Response to Game Stealing

adent42adent42 Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO Posts: 3,165
edited November -1 in News from the Dev Team
I posted this at the end of one of the original threads, but I though I'd put it in a new thread to give people a chance to respond.

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Greetings and salutation,

It saddens us to find that a GameSalad member copied other member’s games from gamesalad.com and submitted the copied games to the iTunes App Store. We have terminated the responsible member’s account and are taking steps to prevent this individual from returning to our community.

It is unfortunate that some users choose to take advantage of the open nature of the web and the spirit of sharing in our community. In the past we have been able to resolve these incidents amicably for all involved, but we realize that as the community grows, GameSalad needs to be more active in protecting our users.

In the short term, we will be working on updates to the plug-in and server that will make grabbing game files much more difficult. With this new release, the direct URL to the game project files will no longer be available in the source code of the page, making it more difficult to grab game files. (On the off chance where you have used an embed code from GameSalad, you will need to update this code for games to continue working with the new plug-in.)

We are also in the process of creating a longer term solution that would divorce the published versions of games from the save format.

GameSalad is about sharing and collaboration, not stealing. We will not tolerate individuals who misappropriate or misuse our members’ games. We will assist any member who is harmed by the unlawful actions of a third party, including cooperation with Apple and the appropriate legal authorities.

I hope that you will all continue to be active contributing members of the community. Games not published to gamesalad.com are not affected. Until we deploy our new solutions, please contact us if you want your game removed from our web site listing.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to Contact Us, through this link or the one located in the footer of this page. I’ll be making at sticky blog post as soon as these measures have been implemented.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Comments

  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    adent42 said:
    In the short term, we will be working on updates to the plug-in and server that will make grabbing game files much more difficult. With this new release, the direct URL to the game project files will no longer be available in the source code of the page, making it more difficult to grab game files. (On the off chance where you have used an embed code from GameSalad, you will need to update this code for games to continue working with the new plug-in.)

    I'm not sure that's going to solve the problem. Even if the url is masked, isn't the file just downloaded locally - in the Temporary Internet Files folder?
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    Photics said:
    I'm not sure that's going to solve the problem. Even if the url is masked, isn't the file just downloaded locally - in the Temporary Internet Files folder?

    That might have been better to not announce on the forum.
  • AppChogieAppChogie Member Posts: 503
    I am sure that this will be fixed long term, short term I know a guy
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    tenrdrmer said:
    That might have been better to not announce on the forum.

    I don't think so. If the files can still be ripped off, that would just give GameSalad developers a false sense of security.
  • UtopianGamesUtopianGames Member Posts: 5,692
    Photics said:
    I don't think so. If the files can still be ripped off, that would just give GameSalad developers a false sense of security.

    Agree with Photics....we need to make sure it's safe.

    Darren.
  • adent42adent42 Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO Posts: 3,165
    Yes, the point of the short term solution was to make it non-trivial (and to have a solution we can implement within the next few days...)

    The longer term solution is in the works and involves changing the final deploy format so that it's not usable as a starting point on the tool.
  • JCFordJCFord Member Posts: 785
    Very glad to hear positive steps are being mare to stamP this Plagarism out!
    JCFord
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    hey, their near term solution is better than nothing, and is a step in the right direction. I'm glad they are taking this step.

    I also would suggest that if people want to upload their games, strip out some of the important stuff. I typically only upload a youtube video of my game in action, if I wanted to post to the web, I'd remove all but the scene I want to show, throw a copyright notice up and watermark my images.

    it sucks that we have to do this, but there will always be people who try to make a quick buck at other's expense. I'm just glad the GS team takes this as seriously as we do, and is doing something to combat it.
  • JCFordJCFord Member Posts: 785
    I stopped posting my games here because they could very easily be lifted direct from the page HTML code, so has this now been resolved, is it safe to post games here again?

    JCFord
  • RattleheadRattlehead Member Posts: 485
    JCFord said:
    I stopped posting my games here because they could very easily be lifted direct from the page HTML code, so has this now been resolved, is it safe to post games here again?

    JCFord

    The official response is... "We're working on it."

    So, no, don't post anything yet. I have a feeling it will be in a yellow sticky once it has been resolved.
  • adent42adent42 Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO Posts: 3,165
    Yes, don't post anything you don't want to share yet. If all goes as planned, the fix will be available soon.
  • mayakovskimayakovski Member Posts: 15
    Glad to see this is being addressed in a timely fashion. It's nice to know that the GS organization realizes how much our (the GS users) trust of them is a part of us staying as part of the community.

    Keep up the good work. GS is an awesome tool. :)

    Maya
  • Question: Is there a possible leak for a hacker to get our games by the process that we have to upload our complete project to the GameSalad server to generate the final binary? In comparison, Unity does not require this procedure. If the upload is just for putting the GameSalad advertising splash screen into the app, Unity does the same, but without having to send out all your source code to them.

    Just wondering why our source code needs to make this trip to the GameSalad server and back. Unnecessary risk for access to hackers? And if it's only for the splash screen, when Unity can do that on our computers, why can't GameSalad do the same?
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    RolfBertramDotCom said:
    Question: Is there a possible leak for a hacker to get our games by the process that we have to upload our complete project to the GameSalad server to generate the final binary? In comparison, Unity does not require this procedure. If the upload is just for putting the GameSalad advertising splash screen into the app, Unity does the same, but without having to send out all your source code to them.

    Just wondering why our source code needs to make this trip to the GameSalad server and back. Unnecessary risk for access to hackers? And if it's only for the splash screen, when Unity can do that on our computers, why can't GameSalad do the same?

    There is no risk with uploading to compile. GameSalad Does this because they have there game engine built into the xcodeproject that is compiled and they don't want anyone having direct access to the code for the game engine.

    The only risk is when you upload a game to the server to be played on the web. Because there is some way to access the download file even when its set as a non downloadable project

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  • iDeveloperiDeveloper Member Posts: 441
    "No risk with uploading to compile"? There's ALWAYS a risk. As technology advances, so do hackers.
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