As I work on my first desktop release, I’m wondering about anti piracy measures and what steps if any I should take.
What’s your thoughts on it? Have you any experiences? I’ll be selling the game via fastspring at first.
I’ve been at this since 2009 and just released my third title. I use fastspring as well (great company in my experience).
I gotta say… you will lose more sales to being unknown and underexposed than to piracy. That’s my experience. Spend your money and efforts on marketing not anti-piracy. The marketing efforts might pay off, the anti-piracy efforts won’t 
That said, my games all use keys. But, the keys are locally checked only. I use my own key solution (nothing fancy). The key doesn’t have much to do with anti-piracy, though. It’s useful for keeping score tables clean and banning repeat offenders from my web services. Sure, I can tell who the pirates are and aren’t, but I’ve not yet banned any pirates from posting scores…
maybe add a pirate logo next to their name on the scoreboard, though that might just encourage them. also add a negative sign to their score.
I wouldn’t worry past a license key at most. People that pirate are usually broke or don’t like what you represent. Focus on making games that are so good, and have the best attitude when it comes to your company and it’s support. There is virtually nothing that can’t be cracked somehow. Give them a reason to want to spend money on your games.
Agreed. Personally, I’d rather have 1000 people buy my game and 200 people pirate it, than have 100 people buy it and nobody pirate it. Especially for new developers who nobody knows about (like me), you want people to know your name!
Completely agree with all of the sentiments above. Also, FastSpring integrates with some 3rd party license providers if you’re not interested in completely rolling your own key solution. What I really like is their notification callback system so if you start selling through FastSpring and you have any questions about integrating the notifications into your own website let me know.
I would never buy a game with DRM on it.
You can make some simple check, like make sure people who go on-line do not cheat or have a licensed version to play with others.
Newer PCs do not have a CD, DVD or even older Serial Port to attach a dongle to. Is your game worth requiring a CD to play?
You could export to mobile and use the Apple DRM or Google DRM system. Thoughts?
Another solution to piracy? Give the game away and use IAP’s. It’s much harder (though not impossible) to pirate around this. The downside is that it’s MUCH harder to design a F2P game that monetizes well. I struggle with this daily, and for many Indie’s, it’s their true-death.
Gigi
Waste of time an money.
Be grateful if it gets pirated. Means it was worth the effort.
Don’t take any steps on this matter
Doing nothing about it suits me fine, one less thing to worry about/implement.
Since you’re asking, I assume you’re self-publishing, so getting any sales could be challenging.
It depends on what type of desktop program it is. If it’s something that requires a server, you’ll definitely want something so they don’t crash your server. If it isn’t, I’d keep it to where it keeps the honest people honest 
I’d do something light like a key that’s checked locally only.
You also need to support your product and providing updates, DLC, etc.
I’ve already sold 20 copies of the preorder preview version. With over 3,500 likes on the facebook page. I think it’ll sell just fine.
Thanks for the advise about other aspects, this isn’t my first game just my first desktop game, normally I make mobile games.
im not sure this will help but it touches on things other didnt cover
with .net obfuscation
also if possible sealed / signed dlls / packages / ect
keys and online member accounts with server checking to make sure client has not been compromised. so client has to go online and check and it gets like token it sends to servers and servers check with token server for validity of token. so its like single login. at any point if found invalid they cant play well online. you can also have them always online, but they will hate that cause think about on plain or car. i guess their could be offline mode.
steam, etc drm does a bit of the above. but then you have to get on steam or on ect. but it will cost you like what the store wants…
i guess someone has stuff like that gameblocks i think has components but its then your own and it will cost you
perhaps microsoft has some solution for their xna which could be used in general, but you will have to do bit of programming to roll out your own.
i guess the same for whatever online store is selling it
steam, ea, greenmangaming, amazon, apple, microsoft ect online store have their own thing you can tie into all different of course.
personally i buy games mostly on the list above. and many are just selling steam, well except for ea / microsoft / apple… they are like trying to compete with steam. but amazon / gmg does have their own and so do many others. when you signup / get approved for their store you get their sdk. steam sdk now like available for all, but you still have to pay $100 plug get enough people to vote for you on greenlight within certain amount of time and then do deal with them i think they are like 40+% ouch… from what mimecraft guy said, which is why he did not do steam, but most sell on steam… so they like bare with it…
With your piracy protection, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people, or all of the time.
A healthy relationship with your players will do much more to combat piracy than any DRM scheme ever will. And DRM is sort of like putting a GPS tracker in your girlfriend’s car, and telling her it’s there. Not a healthy relationship at all.
I recommend a little bit of cardboard with strange numbers on it, or a wheel that you turn made of cardboard that ships with the game, so people have to follow on screen instructions to unlock it each load. Oh wait, that’s 8 and 16 bit copy protection
Please turn to page 37 of your game manual and input the third word to continue.
I agree with the freemium+IAP idea. It seems like thats what’s been evolving in the games market past few years, Zynga, FB games, mobile IAP, etc.
The only platform where this is struggling to catch on, in my opinion, is desktop and indie web games. But I feel this is more because your own marketing is required when publishing for desktop/web.
The only idea I can think of is trying to sell your game to places like Steam, or publish to already free game websites like Armor games, then go from there. Maybe get noticed by AAA developers.
I also agree that strict enforcement like DRM, turning to “page 37 in the manual” will never work. Majority of game players are kids, and you know how kids are, they like to do the opposite of what you want them too.