https://www.reddit.com/r/UnrealEngine5/s/ZjoaiNBC4g
In this post you can see a developer has created a DRM tool for freelancers to use against clients that haven’t paid.
I’m concerned that this can be used by malicious actors to lock projects ransomware style.
plugin for Unreal that lets you remotely block a project
Fab approved it for their marketplace!
So FAB approved a Kill Switch that can corrupt projects. Nice
Where are guarantees this Kill Switch will not be abused?
We have many cases of sellers getting in disputes with customers and banning them from their support Discord server. Like here. Now such sellers will additionally kill switching the customer’s project?
Where are guarantees that if a plugin can remotely block a project, it cannot also collect confidential data and parse your PC files?
What if such sellers get hacked themselves? Will hackers also get access to confidential data and the ability to kill switch hundreds of projects?
The creator is apparently from France. Does he have the necessary infrastructure and security measures to store such data according to French / EU data protection laws? Or can his kid playing a browser game accidentally or just for fun block someone’s project?
We had countries trying to implement a kill switch into exported military vehicles. It ended in less demand for such vehicles.
We had Unity trying to control every step of its users. It ended in less demand for Unity.
There is already less demand for FAB due to a lot of low-quailty assets and AI flood. No kill switch plugins should be allowed to not worsen the situation.
Pirates are already disadvantaged by having no support, no updates and often no documentation. A kill switch feature will be a hassle for legit clients. Even if it stops 1 pirate out of 100 legit users, it is totally overkill. Just like AAA companies that waste millions on Denuvo DRM instead of spending them on optimizing and polishing their games, which are still cracked shortly after release.
Releasing a game is already a lot of stress. Now you’ll get even more stress, fearing suddenly your project can be remotely blocked because a kill switch plugin got bugged.