A thought on Game Shareware creation

[neicedover1982]

Ok, I read in some posting here that making your game shareware is not always usefull. Or for that matter easy to do and secure. I have given this some thought and I figured I would post how I did it for a friends program (a simple one, it was for "sh*ts and giggles") and get some feedback.

I know that if someone wants to get into your game, they will. I did this example just for fun and had a few friends try to "crack" it with no luck.

How it worked:
I had the person give me thier name and my program read thier HD number (it did some basic calculations to it involving the date to make it look "random")
I got it, ran the same calculation only using thier name instead of the date to get the code I return to them.
When they ran the program, it decoded the string based on thier name and compared the answer to the actual HD number. if they matche, it worked and vice versa.

I know that it is a simple and somewhat dull way to do shareware, but it worked at my college. Reformated HD have the same number and not many people swap out thier HDs.

Let me know what our thoughts are. But, please be gentle
Later

[NoteMe]

What if they have 2 PCs? What then? Can't they run your app then?

[neicedover1982]

Like I said, this is not the best shareware. At school, most people who had used my friends program had 1 computer. I have 3 myself, but only 1 I use for games (more power ).

You can always put a disclaimer saying "this can only be placed one one computer"...alot like what companies do. They say you buy 1 code, you can put it on 1 computer.

I have actually gotten software they I put on my laptop but then wouldnt work without a different code on my tower.

[NoteMe]

I suddenly realiced that it was posted in the game and graphics section, so I moved it..


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[dglienna]

I thought the hard disk serial number was generated when you formatted, so it changes each time you format.

[neicedover1982]

If that were the case, there would be no point to have a hard drive serial number. The HD serial will be stored in the drive's firmware, and will not be changed during any type of reformatting.

[Waxy]

Sorry, neicedover1982, but i think you're mistakin.
To clarify:

Volume in drive C is C DRIVE
Volume Serial Number is 3311-0BE3

Volume in drive D has no label
Volume Serial Number is 1BE4-141F

Volume in drive E has no label
Volume Serial Number is 0B06-1758

This is one drive split into 6 parts. i posted the first three serial numbers.
notice these aren't DRIVE serial numbers, but VOLUME serial numbers. (the
mistake neicedover1982 made in the semantics)

My understanding from this is whenever you create a new drive (maybe even
format it?) it is assigned a random serial number for that volume.

[dglienna]

I just reformatted this weekend, and my program wouldn't read encrypted files, as the serial number had indeed changed. I tried to use the old info that was my registration code, and it didn't work. Now I have to make sure that there is a way to get into the files if this happens to a client.

[neicedover1982]

I have reformated my computer 3 times over the last year and the code is the same. You dont get the volume number but the code of the actual hardware. This is hard coded and never changed. I will get the article for you, if I can find it, i think i set it in my favorites.

This is from thetechguide forum
-----
There are 2 Serial numbers on a hard drive.

1 A Volume Serial number. (Can be changed)

2 A Hard drive serial number stored on EEPROM (Can't be changed)

Pliers..
----

we got the code to get the 2nd number, not the first

[NoteMe]

neicedover1982 is right. The two things you are talking about is two different things.



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[dglienna]

Well, this is a PITA. I guess that users can change the serial number to whatever they want, and be able to use the same software key for any computer. Looks like some re-writing is called for!

[neicedover1982]

dglienna, what are you talking about? i just posted that the Hard drive serial number can not be changed?

[dglienna]

GetVolumeInformation() uses the Volume Serial Number, which can be changed.
I am going to have to alter my program. MVPS has a routine that detects the actual serial number, though, so it will still allow me to register a program.

[neicedover1982]

I just found this while researching better ways for serial numbers. using WMI with visual basic lets you get a ton of information from the computer. I am going to take a look at it and see what I can do, if i can use it at all.

[dglienna]

Post back what you discover.

[neicedover1982]

I did some looking around and some playing with code. It turns out that using WMI is cool but it requires that the users have it installed. It already comes on Windows 2000 and newer, i believe thats what i read. I tried it with my program to get a bunch of things such has the HDD number, CPU id, BIOS, and such like that. It seems like it can be usefull.

[Hack]

It turns out that using WMI is cool but it requires that the users have it installed.

True, but you can easily deal with this situation by having your setup and installation package install it for you.

[neicedover1982]

I did some more research and realized something. I am writing for the Windows OS, thats what I am telling people my game will work on. I am going to use the Windows product key (its stored in the registry) and do that. Instead of trying to find out serial numbers of harddrives or what have you. I will still do all the same encryption and math and stuff, but I know that everyone will have the code.

[conipto]

I did some more research and realized something. I am writing for the Windows OS, thats what I am telling people my game will work on. I am going to use the Windows product key (its stored in the registry) and do that. Instead of trying to find out serial numbers of harddrives or what have you. I will still do all the same encryption and math and stuff, but I know that everyone will have the code.

Wouldn't the type of person that would pirate game software from his buddy be likely to pirate his OS from that same buddy? I know XP is a little bit more of a pain to do that with, but with things like win2K, etc.. it doesn't care.

Bill