Game Development Community

Protecting Art Assests

by Gavin Beard · in Torque Game Builder · 01/27/2009 (7:57 am) · 9 replies

Hi all,

I am part way through creating a project at the moment and if/when it is every ready for release I would like to protect my assests (images, sounds etc) from users changes, copying etc, is this something alot of people do, and is there a low cost and easy to implement method for TGB or is it something not worth doing.

Glad to hear your thoughts
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Torque Owner Joe Rossi
Indri Games
#1
01/27/2009 (8:12 am)
Well, in my opinion it's not really worth doing. If people want to steal your assets they will, and you have the right to go after them since art is copyrighted. If you need to do it however there is a resource called cipherLib in the resources section that works pretty good. I'm not sure if it protects sound files though, I think it only does images right now.

tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque_2D/Asset_Encryption

Torque 3D Owner Gavin Beard
Byte Logic
#2
01/27/2009 (8:26 am)
Thanks Alot Joe.
It does seem a bit extreme to protect everything for an Indie Game, I guess main thing is implementing some kind of Key input for owners of the software to authorise there copy, once they've done that, if they want to edit images etc, then whats the harm :-)

Torque Owner Jon Mitchell
Studio with out a name
#3
01/27/2009 (9:39 am)
I agree Joe, overall it is not really worth it, it someone wants the assets they will get to them one way or another. However, there is a scenario I can think of where a person may want to use even a basic level of protection. That is if they are using a content pack or some other resources not their own and that other work requires a person to make good faith attempt to protect the assets to some basic level.

Torque 3D Owner Chris Jorgensen
Cascadia Games LLC
#4
01/27/2009 (10:27 am)
I just do the really simple 8-bit encryption from the resource on this site. It'll stop the casual "thief" from using your art. Very simple to add to TGB. Beyond that, I agree with the others that not much more time should be spent to stop it.

Torque 3D Owner Gavin Beard
Byte Logic
#5
01/27/2009 (11:19 am)
Thanks Chris.
I think I will just use some simple encryption and a simple Unique generation for the buyer.

Thanks again

Torque 3D Owner Gavin Beard
Byte Logic
#6
01/27/2009 (11:40 am)
Quote:Well, in my opinion it's not really worth doing. If people want to steal your assets they will, and you have the right to go after them since art is copyrighted. If you need to do it however there is a resource called cipherLib in the resources section that works pretty good. I'm not sure if it protects sound files though, I think it only does images right now.

tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque_2D/Asset_Encryption
Sorry, im reading the Wiki Page and cant find a link to the Zip file containing whats needed to implement this resource, any idea where i need to look :-)

Torque Owner Michael Woerister
#7
01/27/2009 (12:59 pm)
You can find the resource here:
http://www.garagegames.com/community/resources/view/9757

I just tried to put a link onto the wiki page but it says 'database locked'. Probably some due to the recent site update.

-Michael

Torque 3D Owner Gavin Beard
Byte Logic
#8
01/27/2009 (1:08 pm)
Thanks Michael,
I shall try to compile with this when i get home ;-)

Torque Owner Phil Nelson
#9
01/30/2009 (11:28 am)
I am just posting this to agree with Joe, the more time you spend trying to protect assets the worse you'll feel when it takes someone 5 minutes to circumvent it anyway.

Someone WANTING to steal your images and art is an awesome problem to have for an independent game. That means people are not just playing it, but REALLY enjoying it. And again, if they try to use your stuff without permission, it's already very illegal.