How to protect all your resources?

[OM3GA-Z3RO]

We are on the verge of posting a feedback demo of our game but Jannetfenix just asked a question which did not cross my mind.

"How can we prevent other people from taking resources out of our game files?"

I should have seen this problem arising knowing how easy someone can just Copy + Paste a resource (Like a face portrait, script, battler etc) and use it for their own game without proper permission.

Is there anyway the team and I can protect our resources from others when we have finally posted our game to the public?

 

[MektiKwiiger]

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/20775-tools-anti-rgss-decrypter/ is pinned in  Game Development  → Program and Utility Discussion

 

[Andar]

Is there anyway the team and I can protect our resources from others when we have finally posted our game to the public?

only partially
Encrypting the game will prevent the regular user from accessing most of your resources, but NOTHING can protect them from someone willing to work for getting them out - even with the methods described in the link above it's only get more difficult and more work.


The only way to absolutely protect your resources is to never publish them (or your game) at all.


That said, there is usually no problem with that because the people who are willing to pirate your resources are usually also people who have problems with working on their own game, so you'll probably never see a completed game made by someone else with your resources.


The maximum that can happen is someone posts your resources as rips for others, and then some of those others might believe they are free resources and use them. To prevent that, you'll have to search for your own resources on the web perhaps once per months, and ask the page where they're posted to take them down - that's usually easy, although in some cases you need to follow procedures to do so while in others a simple message to the admin is enough.

 

[OM3GA-Z3RO]

Right, thanks for the advise

 

[ThatMaestroGuy]

Tilesets, like practically everything else artistic, I'm sure, are copyrightable. Of course, that will cost you a bit of money. But once copyrighted, finding your resources used without proper permission gives you right to take legal action against a person. Granted, it's not the most pleasant thing to do, but it gives you fair ownership of your stuff (as ridiculous as that sounds, to be sure), chances to make money off of people trying to steal your stuff, and a perfect reason to discourage others from ever wanting to take your stuff (without permission) in the first place. I suppose it depends on how willing you are to go through with it, but in the case of commercial games and such, I would highly recommend that you copyright it/them before you let loose anything.

Just my two cents. =)

 

[Jay_NOLA]

Copyright your game with the resources you made for it.  If you used any resources you purchased or downloaded that you don''t make but have permission to use when you do your copyright your game you'll indicate that in your application along with some other stuff.

If you call the copyright office you can talk to an information specialist to help you out and they will tell you ow to fill everything out correctly.

It isn't very expensive to copyright a game.

Also, keep this in mind if you used any 3D assets to make battlers and portraits.  While you can copyright your renders another person could make something similar with the same 3D model(s) and have never seen your work and they would not be in violation of copyright.  This get a bit tricky on if your 3D render and I've actually talked to a couple of companies that make and distribute 3D models about this and was advised that you need to look at this on a case by case bases and to be very careful before you accuse someone of copyright violation.

Talking to an information specialist at the copyright office is going to be your best option as the specialist can answer any questions and tell you how to best proceed to copyright your game and created resources.

Encrypting your game will help but isn't perfect as was pointed out.