"It doesn't really matter whether you hide the files somewhere or use registry keys, a cracker would see the calls to either the registry or file and find them easily."

What?! What should I do then? Don't tell me there is no need to protect my crappy game, I made it for my company.

Quote:Original post by CRAZY COCONUT COW
"It doesn't really matter whether you hide the files somewhere or use registry keys, a cracker would see the calls to either the registry or file and find them easily."

What?! What should I do then? Don't tell me there is no need to protect my crappy game, I made it for my company.

You can certainly attempt to protect it (the choice is entirely yours), you just have remember more than likely it can be cracked. Computers are pretty open, anything you can do someone can reverse engineer, decompile, or dump from memory. It's impossible to protect your program when the user can get the same access to the system. Encryption fails because you, in addition to providing the algorithm, must also provide a key in some form or no one is going to be able to use your program. All I am saying is it's pointless to be overly elaborate. Your protection scheme will depend on what you want to try and prevent. Chances are unless your games get really people likely aren't going to bother to hacking it, so I'd just go with serial number.

The only link I have on the subject is a Gamasutra article on how Insomniac games tried to protect Spyro: Year of the Dragon.

Keeping the Pirates at Bay:
Implementing Crack Protection for Spyro: Year of the Dragon

I think the key to this going to be making acquiring a legit version more attractive than pirating it.

Scheiner's Law, "Anyone can come up with a security system so clever that he himself can't see any means of bypassing it".

[Edited by - prh99 on December 15, 2006 4:36:43 AM]

A question:If the cracker can find the encryted numbers pretty easily, why even bother to encryt it, the cracker can just copy it in the registry and paste it on the registry of another PDA

Quote:Original post by CRAZY COCONUT COW
A question:If the cracker can find the encryted numbers pretty easily, why even bother to encryt it, the cracker can just copy it in the registry and paste it on the registry of another PDA

The goal of copy protection is not to beat crackers, its to prevent casual users from copying your software or possibly to delay the crackers as much as possible.

however for a independant PDA game you really don't need to go overboard as most crackers focus on big PC titles. (Thus a simple system that keeps casual users from copying is enough), and since your title isn't highly anticipated by the general public there is no need to try to delay the crackers either.

For a big AAA title the first couple of weeks are critical as many gamers want to play asap and are thus more likely to buy it if the cracked version isn't released quickly, for a smaller title it really doesn't matter, people will either buy it or wait until its cracked (or simply ignore the title entierly).

Multiplayer games are ofcourse different since you'll either manage the serverlist or the servers. (which allows you to validate the serials and prevent more than one user from using the same key at the same time)

Thanks guys.

Let CCC give you guys a big kiss....muuuuuaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!