Protect your game against piracy!

[Ertal77]

Just a reminder to always archive your rpyc and rpa files to avoid illegal copies and unauthorized translations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OElY5PdfJF0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1mEzPCaa7A

[SundownKid]

That doesn't really do anything besides discourage people from going through your files, there are stuff out there that can circumvent that if someone is really determined. The only way to truly prevent piracy might be to put a Steam DRM wrapper around your game via Steamworks. It's still a good idea because leaving game files out in the open is bad form.

Also, RPA files are already archived, they ARE the archive. RPYC are the only ones you actually need, RPY files can safely be excluded from the distribution.

[Ertal77]

I'm still a newbie at renpy, so you obviously know more about it than me, SundownKid. But the Youtube videos above explain how to extract your RPY files, script included, from your RPYC and RPA files

This person, the one who made the videos, has successfully translated seven-eight visual novels, without authorization and doing a sloppy work of it.

It would be nice if there was an effective way of stopping this, it's rather annoying.

[SundownKid]

Well, I think you were confused in assuming you could further archive an RPA file, when in reality the only thing you can do in Renpy is make your files into an RPA file. So any encryption method would have to come from outside of Steam.

Not even Steamworks DRM can stop people from unpacking your file so if there exists a way to truly encrypt if I do not know of it. I am pretty sure that Pytom is diametrically opposed to heavy encryption on games as it prevents games from being salvaged if they become obsolete in the future.

Ultimately I think the best you can do is tell the creators of the illegally translated games to copyright claim all that dude's videos and any web presence he has, and make sure people know they are unauthorized. And if there is really a heavy interest in said games, translating games in Renpy legitimately isn't incredibly difficult. All you need to do is hand the translator your translation file and stick it back in the game when they are done.

[Ocelot]

Assuming dedicated hacker, archiving and encryption would not help at all. There is always who knows how to decrypt/unpack resources: your own game. You just have to ask it nicely. I used RenPy to unpack rpa archives before I got standalone tool; I know that functions to manipulate .mpq files, used by Blizzard games, are in storm.dll, bundled with the games; I remember that ,pak files, used by Q3 engine, are just renamed .zip archives.

All DRM methods easily avaliable, are easily circumvented. And more importangly, there are a lot of false-positives and problems with those.

Even not storing files on user PC and downloading them from the internet (or not even doing that and instead running the game server-side) will not help: downloading videos from streaming sites is quite easy, and did you ever see bootleg WoW servers?

In addition to all that. RenPy itself provides functionality for creating unlicensed translation without unpacking or decompiling anything: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/translat ... anslations

As SundownKid suggested, claiming DMCA is your best course of action. Attack people who actually harming you, do not annoy proper players and those, who just want to sate their curiosity, with draconian requirements and nonworking DRM.

[Saltome]

Hm... funny thing about DRM. It can actually end up killing your product. Ever heard of Dark Spore? I doubt it...
But hey, if you prefer investing all your personal time in chasing some chick on the internet, who is making your games more accessible to the world, instead of growing yourself and developing games. Be my guest.

[SundownKid]

Hm... funny thing about DRM. It can actually end up killing your product. Ever heard of Dark Spore? I doubt it...
But hey, if you prefer investing all your personal time in chasing some chick on the internet, who is making your games more accessible to the world, instead of growing yourself and developing games. Be my guest.

He implied that the person was doing a poor job translating, so the developers couldn't just ask them to contribute their fan translation to the game or it would reflect negatively on the game.

Because otherwise, asking them to contribute their translation would be the best option.

[Imperf3kt]

Its about exposure. Its technically good that they're translating them, the bad part comes in where they're "poorly done"

Maybe you might consider adding to the readme file or about screen or anywhere easily visable, on future games, something like "officially translated into these languages:" or "Officially available in x, x, x and x languages"

[Saltome]

Have you considered this from the perspective of a user though?
I think in the abscense of an official translation for a language they understand, a lot of people would love to play an unofficial translation, even if it's a bad one.(How bad can it really be?)

I mean come on, this isn't even piracy. It's simply a 3rd party localization, a harmless game mod.
And speaking of which, a lot of games allow modding, some are even based mostly on 3rd party mods.
You don't see Mojang or Paradox chasing after people for making crappy mods, and it does not particularly affect them in a negative way.
And I really feel the renpy community should be more open to modding games. It brings much more life into a game. Opens possibilities far beyond the developers boldest expectations. Brings people together and allows you to play the game in a way more suited to your preference. All in all good fun.

It's true, it might reflect badly on a developer if they go adopting bad translations.
However that doesn't mean they can't take the work that has been done on a translation, polish it and then adopt it.
Alternatively they can simply distribute it as is, with a warning that it is not official content.
They can also ignore the issue entirely, it isn't costing them money, and it is not reflecting on them, since it's 3rd party content.
But I think taking actions against the 3rd party is taking it a bit too far. And you risk pissing off all those people who have discovered your game precisely because of that crappy 3rd party translation.

And really, this is renpy, it has so very little exposure on the internet. I don't think striking one of the 3 youtube channels I've seen, who make VN videos is going to reflect well on us as a whole.

[SundownKid]

Have you considered this from the perspective of a user though?
I think in the abscense of an official translation for a language they understand, a lot of people would love to play an unofficial translation, even if it's a bad one.(How bad can it really be?)

Considering the quality of some English translations, it can be pretty bad.

I'm not saying the translation is that bad, but if you can't speak the language there's not really much way of knowing.

Anyway, it's not really a mod, since they'd have to distribute pretty much all the replacement game files to actually run the game in another language.

[Imperf3kt]

It is an issue though, if your game is commercial / you plan to eventually release in that language.

[Saltome]

It is an issue though, if your game is commercial / you plan to eventually release in that language.

You have a point there. However I don't see it as a likely event. What publisher bothers releasing translations after the original game has lost it's momentum?
This pretty much only happens with japanese studios, which take 5 - 10 years to bring their games to the western market. And let me tell you, people won't sit around for 10 years, waiting for their favorite studio to port the next game in their lasting series. And then you are expected to pay full price for something that is a decade behind the other games that are coming out.

[Ertal77]

It is an issue though, if your game is commercial / you plan to eventually release in that language.

You have a point there. However I don't see it as a likely event. What publisher bothers releasing translations after the original game has lost it's momentum?
This pretty much only happens with japanese studios, which take 5 - 10 years to bring their games to the western market. And let me tell you, people won't sit around for 10 years, waiting for their favorite studio to port the next game in their lasting series. And then you are expected to pay full price for something that is a decade behind the other games that are coming out.

What Imperf3kt said was my main concern, yes. In the case of Japanese to English translations, it's true that it's usually a long process, but I was thinking about English to Spanish fanmade translations: they are really, really bad, with grammar mistakes, awful spelling and full sentences translated using Google Translator. But they are FAST, and usually out just some months after the original game is out.

So in case you are planning to translate any visual novel to Spanish, the unofficial work will be out before yours