How To Protect Commercial Games?

[fargo]

I'm currently calculating the expenses for making a commercial game for GP2X

I need to know the available options for protecting the game from illegal copying. I know some members here are against this kind protection, but I really need to do!

The game will be distributed on SD cards. So, please guys, I need to hear from you.

Thank you.

 

[Orkie]

I know some members here are against this kind protection

Of course they are. If you copy protect it, how can they pirate it?

 

[sam fisher]

I know some members here are against this kind protection

Of course they are. If you copy protect it, how can they pirate it?

:lol: :rolleyes:

 

[PokeParadox]

The GP2X scene appear to be very respectful to commercial games released on the 2X.
Majority of users would prefer no copy protection since the usually limit what you can do with the game (Payback complains if you mess around with the files too much.)
My opinion is that it really is unnecessary to add copy protection to GP2X games. I think Yuan Works are proving this very well with their commercial endeavour.

 

[motorollin]

You can't stop people physically copying the file. You can't have an "activation" procedure to hinder pirates since the GP2X has no network connection. So the only option really is to make it undesirable for people to spread their copy. My suggestion would be to make your game display the purchaser's credit card number and address when it loads, so if they spread their copy of the game they spread those details too. Some legal MP3 providers (used to?) do this. Bear in mind though that anything you do in software can be undone by hackers.

 

[Vilmos]

My suggestion would be to make your game display the purchaser's credit card number and address when it loads

Wow, now that's an idea I never thought of.

I can guarantee that I would never buy a game with this protection! If I got bamboozled into purchasing it then I wouldn't be playing it in public...probably permanently wipe the SD card.

I expect the liability of that protection scheme would soon bankrupt the development group.

 

[don]

In a small scene like the gamepork[tm] scene, there are two major user groups, a) the cheap freeloaders - mostly interested in emulation and romsets - and B) users who value the amount of work that went into a project.
There is only a TINY amount of people who would buy your game, but as soon as they find a pirate copy, decide against it.
Usually, people who pirate your game are the ones who wouldn't have bought it in the first place.
Just don't punish honest customers, don't make the same mistake the game industry does.

 

[nubie]

?!?!?!?!? OK, I am just assuming you have been here: http://www.sdcard.org/home?

http://www.sdcard.org/about/memory_card/ :

QUOTE
Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM), the content protection technology used for the SD Memory Card, is key to enabling a new distribution system for music and other commercial media, because it assures a high level of protection against illegal copying. The technology was developed by 4C (The digital contents copyright protection technology licensing organization of IBM, Intel, Matsushita, and Toshiba.)

Having a proven record in DVD, this protection is enhanced in the SD Memory Card through the use of "key revocation" technology that is built into the card.

The card's control circuitry allows data to be read and written (in its protection area) only when appropriate external devices are detected. A check-out (copying) from a PC to the SD Memory Card is restricted to 3 copies in compliance with the SDMI specification. All SD-Audio products comply with SDMI.

The SD Memory Card copyright protection function has the following features:

Access to the SD Memory Card must be enabled by authentication between devices
A random number is generated each time there is mutual authentication and exchange of security information


Basically I would just use the copy protection built-in, and call it a day. Personally it is fine by me. Just make additional copies available for lost/broken games and systems if need be. And consider setting up a version of the game without copy-protection for when and if you decide to stop offering support for the game, or if you want to sell it as a downloadable version.

I don't know about the affordability of the copy-protection, perhaps you should ask that question plainly in a new topic.

 

[Squidge]

The game will be distributed on SD cards. So, please guys, I need to hear from you.

For about $2000 and a couple of NDA's, you can access the reserved areas of SD cards (every sold SD Card has a reserved section). You can store various information here such as various keys to decrypt levels of your game, or perhaps store the entire executable there. The executable in "user space" (the bit that everyone can see) can verify the card as authentic by looking for these files, and it will not be that easy to hack as if they simply remove the check, several files will be missing (the files in the reserved section).

For example, the encryption used to access the reserved section is available here: http://www.4centity.com/data/tech/spec/C2_100.pdf

 

[zacaj]

How many people usually buy a commercial game(not Payback type, something like Blazar or Wind and Water)?

 

[rokdcasbah]

i suppose you get around buying the specific rights from the sd card group, thus copying the copy-protection...i'd buy a game that did that just for the sake of irony.

i think there's a download version of payback now, if that's what you mean zacaj. i bought w&w and payback, and have made a donation or two...but there's (i think?) a good number of folks here who aren't yet old enough for a line of credit, which i'd imagine makes it kind of tough.

not that i don't make up for it in r0mz, but nobody's perfect.

 

[Sphinxter]

Here's your chance to learn what IBM, adobe, sony and many others throughout history have learned at the expense of many millions, copy protection neither works nor pays.

 

[Squidge]

i suppose you get around buying the specific rights from the sd card group, thus copying the copy-protection...i'd buy a game that did that just for the sake of irony.

I'd love to disassemble a game or whatever on a secured sd card - that could be quite interesting, and should in theory at least, give us the "secret constant" used in the C2 cipher algorithm, then we can write a driver to give us more sd card space and password protected sd-cards

(BTW, don't go down the Gizmondo route of loading the executable, decrypting by XOR with 0xFF, and then storing the now-standard executable in a ram disk...)

 

[Don Miguel]

I think the activation code is the key.

 

[Parkydr]

We need more protected games, I use to love working out how to defeat the protection on BBC micro games. (It was more fun than the game itself )

The internet has spoilt all that - a quick google of "CPRM crack" is all that's required.

Copy protection is pointless, you're just costing yourself money, time and effort it implement something that someone will crack if they want it enough. Once it's cracked you're no better off.

Worse still you pissed off the legitimate buyers and have to put up with them having problems with activation.

You might prevent a few people playing it but chances are they weren't going to but it anyway.

I think the support the community has shown for other commercial games shows people are willing to pay.

It's only a small community and most people want to encourage the production of more commercial games for the GP2X.

I think the developers of "Wind and Water" had a really good idea personalising the game for those who pre-ordered - something a pirated version could not give you.

 

[P-J]

I have to agree with Parkydr ^^^^.

While copy protection generally works with 'joe public', you're in more of a niche market where people are probably a little more tech savvy and capable of finding a way round the protection or locating a download of a cracked or unprotected version.

Not saying that the GP2X community is pro-piracy, but they seem to be a much more techy bunch.

So I don't think copy protection is worth it in this instance. The fervent supporters will buy it, the others will copy it.

 

[fargo]

Thank you guys for all the info.

As I said in the original post, I have to copy protect the game. The protection just needs to be as hard as possible to break. I need to know my options to weigh between cost, implementation, and security.

 

[yaustar]

You can always hard code the bill payer's name into the executable, run some logic off it or whatever. Then at least when it is leaked, you can find out who did it.

Or you can do what Introversion did and pump loads 'demo' versions of the game onto P2P networks passing them off as full versions in an effort to make a 'real' cracked version as difficult to find as possible.

 

[skeezix]

There is one rule for copy protection that works --

Remember your audience -- protection is there to encourage honest people to pay.

So make it easy and painless for honest people. If you make it annoying to paying customers, it hurts a lot.

(Course, its the norm; witness Steam, which meant pirates played HL2 the day it was released, and paying customers waited a few days for the steam server to recover. But it was successful anyway, but peopel hate Steam with a passion )

This is why peopel put watermarks on videos -- it is better to let someone have something, and mark it, then to deny them and lolse the butter altogether.

jeff

But yeah, CP on SD is pretty good; its annoying enough to prevent normals from copying the file, and the blackhats will copy it anyway.

 

[rokdcasbah]

i think copy protection is not really necessary in the case of gp2x software, there's only so many places people can go to get it, this board being one of them, and the torrent site (i'm only kidding about that one. am i? ha, yeah. maybe?).

then you just learn a dozen or so other languages, and watch the other boards, too.

in all seriousness, if i wanted to copy a commercial gp2x game without paying, where would i go? i can't ask my friend with a gp2x, since my friends don't have one (i guess you could argue based on that they're not true friends), and i can't exactly start a thread on gp32x titled "hey someone pm me $GAME plz"

but i don't have a problem with any of the standard "name/serial" authentication deals. yeah, it's easy for people to share serials, but they tend not to do that since their name is in there, so you'd crack it instead. and if someone is enough of an idiot to spend time cracking gp2x software, well, they should have it, they need it more than you