Hi, I have a note from on of our players that my game is easily cracked/patched by some cheating android app (don't want to name it) and even showed me the screen with absolutely crazy amount of "purchased" Lives (in app purchases) and also having all payed characters unlocked. That was.. quite disturbing. Is there a way to protect our APKs from this?! @Andy do you know anything about this?
Well it's hard to protect android games from cheats patchs , even if you included protection in this version , players wil find another way to patch you game and get free amont of coin ..etc , i think buildbox already have a protection but only for leaderboard score ..
You are going to hate me then lol Game hacking is my number one skill. NOT in app purchase hacking....Actually hacking the games. The person may not have in app purchase cracked your game, he very well could have just used tools to modify his lives count. Basic memory editing is all it is. There is ways to detect hack tools but generally the hack tool itself gets an update that allows it to remain hidden from your games. GameGuardian is the number 1 android hack tool. Allowing for users to SEARCH a games memory for values that alter the game. Myself, i do fun things, not cheat things, ESPECIALLY online hacking. Totally against that. I helped develop cheat software for the Playstation Portable called "Cheatmaster". GameGuardian acts the same as cheatmaster does. Unfortunately you cannot do anything to prevent it. BB could add in functions that DETECT programs like GG but they will just update it and get around that.
There really isn't much of anything that can be done. This is not specific to Buildbox, "hackers" can and will do this to any game.
I am from the other side where @OneHitGamer was/is (spent my whole life as a computer security researcher). Unfortunately he is right, there will be always a hack. It is a cat and mouse thing - there is always ways to escape from the cat but you will always be captured... Or take it from another analogy: It is like protecting your home. You can build the highest wall, the strongest steel door and the most sophisticated lock, but if someone wants to come in, they will (see Mission Impossible, yeah what a legit prove here ). It is just that if their effort would not justify the value you keep at home, they will not come in and break into your neighbor instead who does not have that protection. In other words, if your game is not interesting, no one will break it. But if it is interesting, they will 100% -- So be proud to yourself, your game is interesting Btw: I would not worry too much, people who use cracks to open your game would not pay a penny for you anyways...
The best method would be to not use in app purchases....for starters. Do NOT make your ads annoying. Every death a pop up etc. Let them cheat. If they make it so they cannot die....who cares. They should experience your game how they wish. Make unlockables via in game currency. If some hack that and unlock all....all they did was 2 things. 1, saved themselves time and will be bored of the game soon. and 2, the harmful part, they will not now be seeing any of your ads very long. I remember some research done on this and it stated that NOT MANY do it. At least not enough to harm your pocket. Same with jailbreaking iphones....not many do it. Most are legit. The best way is to make it so NOTHING can be pirated. Like free mmorpgs....they upload their game files on torrent sites....they have zero piracy. Ive taken some of my apk files and uploaded them on torrent sites myself. ALL i need is for players to view ads....
@trudnai Hehe, that's a very good point man Especially like this mice and cats part - very true. And of course you're right about cheaters - they're definitely not the paying ones.
@OneHitGamer The thing is I removed all ads from my game totally. Now it's just in-game currency and IAPs making player's life easier. Anyways, big name devs and studios don't worry much about piracy letting all of those torrents live in peace helping their product get to people and make its "invisible marketing" So, yeah, whatever keeps our apps being downloaded
I've heard about one of anti theft brilliant idea and if it was true then it was really cool: in cracked version of Warcraft (or Starcraft) after few hours of playing your army was turned to horde of sheep
Yea the only way to protect your app from stuff like gameguardian and other memory editors is to store stuff server side. So if you are planning on selling gems, you will have to run a server to store that data. Anything on the cleint can be hacked and will be hacked. You can make it hard for casusals, but the guys that know what to do will still hack it and create modded games. I would not wast energy on trying to do what noone has managed to do yet without running servers.
