[casual_games] Protecting downloadable games

[Scott Price]

I'd like to answer and give a modified question--

We've been using ActiveMark for our downloadable PC games for several years now, and have been pretty happy with them.  I know that several of our publishers use them for the games that we develop and they distribute, too.

A nice thing about TryMedia in general is that they can also host and manage payments for the downloads, too.  We put a link on our site and in the demo of the game to their site, and players purchase the game and download it.  They get a serial no. which must check in with TryMedia once and then is noted as used.  It's the best we've seen short of a homegrown or continuous-verification system.

Last I checked, though, ActiveMark didn't wrap Mac apps.  What do you all use for Mac games?

Scott Price
Associate Producer * Gamelab

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Donald
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 10:02 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Protecting downloadable games

Hi Paul,

TryMedia is great, however it was purchased earlier this year by Real.  And 
has since been impossible to get any kind of response back (at least for 
us).

We went with SoftwarePassport (the new Armadillo).

Another couple are "GameShield" and "Plimus". Both are supposed to be very 
good DRM's as well.

Good Luck,

Don
xBlitz Entertainment

www.xblitz.com
www.wrigglewords.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Olivier Besson" <olive at globz.com>
To: "IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List" <casual_games at igda.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 7:05 AM
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Protecting downloadable games


  Hi,

TryMedia ActiveMark (http://www.trymedia.com/) is an encryption system:
you provide the EXE and they build an encrypted exe.
There is another popular DRM system but I forgot the name :D

Regarding flash games, you have to be careful when you choose the way
you build your exe: Zinc, Swfkit, Jugglor are popular swf-to-exe
wrappers, but they are not always compatible with encryption systems:

- In Swfkit, you have to use "no compression" option to become
activeMark-compatible.
- Jugglor is activeMark-compatible. Unlike other wrappers, it also keeps
your original framerate, but it's another issue..;-)
- Zinc was not not activeMark-compatible "as is" some years ago, ... but
I didn't check with the Zinc 3.0 version.

Hope it helps,

Olivier


Paul Steven a écrit :

>

> Hi

>

> I normally only develop online games and have just been asked to

> develop a series of downloadable games. I am interested to know if

> people tend to use any protection schemes to prevent piracy of

> downloadable executable type games and if so what is available? I will

> be developing the games in Abobe Flash for the PC. I may also offer

> Mac versions too if this isn't too much hassle.

>

> Any advice much appreciated

>

> Thanks

>

> Paul

>

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