Decrypting Game Files - Protection?

I recently became VERY aware of people decrypting my game files in order to access the game as a project.

My question is... is there a protection against this? I mean, I wasn't aware of just how EASY this is! I'm not particularly comfortable with random people poking through my commercial game files...

I don't see a DRM-protection helping here, since that protects against pirates as opposed to... hackers, I guess.

The unfortunate truth is that relatively any protection can be beaten, with time.  The simple protection afforded by RPG Maker software itself was broken some time ago and it's really easy to get source material nowadays.  Of course, if someone does indeed use your materials, assuming you took the time and money copyright them all, then you have legal recourse to take action against them using them in any way, shape or form.

However, to put it simply, there is no protection against hacking materials from an encrypted game, at least not at this time.  Sorry.

EDIT:

To add to this, you COULD make your own DRM for your game, but aside from time, effort and quite possibly more money to spend, it will be broken in time as well if it's popular enough and things like music looping might not work since looping OGG's are done by streaming the audio, which can't be done unless they are extracted and then played through the runtime.

As said, any game encryption can and will be hacked sooner or later - and the default encryption was hacked some time ago. You are still required to use that encryption in cases like using shop resources due to EULA and legal reasons.


However, recently there has been a new addition to protect your game by using scripted encryptions.


http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/28990-est-encrypter/


Use that, and it'll at least a protection for several months (it's new and as far as I know it hasn't been hacked yet) - perhaps longer because not everyone uses it and a hacker has to find a game with it before he can work on hacking.

Estriole has an encryption script. Not 100% sure how it works, but it's supposed to help protect against the decrypter programs out there.

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/25257-est-encrypter/

Edit: Damn it! You beat me, Andar!

Thanks guys. I'll look into this :)

You don't buy copyright for your stuff, it comes by default. Trademarks and patents are the things that cost money.

I wouldn't count on that working, either. It took me about 30 minutes to decrypt it.

If you're concerned about your project being decrypted, don't use RPG Maker. It is trivial for anyone who knows what they're doing to decrypt, even with third-party encryption systems.

It was just a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. I guess I never expected a project of mine to be of that level of interest to people... but hey. I guess I'm just modest :p

Unless you're a studio that can put tons and tons of money into DRM -- and are also willing to risk offending legitimate customers in the process -- there truly is no point worrying about it: people will crack it if they want to, and easily. Even AAA games are easily cracked if you know what you're doing, and studios making those have publishers willing to literally spend hundreds of thousands protecting their content.

It's about the personal feeling. His game may contains a lot of original contents and he want it ONLY appears in his game. It's kinda irritating to know that your original resources appears in someone's game. And especially if their game is more popular than yours. Finding better encryption methods is not that wrong even for Indie developers

So buying customers are decrypting your game?

One your game is released you loose a certain amount of control over your darling. Sounds like you should work on squelching those feelings, or at least become more removed from them.

Some appearance of encryption can be required even despite yoiur feelings. Apart from that I usually get the feeling that the developers loosen their grip rather than tighten it are more respected by players.

As much you dislike it some players love to play around with the game structure and data.

I give you this advice because your feelings can be worked on, and because I believe it's generally better to work with the players than fighting a loosing battle against them. (Yes, you will loose)

*hugs*

 - Zeriab