Site Stealing content from Scirra

Elliott grigrizljac

Love that idea...so simple! Though, it might break your game later on if you wanted to host it elsewhere, meaning you'd have to re-export it (and what if you lost your project file?). Maybe just some sort of warning or notification instead.

Elliott grigrizljac

Love that idea...so simple! Though, it might break your game later on if you wanted to host it elsewhere, meaning you'd have to re-export it (and what if you lost your project file?). Maybe just some sort of warning or notification instead.

If you know (before exporting), where your game will be hosted (multiple URLs), you can do something like this (I've chosen 4 random URLs, they may not exist <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">):

[attachment=1:3ba2isv3]TryThis.png[/attachment:3ba2isv3]

[attachment=0:3ba2isv3]TryThisOrThis.png[/attachment:3ba2isv3]

Here are 2 tutorials, if you want, take a look <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/860/si ... ame/page-1

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/1186/g ... d-help-you

Hey guys! Thought I'd share my own ideas <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz">

So lets say I am a thief. Rawr. *steals wallet*

I decide to steal your game from the arcade and upload it to my own website. I run it and notice I get redirected to Scirra.com all the time, or the game's objects all destroy, or whatever outcome you picked to happen to your game if run on a different website.

I would instantly think that there is some protection in place. I would think it's something website related and then I'd open the games files up. I would find "Data.JS" and see all this strange obfuscated code because you ticked Minify like a good developer. Now I may give up at this point, but I decide to do a quick CTRL+F search and type "www." just incase I could find a website reference.

Bam. I found the website address it is trying to detect. I then modify this address to my own address. Done. I win. Mwahahhaha

In all seriousness, that is the case. Check out this screenshot of the data.js of a minified HTMl5 export of the event "Browser.URL = http://www.scirra.com":

FEAR NOT! I thought of an idea that I haven't physically tested if it 100% works but here it goes:

Instead of having the event plainly detecting the whole string "http://www.scirra.com", you could split parts of it up using Local Variables so that it's not as obvious! Here's a screenshot of splitting 1 piece of the URL to get an idea of what I mean (Not sure why the action is to vibrate but yeah):

I guess the more effort and time you put into splitting the URL up, the more effective it will be.

Now as a thief, I would need to spend much more time figuring this out.

Hope this was useful!

Jase00 if you want to go as far, you could also play around with the stringfromkeycode keyboard expression, which would co'vert for exemple 72 to h, 84 to t, etc...

however that seems more annoying that useful, the best would be to do a request to your server, and verify if it works (sort of breaks offline play though)

This whole discussion revolves around the fact that games get "stolen" from Scirra's arcade.

But according to the terms of use and the fact that there is an embedding code in each game's page, it's not the case. At all.

It's always been a part of the arcade that games can be shared/used over other websites.

You don't want your game being taken from the arcade and put elsewhere ?

Easiest protection is to not upload your game to this online service as its terms of use does not fit you.

And that is the very same with all online services. You don't like how they perform according to their term of use ? Don't use them.

If you had ads in those games you would be less likely to want them removed.

Kyatric sure and that why I requested it's removal from the arcade. When I originally placed it there i had no idea it was going to be so easily taken by a third party for their own benefit. Lesson learned. I do know how to up the security on it however since I've been unable to log into the arcade I haven't been able to update it for that purpose.

I do think there should be a revision on those terms you mention as they offer no protection to the developers behind the game who are affected directly. In my case it was just a simple weekend game I published freely however some more complex games made by other developers are being affected too, there has been no attribution or mention of the origin or the game being linked and even the scirra banner has been modified or removed. Considering the game is meant to be provided freely and its on a site that is making money out of the heavy amount of adds placed around it while it was still not the site it was intended to be on I call that stolen any day.