Leaks
The last post before the release of 1.75 I want to dedicate to the topic of leaking of the game.
I will start by describing how unpleasant it can be when unscrupulous users leak your game literally in the first 10 minutes and only because you do not try to extra protect it. Though just wait two weeks and the game will be available absolutely free and with the full approval of the author.
For God's sake, wait at least 72 hours and even then our little team would have almost no sense of injustice. But no, it's important to do it in the first minutes, as if by this alone they show their disgusting attitude towards you and other people who faithfully support and do not engage in leaking.
Some might say, what's the big deal! What do I care if you don't get a few extra dollars!
In fact, with every version that gets leaked in the first few minutes of release, we're missing out on much more than even a few hundred.
If you count that over the long haul it comes out to a very large sum.
And, therefore, we are not able to give up our main job and thus devote more time to the game and its development.
Maybe others will say it's an advertisement for my game, and it's all good for it.
Unfortunately ,I strongly disagree with you, because it's an unpleasant circumstance that turns many people off from support.
Why support a project when you can just steal it or take it for free. This blocks one of the most important factors: early access and exclusivity.
Now, due to the world situation and the interruption of the Patreon system and many other payment systems in my region, we have to spend 40% of our income to get some support.
Why we're writing all this.
1.75 will be released in normal test mode very soon, and most likely it will be leaked very quickly despite any requests and exhortations.
Although we will additionally try to write to the site where this is happening.
Perhaps there we will be able to somehow agree and we will be listened to.
If we don't succeed, in the future the latest versions will always go through an internal closed test, and in addition we will think how to protect ourselves from such unpleasant situations.
If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to leave them here or in the thread on our discord channel, we will read them all.
Love to everyone.
Comments (9)
LEAKERS DO NOT FUCK THIS RELEASE UP !!!!!!
mirroring the sentiment above ^ Leaks are bad for profit, but good for the exposure at least. Many, many people discovered futaquest through leaker sites, and those same people may come here and support you on Patreon! As for us, we will keep supporting the project that you and the coder have made so special. Best regards!
Unfortunately no, we release the public version on many different sites. Leaks block the exclusivity factor, which is very important.
I said again what i said during first talks of closed verified beta: do what you think is best for you. your core fans will support you. leaking will always occur. unfortunately that's how most people find game and if like they follow to sub/store pages and to ensure it won't get leaked is close to impossible but easiest is lock from new comers (even tho many people jump in month of release to support u and have it ASAP if game isn't released monthly so they are short bump in sub count but still they are contributing) long was described by cthonianmessiah and it should be like this for alpha so u can weed out bad in those you sent and beta for new comers could be more open. i'm still for closed beta (with unique copy), beta and public release. but ik how much work it would add to you.
Unfortunately we are being leaked by more than 3 people at least, it's easier for them to re-register and leak again. We are trying to contact the administrators of the forum, but alas we are still ignored. We will try again.
If identifying who is redistributing is one of your goals: This could be quite tedious depending on how it is approached, but you could always try distributing individuated copies where you add something unique (even just setting an in-game variable to some arbitrary text). This would make the SHA checksum of the distributed copy unique and depending on how many people get each copy, you'd be able to narrow down which user or group of users is redistributing. Embedding this variable in the game content also makes it more difficult to counteract as the consumer likely won't be familiar enough with RPG Maker or the internals of your code to identify where this marker is located.
truth to be told all that be needed are single character change in credits or some less used file that isn't displayed. but keeping track who have which be hardest part.
I think giving out test releases to patreons who have supported for X amount of years (2 or 3 years +) might be a good solution, as you can tell who has been supporting no matter what has happened, ect. Just an idea.
Something like that will happen if we don't come to an agreement.