Exclusive materials -> encrypted game?

So, yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I got this right. To me it seems that as soon as you use some material that not everyone can get (like Member+ or Store materials), you have to encrypt your finished game, so noone can just go ahead and take the material for themselves. Is that right? I mean, actually other people are just not allowed to USE that stuff, but that means they can have a look at it or even copy it to their folders and stuff, can't they?

It's probably best to encrypt anything you publish publicly online anyway, unless it's a demonstration of a certain technique or system that you want to share with others, and is using basic RTP only.

But yes, you should definitely not be publishing any bought resources in a format where others could steal and use them...

Nobody should be taking resources from a game without explicit permission, regardless if the game is encrypted or not. A lot of games (the free ones, anyhow) come decrypted for the sole purpose of allowing others to learn from them, not for stealing resources. The big issue is the default encryption method which is already weak and broken and doesn't encrypt the audio; so even if you do manage to encrypt your game but have purchased audio from the store or received it through Members+, people will still have access to it.

I don't bother encrypting my data because my stuff so far has been freeware, and unless I'm planning to use my own encryption means outside of the default, it's really not worth it. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, the default encryption only works to a certain size limit, and if your project goes over that size the encryption doesn't work anyways.