Theft Prevention
One of the biggest challenges Flash developers must face is just how easy it is for people to steal your source code. SWF files include basically your complete source code, sure there are no comments included, but good programming is self documenting. Unfortunately all your variable & function names are kept intact. This means that any schmo could come along and get the complete source code to Jetpack, and create their own version from my hard work. This isn’t simple software piracy, it’s closer to actual theft, where someone else is profiting from your work. Even if the hacked game is not sold, there is revenue from ads, or just increased site traffic. A copyright helps, but still there are many examples of flash games being reskinned, and published as original works.
This is why I haven’t released any flash demos yet, I’m trying to find a resolution to this problem before releasing a simple demo that contains my entire source code. There are tools out there to encrypt ActionScript, but none of them work with ActionScript 3 yet - and from what I understand, a separate tool is needed to obscure variable names, a feature that is very important to protecting code.
Maybe this issue is why there are very few large games created for Flash? Still, I intend to continue on this path, at least for this game.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
well thats nice…just thought i should show my support some more with a comment
February 21st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Hi. I just tried to call you on the number in your whois information, and left a message with my contact information. I thought I’d leave it here too for easier reference
February 24th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I recommend creating a Quality Assurance or Beta Test team made up of trusted, knowledgeable gamers. I’ll leave the criteria for inclusion up to you, but I certainly volunteer to participate in testing.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I’m going to hold off on posting any working examples until an SWF encryption program comes out that supports ActionScript 3. It should be in the next month.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
so ur positive this program WILL come out? (in the next month)
March 17th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Hey Adam. Nice to see you’re up and going on Jetpack 2! This game is gonna be lots of fun, I just know it……can’t wait!!!
March 17th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Hey Doug, good to see you! Yes I can’t wait to start posting some of the technology demo’s I’ve been working on.
If you remember the credits screen, Doug made a lot of the tougher levels in the original Jetpack.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
lol, i actually got tired of jetpack because i could hardly get anywhere. i only got through maybe 10 or 20 levels at most. so i made my own and went to random levels and downloaded from adeptsoftware
June 1st, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Whoever wants to steal source code should be damned to hell.