How to prevent users from still being able to play my stand-alone game after a refund

Hey there @baishi422! Welcome to the community! Depending on where you’re launching your game, you have a couple options for DRM but neither are meant to be used for actual heavy DRM, just the first layer to stop casual sharing like you mentioned.

Steamworks API based DRM

EOS Interfaces (though Epic doesn’t intend to do hard DRM)

Rolling your own personal DRM:
Unless doing offline key validation, this could require your own server somewhere to authenticate the client. Generally a simple REST API to call your site to verify the user’s using a valid key can do the trick.

It’s recommended to be very careful with DRM on indie games, as no amount of defense will stop a dedicated cracker, but enough resistance for players will cause some attrition.

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