As most game developers know, the absolute worst thing that could happen to a game is having your game be pirated and distributed during beta testing. C'mon, you think. My game isn't even out yet, and it's already being pirated? You've given the chance to a few people to test your game ,for free, before it's out, and then one of them turns right around and uploads it onto file sharing sites. Some examples of this happening are pocket rpg and mini gore. How do you guys think is the best way to stop this? Also, I have a proposal, but I'm too lazy to type it up now.
Piracy is going to happen no matter what. It's frustrating... but pirates will do what pirates will do. Instead of fighting it, the only think I can think of is to work with it. In the case of a beta test, I can see how it would be very frustrating since they could leak potentially sensitive info before it is time to release it. I guess you could work with it and include a "Feedback" button that will let people quickly shoot you an email with any issues they find. You may end up getting the pirates to assist you in beta testing the product. Otherwise, the only way around pirating is to go F2P with IAPs. Then, any pirating that goes on only helps with your marketing. But that doesn't exactly work with beta testing. The good news is that pirates and people who pay for games rarely cross over. So anybody who pirates your game wouldn't have purchased it anyway most likely, and then they just unwittingly serve to advertise your game to others and increase it's marketing power and your reach. It's a small consolation I know... but it is what it is.
Ok, I'll type out my proposal now. When people apply for beta Testing, keep a log of everybody who beta tests. Then, if your game is pirated before release, post it on a certain thread. If enough people do it, then eventually you should be able to identify which people show up often in the "pirated" list. Obviously, this would need to be in private dev forum. Also, the main problem with pirated betas is that many legit buyers have no choice. They have to pirate it if they want the game. If they want to legitly buy the game, they'll get the game a few weeks after the pirates.
I'm pretty sure there's a thread on the developer-only forum section that lists trustworthy beta testers.
No, it's slightly different. Right now, the thread adds to the list beta testers that devs recommend. This thread would compile a list of beta testers that had early access to a game that was uploaded. By cross-referencing, you'll probably be able to find patterns. For ex: a, b, c, and d are beta testers. A dev asks for beta testers and accepts a and b. That game is subsequently uploaded to a file sharing site. Then, another dev asks for beta testers, and b,c, and d are accepted. This time, the game was uploaded again. Assuming there was only one uploader, the uploader would be b. Repeat this on a larger scale, and it should work well.
The problem, as I see it, is that it's not necessarily beta testers that are the culprits. When "Ground Effect" was released nearly 2 years ago, the first pirated copy was circulated by a TA forum member. Such people just lurk, keeping an eye on the more popular upcoming titles with a view to buying & pirating them minutes after release. Apparently, the kudos is all about doing it first. Having said that, I tend to agree with Bravado Waffle - a certain section were never going to buy it anyway (rather like going free) so it's not something I lose sleep over. I think, for those who are really worried, a 'time bomb' is a great idea & probably not too difficult to write into the code.
The main problem I'm talking about is pirated beta releases. With beta releases, unless your legit customers also pirate it, the pirates get it several weeks before the legit customers. And, while there is a small group that would never have bought your game, the majority of pirates would buy your game if there was no other choice.
I usually do testing in-house. Personally, I don't trust volunteer beta testers that I don't really know. There are some really cool people on this forum that make me think it would be OK to have bigger beta tests, but this thread reminds me of the many reasons why I don't. Surprisingly, that can be done with GameSalad. The new clock attributes could help... Code: If game.Clock.Year is greater than 2011. or game.Clock.Month is greater than 8 pause game That would load a scene probably a warning scene if the year is greater than 2011 or the month is greater than August. The loaded scene on pause can then include a link to the actual game. (By knowing your iTunes Connect listing, a link can be created ahead of time... or just use redirects on a web server.) I suppose if the pirates were extra vigilant, that code could be broken... or players could just mess with their clocks... but I think that's a decent deterrent. Another way would be to require a login. (That's currently beyond GameSalad.) Beta testers would have to go to your web server to activate the game. What's nice about that is you could also use the link to send testing data... which testers are actually testing? How long did they play? How well did they do? I think that keeping track of your beta testers is important even if you're just an independent developer. If I ever decide to go with a beta test, I think I would likely require lots of personal information... like name, address and phone number. If you don't want to mess with that stuff, then the server based verification makes sense.
Photics, I'm not sure if it would be worth the effort in writing a server based verification system. Unless there is something that can be used off the shelf. I do like the feedback button idea, although this should be in every game, beta or not. It can save you from getting complaints in the ratings and allows you to have direct 1-to-1 contact with your customer who in turn feels like they have a voice. What I do think is a good idea is a time limited beta, sure the clock can be changed. But you could use an online time service (esp if your game is an online one). But with any of these measures, none of them are going to be 100%. It's a part of gaming life unfortunately but at the very least iOS does a better job of combating piracy than other more open mobile platforms.
steelfires, i beta-tested more than 20 games and found protection only once. Put to main menu personal info about beta-tester - full name and e-mail (you need make individual build for each tester). So beta-tester will not piracy your game, because he can't remove name and e-mail. Do not put info to splash screen. Because this easily editing. If beta will be leaked you can find pirate using this info
I don't think it's too hard... PHP/MySQL on the webserver... The app posts username and email... The server processes that info, maybe by checking a guest list, then sends activation code. The app receives the code and then able to be played. If game.Activated is true then play else launch activation message It's rudimentary checking... the system could be made to be more robust. Maybe there is a market for something like this. App registration is a good idea. Each AdHoc version should have the name of the beta tester in the app, discouraging the tester from pirating the app. However, I thought about doing the same thing with PDFs of my textbook. It's just too many individual copies. Depending on which tools you use, you could lose days of time. When I was working on BOT, it took about 30 minutes to build an AdHoc version. That's because lots of data had to be uploaded and downloaded from the server. So if that's 30 minutes for 50 testers, that's about a day of distraction... FOR EACH VERSION! That's why I think the online registration is a good idea. It can be automated. Sure, it takes time to create a system. But once that system is created, it can be reused/modified for future projects.
why not just have a list of beta testers which were associated with a game that was pirated. If a account shows up in many lists, then that person would likely be a pirate. As for the 5 hour thing. It's not exactly extremely hard to remove the code for that. Sure it might discourage standard script kiddies, but for anybody who actually knows what they're doing? Also, the purpose of the registration is to get info about them, right? Then why not just have a requirement to beta test that says: Give full name, email address, and forum name. This would tie in with my above proposal.
Just wondering, how do you do in house beta testing? Because that's what Pocket RPG did, and I believe their game got pirated in beta stages as well.
inhouse = mom, dad and the dog you guys are going into alot of trouble for securing your beta.. most of the stuff is better invested into upping the ante in your game imho as for a beta tester list there is one if i recall.. a search should digg that up.
Yeah, we decided to do in house testing for the iPhone version of Pocket RPG because of the leaked beta from the iPad. The pirates got a super buggy game in the end and made us distrust public testing.
That sucks about being pirated, but this probably would have happened after release anyways right? It was said earlier in the thread that the pirates and not very likely to cross over and buy games, same goes with paying customers. But what are the effects of running in house beta testing for small indie teams, do you guys think that this can affect the quality of the testing?
as I said before, I disagree with the fact that people who pirate will never buy. The main reason a lot of people pirate is they think, I have two options. A: Buy the game and pay 3.00$. or B: Pirate the game and get it for free. Some people will choose B simply because it's less money. However, if they didn't have the option to pirate the game, they would possibly buy it. Contrary to popular belief, most pirates are not people who have no way of getting 3.00 to buy the game. Also, as to the beta tester list, that list does not help pirating at all. People could give helpful feedback to the game, and release it onto the internet. Those two options aren't mutually exclusive. As for the fact that your game will get pirated anyways. Before release, the only way of getting the game is to beta test, or pirate it (if it's been released)
This is an interesting topic,as a beta tester I had thought the devs had a list of the testers info etc so that could reuse the people they found helpful in testing.I'm still in contact with the Devs from my first beta. I think people who buy Pirate games fall into two categories 1) the ones who think it's cool to "stick it to the man" because everybody else is doing it. 2) People who bought a shitty game and felt robbed and decides never to pay again,having a lite version really helps with this problem I don't believe that most of them can't afford a $.99 game (maybe the $9.99) I just think because there are so many games at that $.99 price it makes people feel like they are being robbed if the are asked to pay more for a game. think about it like this you'd pay $60 for a PS3 game and get a couple days or a weeks enjoyment out of it depending on the type of game then you are asked to pay $4.99-$9.99 for two or three hours of gaming. Anyway I got no solution for the pirating just wanted to add my two cents
