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How to impl a drm scheme?

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44 comments, last by loik_1 6 years, 2 months ago
On 3/29/2018 at 7:33 PM, swiftcoder said:

I'm not really sure what any of the above have to do with DRM? They seem like a grab-bag of features mostly related to the game being online.

Value-added components will not work with out a account and it will deter them, I think. So DRM like? ;)

Any resources? (some links, articles, posts, books, tips or best practices)

Thank you :-)

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4 hours ago, loik_1 said:

Value-added components will not work with out a account and it will deter them, I think. So DRM like? ;)

My point was more that you can focus on adding value via online-only features, and that naturally acts as a form of DRM.

4 hours ago, loik_1 said:

Any resources? (some links, articles, posts, books, tips or best practices)

Writing DRM isn't really a well documented topic. At least in part because writing down DRM techniques in public is a sure way to make them completely useless :)

There are plenty of articles about adding online features - what specifically are you asking for advice on?

Tristam MacDonald. Ex-BigTech Software Engineer. Future farmer. [https://trist.am]

1 hour ago, swiftcoder said:

What specifically are you asking for advice on?

Implementing a DRM scheme or a simple one. :)

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Writing DRM isn't really a well documented topic. At least in part because writing down DRM techniques in public is a sure way to make them completely useless :)

Security by obscurity.:( Well design DRM would be effective of revealed.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49565356/how-to-impl-a-drm-scheme

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My point was more that you can focus on adding value via online-only features, and that naturally acts as a form of DRM.

True. :)

50 minutes ago, loik_1 said:

Well design DRM would be effective of revealed.

For a non-networked game? Doesn't exist, in a theoretical sense. Once you deploy a binary to a customer-owned computer, the game is already over, it's just a matter of whether your obfuscations can slow an attacker down sufficiently that they give up.

There are... more drastic methods. Hardware TPM modules. USB dongles. These tend to be deployed for very high unit-cost software (multi-thousand dollar CAD systems, etc). Not cost-effective for things like games.

Tristam MacDonald. Ex-BigTech Software Engineer. Future farmer. [https://trist.am]

Just now, swiftcoder said:

For a non-networked game? Doesn't exist, in a theoretical sense. Once you deploy a binary to a customer-owned computer, the game is already over, it's just a matter of whether your obfuscations can slow an attacker down sufficiently that they give up.

There are... more drastic methods. Hardware TPM modules. USB dongles. These tend to be deployed for very high unit-cost software (multi-thousand dollar CAD systems, etc). Not cost-effective for things like games.

Good ol' USB Dongles, I've seen so many of these emulated. :D If I remember correctly back in the day Steinberg Cubase used dongles and suffered from pirating due to emulation. When users had issues with their Dongles, they couldn't even use the software, completely locking out paying customers. Then they had to get new Dongles to transfer their license which didn't happen overnight, so they had to use 30 day free trials while waiting. Also, if the internet was down you couldn't even touch the application. Yet the people pirating the application on emulated dongles without internet connections were working with 100% up-time.

While they're trying to secure sales from people who would likely never buy their product to begin with, the paying customers have to deal with the many headaches that come with their DRM process.

Programmer and 3D Artist

15 hours ago, swiftcoder said:

For a non-networked game? Doesn't exist, in a theoretical sense. Once you deploy a binary to a customer-owned computer, the game is already over, it's just a matter of whether your obfuscations can slow an attacker down sufficiently that they give up.

This is the point. No free lunch for cheaters and pirates. p.s. networked components ;)

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There are... more drastic methods. Hardware TPM modules. USB dongles. These tend to be deployed for very high unit-cost software (multi-thousand dollar CAD systems, etc). Not cost-effective for things like games.

Too extreme.

idea -> §3 to 3.2 https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/shareware.html ?

@loik_1 If you're looking to obfuscate your code, then you should go on Google and search for an obfuscator in that given language. There are tons of tools online you can buy to do this.

Programmer and 3D Artist

@Rutin Ok, tools for Nim or Rust?

18 minutes ago, loik_1 said:

@Rutin Ok, tools for Nim or Rust?

I'm not familiar with any tools for Nim or Rust. As you're quoting two languages, has the project even been created yet? Is there a reason you're not using a mainstream programming language? If you stick to something more commonly used, the tools available will be greater.

If you're going to use either Nim or Rust, you're better off going to their community forums and asking them what tools are available.

Programmer and 3D Artist

34 minutes ago, Rutin said:

I'm not familiar with any tools for Nim or Rust. As you're quoting two languages, has the project even been created yet? Is there a reason you're not using a mainstream programming language? If you stick to something more commonly used, the tools available will be greater.

The project haven't startd yet. Just planning right now. I want to use a modern clean language that is memory safety and low-level like C/C++. ;)

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