus, illegal copying the game). By doing so, the author of the game loses POTENTIAL revenue, since not everyone who warez a game really intents to buy it.
Techniques to prevent games from being cracked can go to standard CD checks, up to sophisticated pieces of code that will make items disappear in a cracked version(Thus, making it impossible to progress in the game). There is some game that used that technique(I think Piro the Dragon, there's an article on it on Gamasutra) and it took crackers about 2 to 3 months release a completely cracked game. By then, the developer made most of it's profit.
Another option is to have a cracked/illegal copy apply double damage to the player, and multiply the damage done to enemies by 0.5. The game would become extremely hard to play, and for most players there would be no fun.
Use your imagination on this, and you can write a bunch of neat anti-crack protections.
Toolmaker
[Edited by - Toolmaker on November 12, 2004 9:03:16 AM]
Proffessional games are cracked because people are determined to do so. If you are releasing a something like a shareware game though, it should not be as much of a problem. People use hex viewers to examine the contents of executables and create hacks that let people play without a CD, etc.
You can't really stop people from cracking your game, but a shareware game will probably not get as much attention from crackers as Doom 3 or Half Life 2, for example. Registration is sometimes used to try to stop the same copy of the game from being used on multiple computers, but even then crackers can write a program that generates a registration code for you, or modifies the program to make it think you have registered.
You can't really stop people from cracking your game, but a shareware game will probably not get as much attention from crackers as Doom 3 or Half Life 2, for example. Registration is sometimes used to try to stop the same copy of the game from being used on multiple computers, but even then crackers can write a program that generates a registration code for you, or modifies the program to make it think you have registered.
Quote:Another option is to have a cracked/illegal copy apply double damage to the player, and multiply the damage done to enemies by 0.5. The game would become extremely hard to play, and for most players there would be no fun.I would not recommend this. The crackers may not realise that their crack has failed, but overall this method could damage your game's reputation. Some companies such as Ubisoft have introduced systems like this that scan the hard drive of your PC for any software that could potentially be used to crack a game, and if so decrease the enjoyability of the game. To me it seems like the wrong solution.
the only true fool proof way of preventing a game from being cracked (that i know of), is if the game has a way to connect to a server to verify that the game is a legit copy. unfotunately this only works with online only games like MMORPG's and FPS's. however, i heard HL2 single player will work this way. im thinking as we get further into the future, it will almost be expected all PC's will have a net connection, and so this method will be more common and successful.
the moral issue is that what if you legitamately want to play your game on a computer which has no internet connection.
the moral issue is that what if you legitamately want to play your game on a computer which has no internet connection.
Quote:Original post by graveyard filla
the only true fool proof way of preventing a game from being cracked (that i know of), is if the game has a way to connect to a server to verify that the game is a legit copy. unfotunately this only works with online only games like MMORPG's and FPS's. however, i heard HL2 single player will work this way. im thinking as we get further into the future, it will almost be expected all PC's will have a net connection, and so this method will be more common and successful.
the moral issue is that what if you legitamately want to play your game on a computer which has no internet connection.
Even that can be "cracked", especially if it is only a check (a MMORPG type game would be harder, but then you wouldn't be as concerned about the client being stolen anyway, since your revenue is mainly the monthly fee)
The root problem is that the user has complete control over the client program, with enough time and effort that program can be modified to remove all safeguards. The only true solution is "Trusted Computing", a method where the hardware itself can tell a program if it has been tampered with via a cryptographic process (it is also possible to do this remotely with a system of keys, meaning you can also eliminate many game cheats in multiplayer games by allowing the server to verify a clean client). Since the hardware can't be tampered with like regular software checks, it becomes "uncrackable".
Author
i just can't understand because of i don't know enough programming how can they do crack.they are not getting my code and recompilig it? they have my game's compiled version? So they must have and .exe.Don't they see a binary code or something else when they try to open it?
Quote:Original post by graveyard filla
the moral issue is that what if you legitamately want to play your game on a computer which has no internet connection.
Move onto another computer? What about just unplugging the wire?
I think that when you make your game unable to be viewed by hex-editor and there are no other ways to dig the disassembly from your distributable, like direct disc sectors address (some Linux hacker kiddie could easily do this. Especially if he's interested), then your game is uncrackable. And unlaunchable.
Quote:Don't they see a binary code or something else when they try to open it?
They do. Binary code can be disassembled into assembly programming language. They do not bother decompiling it into C++ source or another high-level language. In fact - you're distributing your source with your .exe - it's source on its own, isn't it? The first computer programmers were doing only hex, right?
Oxyd
Quote:it is also possible to do this remotely with a system of keys, meaning you can also eliminate many game cheats in multiplayer games by allowing the server to verify a clean client
You got any links to articles/papers that explain how this works? I though there wasn't any fullproof method of verifying files over a network or does it require the extra protection hardware?
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