I am planning the piracy protection of my upcoming game and started wondering about how many of you are using registration codes with the full versions. I am honestly starting to think that it is too much of a hassle to keep track of them and have the user enter them at some point. Do they actually reduce piracy at all? What are your experiences and/or recomendations?

My most viable alternative is just to provide a download link after the credit card is validated.


This is probably something that has been debated over at ASP.

I plan on having minimal piracy deterrence in my game--basically, only enough to prevent casual copying. I think one's efforts are better spent making a game that's enjoyable for paying customers, eg., making additional levels available to registered users. If someone has the free time available and/or desire to go to the effort to pirate a game, they're probably not going to buy it, so why waste effort on those people?

I am currently integrating Armadillo into my software. I mainly am using it so that I can have the Trial version actually contain everything for the Full version...so that the user can just unlock the software when they pay...and not have to try to download the Full version.

I am trying to keep it as painless as possible for the user...but it definitely won't be as easy for the user as having no real protection built-in (which I agree has it's advantages).

I have found that with Armadillo I can fairly easily do special cases such as allowing the user to extend the evaluation period or do a refund that reverts the software back to the Trial version.

Armadillo is supported by some of the shareware registration services...so they can automatically generate registration keys.

For more info on Armadillo, you can check out: http://www.siliconrealms.com/armadillo.htm

Back in 1993 when I did the first shareware version of MicroMan, I used to send out 3 floppy disks and a bunch of printouts via snail mail...what I pain that turned out to be! :)
-Scorpio

I checked out Armadillo and it seemed quite ok. I have to agree that a the tought of a single download seems good to me too. Especially if the download is largish (~10M) then you give it away "free" and then the user needs no further downloads to stop sales.

Have you outsourced key generation and order processing or are you doing it yourself (Scorpio)?

One thing that i didnt quite get from their website:

what about key-code copying?
it may be a single file, but what happens when
people share key codes?

Many of the shareware registration services can automatically generate keys for software that uses Armadillo. I'm not exactly sure how you set it up...I'm guessing you have to provide them with your encryption phrase.

When the user registers, they enter their full name and their special 16 digit code. If you have a reg site provide the key, you will most likely get their real full name since they probably used a credit card to pay.

I am having my software display "Licensed to: <First> <Last>" in my About box. This should provide some deterrent...or at least a way to track down users who post their reg keys.

Also, Armadillo supports a "Stolen Keys" list. In future releases, you can enter any keys that have been stolen and they will no longer work with the newer release of your software.

Lastly, they do have a "hardware-lock" key that ties to key to a specific machine. They also have a method to transfer a hardware-lock key from one machine to another (if someone gets a new machine, for example). However, I am not using this feature so that's all I know about it.

You can get Armadillo protection with zero programming...and it's relatively customizeable. You can also take full control via their simple API and provide your own dialogs for some or all of the functionality.

They provide a fully functionality version (displays some nag screens) so you can try it out in your program. It was very easy to intergrate into my build process.

Their support has also been really good...even before I paid! They also have a forum.

Hope this info helps...
-Scorpio

I have a key generator that operates as a web service for my order processor to generate keys and also for customers to request the key if they have lost it.

Your key must have a decent encryption algorithm that will deter casual users from breaking it. I based my key on the UPC code (yep, the bar code on all products), for more info see:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/upc.htm
There is also an explanation of the UPC in "Code" by Charles Petzold.

There is no protection against piracy. If someone wants to pirate your software, all they have to do is to buy one license of your software and publish the key at a warez site. If they dont want to do even that, they could patch your .exe file such that it bypasses the code that is checking for a valid registration key.

I am not sure if ppl break keys of small indie games. Do keep a key scheme which tells customers that you mean business and also a nice feeling that they will get a unique key to unlock your software.

Yesterday I briefly flipped through a relatively new (October 2002) book entitled "Crackproof Your Software" by Pavol Cerven (ISBN: 1886411794). It comes with a CD, which is good because all the code in it is in x86 ASM (and there is a lot of it--another book padded out with source code *sigh*). It covers ways of detecting SoftICE and other cracking tools, available anti-cracking software, etc. I didn't have time to look at it too closely and Amazon doesn't have any reviews of it so I don't know if it's worthwhile, but you may want to peruse it at your local bookstore.

The comment about SoftICE reminded me that Armadillo won't allow your program to run if it detects that SoftICE is running.

In my case, I'm not really worried about people trying to crack my small games...I mainly wanted to have a single download for the Trial and Full versions and allow the user to unlock the software when they make a purchase (and have automated key generation with a shareware registration site).
-Scorpio

(Thanks Scorpio that helped me, I tested Armadillo yesterday.)

I have the same goals as Scorpio. to distribute a single version that is unlockable. This saves a lot of download hassle and keeps a single codebase on the developement side.

I don't really think you can have something uncrackable. You can always instrument the hardware .. Even a small fence is better than no fence. It tells everybody that there is a border of some kind.

Im using Install Maker Pro from www.clickteam.com

It allows you to put two different versions onto a single install package and you send the user a registration code once they have purchased which will allow them to run the install again... but rather than run the demo it will then install the full version.

As someone else mentioned there is no real way to stop pirates just prevent the normal user from messing around.

Jason

If thats what Armadillo does, then it aint worth squat.

whats the problem for a game programmer to
program a key-code system? i can do the same
in 5-10 min (thats probably what ill do)

Armadillo doesnt stop the casual copier from copying
the game along with the key code.

sorry, but i dont see the value of this protection scheme

Armadillo includes more than just a simple key generation system. They have various block against debuggers and similar ways of trying to pry the full version out of the demo package. I completely agree with you that all this is stuff you could implement yourself, but I am not into the business of copy protection schemes. If you really are that talented with encryption and similar, or you feel that additional protection is not warranted, then your decision is quite valid.

With the key codes including the name of the user it puts a psychological barrier on copying. I think this is much more worth than any technical copy-protection.

Hey look at the end of it all nothing in the world is secure. If people can get into nasa and the FBI computers dont you think any conputer game encryption will stand the chance?

Of course not, but then we are here to try and reduce the casual hackers and not the expert hackers.

A registration system on install doesnt stop the person who gets the code from distributing it... but remember if the developer gets hold of a pirated code, they know who it came from.. which deters alot of would be pirates from doing anything.

And anything that reduces piracy is good whatever the system.

Jason

Here's an idea. What if you found out some windows API for the copy and paste functions and disabled them just for your game files. Would that be doable? Steve, how do you protect your games from just being copied to a disk or something after you sent it to the customer? Sorry if I don't make any sense, I never really considered copy protection until now.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Mman
Here's an idea. What if you found out some windows API for the copy and paste functions and disabled them just for your game files. Would that be doable? Steve, how do you protect your games from just being copied to a disk or something after you sent it to the customer? Sorry if I don't make any sense, I never really considered copy protection until now.

Thanks.

Easy to do, but this will not stop the person just typing in the serial number, so its pretty useless. You also have to start drawing a line where you do inconvenience your customer who can now not copy and paste the serial.

As far as I know Dexterity just do a streight distribution of their product and dont have any copy protection.

I would recommend that if you guys want to read up a lot on registration, go to the gamedev.net business forum and search back about 3-4 months ago, we had a huge discussion back then on varies methods etc.