The Piracy
As a single game developer, I’m not working with code and graphics only, but I have to deal with some kind of marketing which includes web analytics and searching.
I have faced with a sad fact that my game is placed in large quantities of piracy websites.
On the one hand it’s good for me, because I placed the link to my Patreon page inside the game and this helps me to spread my work around the world, on the other hand, it’s not fair to my current patrons who support me now.
And there is one big issue. Most piracy websites don’t place any links to my Patreon (in description) and also they add some kind of viruses and trojans to the game archive. I’m frustrated about it, you know.
I want to ask you about content protection. What do you think? Should I make something with it or not?
Comments (10)
Take it from me. If they like the game, they will pay. To go on a witch hunt is a waste of time unless you have some one to do it for you. I my self have pirated some games and bought them after. Things like updates, new content, work in progress ect are mostly the drive force to pay. Although i never pirated patreon games nor have pirated last 5 years. I still feel that it still stands for reason to pay after piracy. Also. Piracy isn't lost sales... dont make the mistake big AAA idiots make. There would not have been a sale if it wasn't pirated. They will ether not pay at all or pay after experiencing it.
I've seen a bunch of conferences about piracy in games and, while some developers actually put a lot of effort in making their game hard to get for free, most of them deem that effort as unworthy in terms of time spent, simply because even in the unlikely case that no one will be able to pirate it, most of the people who would have downloaded the game for free will not buy it. So my advice is: feel free to take countermeasures to piracy, but don't spend too much time on it, because the patrons you'll lose if your work gets delayed will probably be more than the ones you'll gain from preventing piracy. Also, if you placed a link to your patreon page in the game, you shouldn't care about pirates not doing so in description (if someone plays the game they will get the link anyway) and, finally, any adult with a pc should know the risk of downloading pirated software, so don't waste your bedtime prayer on them.
Some have put Ads in their games, And only Patrons have the code to block them. I think that is working
It's good idea too I think. Thanks
Your game isn't worth the amount of money you are asking for, that is why people pirate it and will continue to do so until you aren't asking 25 dollars for full access to all features.
They're pirating the 5$ version, and the 5$ version contains all playable features. There are no pay walls or limited features, so I'm not agree with you, sorry.
Others have already tried and failed. Imho it's a waste of time... the best way to deal with it is by offering your patrons a more varied range of rewards. Check other successful Patreon devs to see what I'm referring to.
Thanks for the good advice I'll check it
I would recommend entering authentication for the application through a certain server to which the game sends certain data at startup and, if the server does not like something, the game simply will not start. Since your game on Unity, it can be done quite easily. Thus it is possible to significantly limit the distribution of those copies of the game, which can harm players.
I'm no patreon, so i can't vote. Whatever way you decide to protect your game, hackers will find a way through. If you use a password, they will share it. Etc. About the malware; the only thing you can do is nake people aware that downloading the game through other means than patreon can be unsafe and potentially have malware. All in all; It's hard to protect your game. It's harder to protect peoples computers. Good luck