Is it possible to protect your game from hackers?

Engr. Adiktuzmiko

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The RTP, especially the sprites, will all be custom made since I'll plan on recruiting a teammate.
Actually thats not possible because when we talk of RTP here, it pertains to the default assets that comes with RPG maker.. So you can't have custom made "RTP". That is also why Aesica told you that most people will probably not try to get your game assets if your game uses only RTP assets.

Anyway, I agree with people here. On the physical/digital side just get some decent "protection" that wont be punishing to buying customers, and focus more on the legal side of things like securing and implementing copyrights if you really want to protect your game
 

Elliott404

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@Engr. Adiktuzmiko
Oh. I've recently knew that RTP stood for resources, I didn't think that it only meant for default assets. My bad ^^"

And Thank you all for the infos, solutions, and opinions for this thread, despite that I was slow. I don't think I want to go too far in protecting my future game if it means hurting the buyers, at the very least, I want to secure the assets. Now, I understand that there are people pirate games for various reasons, but it still hurt. So, I thought that the best solution would be releasing a demo. While this won't guarantee that it'd stop people from pirating the game, but at least some people would know what to expect when they buy a game.
 

cedr777

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Interesting thread. Reminds me of the latest Resident Evil title: "RE2 Remake" an extremely popular triple A title by a triple A game company CAPCOM.

Yet it only took less than ten days for a warez group called CODEX to crack the game and distribute a pirated copy.
 

Tai_MT

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What you could do is release the "Hacked" version of the game yourself and distribute it. Except, put in little features to make life more difficult for those who play the "Hacked" version.

If your game is already "cracked/hacked", then who will bother trying to Hack/Crack it? Even more, if they hack/crack it as well, to avoid your "terrible" hacked version, it makes it difficult for people trying to get the actually Hacked version to tell them apart. Especially if you simply rename the files every month or so to the same things the Hackers use.

There are a few Indie game studios that have resorted to this tactic, to pretty hilarious effect. With "customers" revealing to the devs, unwittingly, that they have a Pirated version of their game.

What might be the easiest option is simply to get your game onto Steam. Most people regard steam as the "official" version of the game. Which, makes it harder for someone to copy the game and redistribute it elsewhere for money. It doesn't stop people distributing it for free, but makes it easier on you to prove that the game is actually yours, when you're getting an official distribution through a platform like Steam.

As for a full protection from Hackers? Yeah, I don't think that's possible. If someone wants to hack your game, steal your assets, steal your code... they're going to do it. Most of the people who do this sort of thing don't even see it as "morally reprehensible", so you wouldn't even be able to shame them out of doing so. The best you can do is make the end result "not really worth it". You don't need super high end protections, especially with something like RPG Maker, but if the game itself simply isn't worth stealing... because you make it JUST ANNOYING ENOUGH... That usually does the trick. Because, who wants to have a free RPG Maker Game when they can get a free AAA title instead? The art assets though... There's always a high demand for music and artwork, so that's almost always worth stealing. Always best to watermark those in some way if you can.
 

cedr777

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What you could do is release the "Hacked" version of the game yourself and distribute it. Except, put in little features to make life more difficult for those who play the "Hacked" version.

If your game is already "cracked/hacked", then who will bother trying to Hack/Crack it? Even more, if they hack/crack it as well, to avoid your "terrible" hacked version, it makes it difficult for people trying to get the actually Hacked version to tell them apart. Especially if you simply rename the files every month or so to the same things the Hackers use.

There are a few Indie game studios that have resorted to this tactic, to pretty hilarious effect. With "customers" revealing to the devs, unwittingly, that they have a Pirated version of their game.

What might be the easiest option is simply to get your game onto Steam. Most people regard steam as the "official" version of the game. Which, makes it harder for someone to copy the game and redistribute it elsewhere for money. It doesn't stop people distributing it for free, but makes it easier on you to prove that the game is actually yours, when you're getting an official distribution through a platform like Steam.

As for a full protection from Hackers? Yeah, I don't think that's possible. If someone wants to hack your game, steal your assets, steal your code... they're going to do it. Most of the people who do this sort of thing don't even see it as "morally reprehensible", so you wouldn't even be able to shame them out of doing so. The best you can do is make the end result "not really worth it". You don't need super high end protections, especially with something like RPG Maker, but if the game itself simply isn't worth stealing... because you make it JUST ANNOYING ENOUGH... That usually does the trick. Because, who wants to have a free RPG Maker Game when they can get a free AAA title instead? The art assets though... There's always a high demand for music and artwork, so that's almost always worth stealing. Always best to watermark those in some way if you can.

"If someone wants to hack your game, steal your assets, steal your code... they're going to do it. " +1

Looking at you, CODEX. They eat DENUVO for breakfast.


edit1:
So is it possible to protect your game from hackers?
Ans: NO

edit2:
Since I'm here, might as well share this article about some of the most NOTORIOUS hackers of games out there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_warez_groups

"Codex was the first in the worldwide hacking scene to fully crack REmake of Resident Evil 2[2] (a.k.a. "BIOHAZARD RE: 2" in Japan), successfully bypassing the Denuvo protection (which was internally labeled as "version 5.5" at the time) of this game title on February 1-st of 2019, roughly 7 days after game's official worldwide release."

GOOD LUCK PROTECTING YOUR GAMES FROM THEM.
 
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Elliott404

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Thank you all for still giving out some advices.

@cedr777
I know that the answer would've been impossible to protect the game 100% considering that some huge companies still get their games pirated, or/and hacked regardless. I, at least, wanted to know if I can at least secure a fraction of it, like the assets, enough to make stealing it a hassle or not worth the trouble for 'em.

Q: Should I change the title to something else, or leave it be?
 

cedr777

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Thank you all for still giving out some advices.

@cedr777
I know that the answer would've been impossible to protect the game 100% considering that some huge companies still get their games pirated, or/and hacked regardless. I, at least, wanted to know if I can at least secure a fraction of it, like the assets, enough to make stealing it a hassle or not worth the trouble for 'em.

Q: Should I change the title to something else, or leave it be?

Same as others that have mentioned in the previous pages, the only things I know of, to at least implement some degree of protection is:

-Use Enigma Virtual Box, to pack the game in one single exe file. (BUT, this impacts performance AND you'll likely encounter some issues on SAVING your game.)
-Use NWJS, not familiar with this but some games have it.
-Regarding the default RPGMV editor. Keep the default encryption checkbox on when deploying a game package.
-obfuscate your JSON files. (can't elaborate though), however do take note that you can't do this for the systems.json file, which is in my opinion is the key file a hacker needs to decrypt your other important files; IMAGE and AUDIO.
-If you're really serious about it. use DENUVO for DRM, I don't know much about it though but they say it's the DRM choice for most tripleA companies. (the drawback, it will most likely be extremely expensive, and I don't even know where to begin on that; do you send them your game files? do they give you the software and you encrypt it yourself? sorry, i'm clueless on that atm.)

EDIT: combine all of the above to at least deter some users(the beginner ones) from using your files on their own projects. Because since they're starting out, they are almost always the ones seeking other peoples assets for free.

btw, here's a good video tutorial by SRD.

Also I meant to be sarcastic when I mentioned about CODEX, sorry if I offended you.
 
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Elliott404

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It's alright. I thought you were being sarcastic, and I liked this part lol:
Looking at you, CODEX. They eat DENUVO for breakfast.

I liked the obfuscate the json file part. It does look like it needs ALOT of work to encrypt(?) Datas.
 

Poryg

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Not that much work to be honest. Use a javascript minifier/obfuscator and it will do all the work for you. If it's good. For example I've seen an obfuscator that converts letters to charcodes/unicode chars.
As for actual encryption, that's not a problem either. But then you need to have a decrypt step as well.
 

Elliott404

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@Poryg
Oh, I was referring to the part where if someone tried to take the json file after I obfuscated it.
 

Poryg

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Well, it would be if done well. But don't forget that the game still needs to read your data, so if you store the decrypted data in memory, I might still be able to mine it :D
 

Elliott404

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But, with Enigma pack, will it be a bothersome, or a hassle to work on it?
 

Poryg

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If you use just enigma virtual box, it won't. You need to step it up afterwards and use at least enigma protector.
 

Elliott404

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Oh, I wasn't clear in my last reply, so I'll rephrase it:
If I obfuscated the json files, used Enigma box with protector next, will it be a hassle to decrypt the game files?
 

Poryg

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From there it would probably be a huge enough hassle to deter me :D So I guess it might be probable if done well enough.
 

Elliott404

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So, it's safe to say: "I'll settle with this"?

EDIT: I forgot to mention about using your idea of asset protector before using Enigma pack protector
 

Poryg

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It's safe to say. Now it's only a matter of execution :D
 

Elliott404

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Yea. At least, if one desperate person did managed to take something from the game, I don't think it'll be hard to not to be noticed by anyone if the game's source is in only one place.
 

VeryXInh

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Poryg showed me that nothing is really safe from someone who has good knowledge with data/security stuff
(he shattered my belief lol) Σ( ̄ロ ̄lll)
 

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