DRM in general doesn’t work at all, for any purpose. Like I said though you could use digitial fingerprinting to ban people on patreon, and comic artists have done it before, but a) it’s a lot of work and b) banning your own customers doesn’t actually generate that much benefit.
edit:
The reason comic artists sometimes use digital fingerprinting to ban their leakers though is that they’ll do something like release 1 page of the comic every week or something, but with a video game with a major update every few months… there won’t be as much time to catch and ban any/all leakers. I just wanted to bring it up because people who hated piracy have done it, and it did “work”. The only problem is that it was a ton of effort and I’m not sure it actually increased the amount of money fafcomics or myfetishsituation earned because they made it so hard to buy their work a lot of potential fans were driven away, I know I personally wouldn’t want to jump through that many hoops to buy from them (they also I think got banned from patreon? or had some dispute with patreon? I honestly can’t remember since I was never a big fan of either).
One way to combat piracy through patreon is to increase the added value of the patreon itself. Increase regularity of content and user engagement like the photo shoot posts and progress update posts. Having a faster release schedule would lower the incentive to pirating the latest version. Of course, this all comes at the cost of additional time and effort, which is probably the type of resources that are hard to come by. As much as it sucks, fighting pirates is just screaming into the void and puts people off. You have to either use the pirates to your advantage or do your best to ignore them. I believe you will make the best choice you can Tiggertoo.
I like that idea you know also add to that he can look on is patron who been supporting him for X amount of mouths so like anyone that has been supporting him for like 6 months or more gets access to the final cut of the game first,something like that.
Hmm, that might actually work, as leakers are likely fans who support only for the 1month it takes to create the leak. That’s sort of a solution he could deploy when 0.6 comes out. Although I think he has a lot of legitmate fans who support him only in the months he makes releases who aren’t the leaker.
Yeah. I don’t really trust Patreon, since one time they charged me triple my subscriptions for one month so I tend to pledge for a month and then immediately cancel my subscription. And I do think that banning everyone who just wants to pay 5 bucks for an update would lead to a lot fewer people supporting in general and would most likely just increase the rate of piracy.
What if there was a way to add in some sort of failsafe, that if the game isn’t accessed from a specific link or or code that the game becomes unplayable after a few minutes (like Alice leaving due to you being a pirate or something).
Maybe tough to implement, but it could help to stem the possible of piracy if the pirates can’t replicate the website.
I wasn’t suggesting he ban all the people who only subbed for one month, but he could instead just send direct messages to all the people who subbed for a long time with the link for the new update, then at some later date release it via other means. So those who wanted to only sub for one month wouldn’t be banned, but they also wouldn’t get the update on time?
This is how standard drm works but it’s a lot of work. It’s not something I think ren’py has in the default template at all for example. And pirates have always been able to defeat it anyways, making it an extremely bad tradeoff.
Holy Zarquon, that’s a lot of posts! I don’t have time to reply to each one individually, but thank you to everyone who’s made suggestions/messaged me etc. here, on Patreon and elsewhere. I have read (I think!) every one of them.
In the short term, this doesn’t affect anything. 0.6 will still be released this month. Long term, we’ll just have to see how much more of a financial hit I take when it gets leaked. I’d imagine one of two things will happen then. I ditch the game for good, or pull the public releases until it’s finished. Neither of which really appeals to me.
One thing though. Several of you have mentioned that you’d happily pay more to keep the game going. I really appreciate this, but please don’t. Quite a few of you have already donated more than I’ll be releasing the finished game for (and anyone who’s done so will get it for free) and it’s totally unfair for you guys to pay extra because of one moronic individual who’s trying to spoil this for everyone.
Cheers! I guess the next move is down to the guy doing this…
He’s clearly several sandwiches short of a picnic. I could understand leaking a finished game - nothing to lose by doing that - but financially supporting the game on Patreon with one hand, and doing your best to get it cancelled with the other? Perhaps he was dropped on his head as a baby?
Exactly! I just can’t seem to understand his mentality at this point… honestly, what does he even get from pirating it? Like is there an award of some sort?? Smh
In his defense, literally 1000s of games have been leaked by dozens or hundreds of people on that website (which I won’t name because I don’t want to drive people to it). So, from his perspective, it is common practice to leak patreon game projects.
The fact it’s common doesn’t make it a good idea though. I do sincerely hope though that somehow this works out.
I think holding the game until it’s finished for release will end up driving patrons away. Unless you do something else to keep them around, like increasing the number of teaser posts/renders dramatically.
It is really the only 100% foolproof method though to prevent leaks in the interim though.
Apparently they’ve already ported the game to android. I didn’t realize porting to android was that easy.
I think I’m going to go reply to people in the bad site’s thread, and try to be positive. Now that the damage is done, it can’t be undone, but maybe if some of the diehard fans go to the piracy site and click like a bunch of times (or get into conversations about how great the game is) it would be good publicity and maybe draw in some new patreon followers? I dunno?
edit:
Oh and in reply to @msmythicalwonders the leakers reward appears to be 35 likes on his post? It’s not a GOOD reward, but that’s how the internet is. People do bad things in their posts on reddit all in the hope of getting those delicious and pointless upvotes.
edit2:
If I were tiggertoo I’d be mad. However as a third party observer who has watched people be jerks and troll each other on internet forums for decades. Well, I’m just not at all surprised. If anything, what I am surprised by here is that this game wasn’t pirated sooner. It’s a great game. I think this is maybe the most underrated VN I’ve ever played. I’m biased though as I’m a pretty big fanboi of alice.
Respect that integrity, I hope they just stop but I suppose that a lot of us are in areas where we might potentially see if it gets leaked again (I didn’t see it this time,) but if I do, maybe we can help police it, if the site has some report function and try to get it off the internet asap. Will certainly let you know if I ever do see it, but on better news hyped for 0.6
@namad It’s been pirated a few times (I was delighted when Yiff.Party finally bit the bullet), but up until now, it’s simply been linking to the Mega files, so all I’ve had to do is change the links. This is a bit more serious, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
The argument about it being good publicity has been used on one of the sites where the game was leaked, but simply doesn’t hold water. Every time it’s leaked, I lose far more Patreons than I gain. (leaked - hold water - geddit? Oh, I should have been a comedian)
@loljuicepwn I’ve been watching a few sites (including that particular one, although it was a kind-hearted patron who initially pointed it out) for ages, but if you or anyone else does see further leaks, feel free to let me know
edit yeah, I’ll still be putting 0.6 out. It’s almost finished so it’d be daft not to. It’ll probably be delayed by a few days now though, I’m afraid. For obvious reasons, I don’t have too much motivation right now.
I was perusing other creators and saw “magmaman” called out his following as well. Seems he has a pirate in his midst as well. I’m sure there’s an overlap of patrons between you two and wouldn’t be surprised if its the same person.
I didn’t mean to say that the leak was good. Merely that since the leak is in the past. One can try to think of those negative consequences as being in the past (even if they’re still manifesting themselves.) We could hope for a silver lining. Maybe you’ll lose slightly more patreons than you gain instead of “far” more. That’s my most realistic hope at least. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a miracle though.
Also magmaman managed to ask kemono dot party to block his patreon so no future uploads/leaks can be made on that site. It’s the site that is trying to take over for yiff.
Unfortunately though, the main site I think we’re all thinking of, doesn’t give in to reason or compromise, so asking them probably won’t matter/help.
I think that games are really impossible to stop piracy with. With a comic you’re essentially releasing each render as a separate release. Meaning someone needs to make 100s of leaks, meaning you might have a chance to catch on and do something about it. With a game though the updates are so gigantic and delayed that 1 or two leaks is essentially enough. If someone leaked week 57’s comic strip on a patreon it wouldn’t necessarily have as much impact on week 58’s comic strip.
TL;DR
Maybe you can read this and think of it as a very minor silver lining?
Instead of linking to the piracy site I’ll just quote what the guy wrote in his review:
"
My first review on this site [image]
It’s such a niche genre and this is probably the best game I’ve played in it. Forks is a close second.
The characters are well written, the story isn’t forced, renders & weight evolution arev very nice.
Can’t wait for a new version + subbed to patreon to support dev.
One point of critism: game is a bit to repetitive / slow in progress for my taste. However, part of the charm is that the weight gain is also not to fast. So it kind of evens out in my opinion.
"
