These days game hackers use reverse engineering techniques to edit values to increase game money, to unlock all the items like weapons of android games and with that they can play games like gods.with this situation IAP is going to be useless. I personally tried it with kali linux using tools like apktool, smali,baksmali, zipsigners, apksigners, zipaligners to check it out and it worked like diamond.but it’s illegal right? Then they release the moded version of the game into hundreds of third party websites and people will download it. In this case unity needs a special security system for the games which made with unity to stop these illegal things. *Seems like some security features are improved to stop this.meaning is if you decompress the apk file and after edit the values you can’t compile it again.But it’s not enough right?
*I personally found out a way to modify apk files without decompressing them.renaming apk extension to zip and pull the dex files out and using smali, baksmali edit them and put them back in the zip file.afterwards rename it to apk and sign it with a apksigner.it’s also worked. *also people can use these methods to embed our games with backdoor payloads.it’s a big risk. With these things i think our games are not in safe mod right? It’s time think about some kinda new security system to protect apk files.
Personally I am looking forward to this. IAP is the evilest thing happened to the game industry ever. Including EPIC.
It is not illegal on most part of the world. You bought the software, you do whatever you want with them on your own devices. (distribution may be illegal in most countries)
Since APKs are just glorified ZIP files. What do you expect? If you don’t like it, write to the Android team (aka Google).
For example authentication and server-managed data with encrypted communication?
Those people aren’t hackers. They’re script kiddies. The reason why unity is easy to reverse is partly due to use of IL code (likely applies to android to lesser degrees), however, if you’re making a multiplayer game, and they can hack it to “play like gods”, that’s YOUR fault. You have a design problem, as it should not be easy to alter server-side gamestate from client state. If they can, that’s lazy coding.
Actually, no. That’s gray area. In some jurisdiction you may be allowed to reverseengineer software you purchased. For example “to ensure it works properly”. It is not a simple issue and requires lawyer’s advice.
That would be a breach of copyright, yes.
This is not necessarily unity’s problem though. All files that user can access on their device can be reversengineered. All of them, without exception. Unity, Unreal, custom engine, it is possible to tear them apart, extract resources, and alter behavior. So if a user can download your apk, they can alter it. Same goes for exes. it is a matter of time and difficulty.
If you want to keep some sort of game logic safe, you put it onto a server. If a user can download anything, they’ll be able to rip it to shreds.
(That’s probably part of the reason why SAAS became more common recently).
It is impossible to make apk “impossible to decompress”, because the game needs to read resources from it. An interested party will always be able to investigate how the game is reading resources and replicate the process.
That’s the matter of secure stores and securely signing your application.
I remember, when in past there were cheat mods as co.mon features. Some games may stil have it, like Sims. But they were a good thing.
Allowing extend gameplay if someone liked it.
I often messed with game registers and data files, when game gameplay was lacking, or I wanted extend challenge, hate wasting time on endless grinding, or game ws buggy to level of annoyance.