There are games out there that require a key code to actually access their game after purchase. some come on a card and others come through emails. Does anybody know of a way to access a service like this? Or is that done directly through the program/console that you are wanting to release on?
For a PC game you would have to setup a server system that will check and register those codes.
My suggestion is to not even bother. Key generator systems, unless backed by an online server with a database of all authed keys (and even then) are useless for actual protection.
If your game is popular enough that people are seriously torrenting it or something, you should feel lucky. At least, that’s from an indie perspective.
The time and money spent dealing with such a system, especially if you are paying for it rather than making it yourself, is not going to be recouped in sales from people who would otherwise pirate the game. Why? Because they’ll pirate it anyway, it will be cracked just as quickly as if it had a “guess a number from 1-10” based DRM scheme. So any time and money spent on that, especially as an indie, is going to be wasted effort that could have been spent making the game better.
Just my two cents.
The best way to do this is to A: have a verification server and you need to write a algorithm that generates the keys.
B: Search for someone who has experience in this and pay them to do it.
C: I am not certain but years ago when publishing games in Asia our CD printing company had that service if we wanted it. Not sure if anyone does that anymore.
Some good ways to do this are to give the machine the game is being installed on a unique ID that in turn is the actual key. Then when they apply for the actual activation key via a website or a remote tcp/ip socket it runs the before mentioned algorithm and spits out the activation key. You could even do the entire thing remotely to prevent crappy hackers from cracking it and splattering the crack with all kinds of RATS. In other words they send in the machine Id and the remote verification server does all the work and plants a dll (that was actually already there) and just sets active to 1… So if the game is installed on another machine that has not been recognized it is naturally set to 0 and the remote server knows that the key has already been used.
There are all kinds of way of doing this but the old CD key way just doesn’t work anymore. Everyone and their brother will be using the same key. It really isn’t that hard if you code… if you can’t code well… I think you maybe out of luck… It is sad though because about 95% of the malware out there is spread through cracks and it is the software developers fault because they got clever and made people have to execute software to crack stuff…
i use to have something like this
it was web based to make it simple i had a database of unique keys and when someone activated a key it was de-actived in the database and it also had the option to let 1 key be used more then once if i wanted a multiple use key
Oh wow, most replies I have ever gotten on a post. This was a question that was asked by my boss, what he is trying to do, because we also work for a magazine, we are trying to build a way to distribute games through our magazine’s website. which is why we assumed the code generator would be the best way to cover our back side. The asian company you used to go through, what was the name of the company. Just out of curiosity, unless the company is no longer active. We would also be flattered as well if someone was trying to torrent our game.
MD5 SHA1 Hash Extractor 2.5 Keygen <— would this be something that could be usable for distribution?
First and foremost understand the problem. You need to be able to 1) Generate secure keys 2) Generate those keys securely to people who purchase your game 3) Store those secure keys in a secure database 4) Validate keys securley. This requires infrastructure to be done right and if the infrastructure fails you can see your DRM system fail or people will not be able to access their purchase.
The first step is to generate keys. I recommend avoiding MD5/SHA at all costs as they are very popular and have extensive rainbow tables available and can be easily bruteforced. I would recommend researching Blowfish or something beefier/more obscure. Security through obscurity can be a good thing here. The next step is to distribute and store these keys. An obvious solution is to throw up a DB and start throwing stuff into it. I would recommend however using another type of crypto to store the already generated keys. This way the raw keys have to first be broken at the DB layer and then again in order to be exploited. A rule should be that nobody expect the underlying systems should ever see the actual keys expect the user following their purchase. The validation of keys is the easiest part, but keep in mind this requires either a local DB shipped with every copy of the game containing every key OR an online solution that requires the user to have an internet connection to validate. That is a decision that you must make based on resources and intent.
Be smart with how you implement this if you are serious about it. I don’t support DRM, but I understand many see it as a necessary evil.
I would have to agree with this - That said IF you want to go 100% DRM Free and are looking to Distribute your game in some sort of manner.
Look at GOG.com/Indie
That said - Do not punish the customer who bought you game legitimately. DRM is about preventing copying and sharing of digital media. Books, Movies, Games, etc.
I will take an personal example here - I bought a little game called Watch_Dogs through steam I have to log in through steam AND UPlay.
I could not play that on launch day - Due to Uplay and Always online DRM.
My advice - Do not bother with DRM. You will be making more hassle than it is worth.
thanks for the info guys.
I am sorry that was over 10 years ago 