Hi everyone, so I got a great game design. I'm coding up the prototype, and now the decision. The how to deploy question. I am trying to decide if I should give the user the whole .exe so he/she could run the game stand alone, or if I should "host" the game. For example using Java webstart. The reason I ask is, is piracy so bad that I would not make much of a profit, or should I not worry about it and simply publish the whole .exe. I know I didn't like the fact that I needed internet in order to run Portal, but on the other hand it seems that your code would be easier to protect against copying. I just want to know what others thought on this matter...

I say give out the exe on the grounds that I'm not touching anything that uses java web start.

Just build your game, then wait for Microsoft to come up with some brilliant anti-piracy gadget for third party developers.

Just release the .exe. My theory is, the people who pirate it probably wouldn't pay for it anyway. Bear in mind that this is coming from someone who makes freeware games, so piracy has no effect on me either way.

The real question you have to ask yourself is how likely is your target demographic to pirate your game and what would be the impact? The reason I bring this up is that strong piracy protection is expensive and has proven to be of minimal impact on piracy.

For example, you talk about “Hosting” your game with java web start. However, behind the scenes web start still downloads the client jar onto the user’s machine. So, anyone wanting to pirate the game would simply have to snag a copy of that jar and they now have a free and clear version.

You’re not going to find a simple 3rd party solution to piracy that’s worth anything. So, you need to ask yourself where do I get the most bang for my buck. Don’t spend a whole bunch of time building a complex copy protection scheme if you’re not competing for the 13 year old flash in the pan market. It’s simply just not worth your time.

I would say focus on the basics to prevent standard users from pirating your game but understand that any reasonably talented piracy group is going to break your protection, no matter how much time & money you spend on it.

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Original post by Kaze I say give out the exe on the grounds that I'm not touching anything that uses java web start.

Just out of interest, what don't you like about webstart?

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Original post by gxaxhx I would say focus on the basics to prevent standard users from pirating your game but understand that any reasonably talented piracy group is going to break your protection, no matter how much time & money you spend on it.

QFT.

I'd use the example of Spiderweb Software, which has been doing pretty well making shareware games for the past 14 years or so. They embed a different ID number each time a game is downloaded, then they give you a matching key when you register the game. Jeff doesn't encrypt or obfuscate the EXE at all, so it's trivial to crack.

So take some minimal steps to prevent casual piracy, sure. But the moment you start making life at all difficult for paying customers, you've failed.

Actually, I really like the approach of the extremely-successful Stardock (GalCiv II, Sins of a Solar Empire). No copy protection whatsoever, but they provide significant updates only to those with valid accounts. Legit customers have a better experience, because they don't need to wait for updates to eventually show up on torrent sites.

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