Asset piracy is something I’m very concerned with considering that I’ve worked on my game framework for almost 3 years now, scrapping and restarting over and over again, and now that I’m finally almost ready to release this such an issue is coming to my mind.
Asset wise I don’t think much can be done. But if you somehow have the money to pay for it, I’m sure you’d be able to use a DRM for your finished game assuming you can pay for it. (Problem is, most of us indie developers probably don’t have that kind of money.)
Last I checked a DRM in a packaged game wasn’t ever against Unreal’s terms of service. I don’t know who in their right mind would do that anyway… but I will add that for finished games. Again, assets, well, we’re probably all out of luck.
On that note, I don’t even like DRMs. But I really don’t know what else I could do. We’re a tiny studio and we literally cannot even begin to afford the losses from piracy… hopefully once we grow enough we wouldn’t need them anymore.