koobas.hobune.stream
How can I protect my assets on the Asset Store from piracy?
So many games on the app store use unity assets and several games use the EXACT same assets. How can a developer go about finding out which of these developers actually paid for the asset? There are so many ways to get an asset illegally now. Is it even possible for a developer to tell if they used their asset legally or illegally? What would stop someone from going online, downloading one of these assets, and making a game out of them making a large profit? I wanted to start developing unity assets but if their is no way to prevent this, i feel like i would lose more time than money i would be able to make.
I don't personally know how much piracy happens in regards to Unity Assets, or of potential solutions for preventing it, but I'm not sure it's worth your time worrying about it. People who would pirate your assets are probably not the same people who would buy your assets and use them to make a successful game, even if you manage to enforce an anti-piracy solution. So you're probably not actually losing money (even though they are unfairly using your product). Unless you can find a relatively easy solution, I would just focus on making good quality assets. If your assets are good enough that some people would try to pirate them, then they're definitely good enough that people will want to buy them.
That being said, I don't really have any experience selling Unity Assets so other developers here might have better insight into anti-piracy measures.
lol I hadn't seen the answer you just got
Changed question title - could've been misconstrued as pro-piracy.
This is not legal advice. In a practical sense, we have very limited control over our assets. This is true across every digital industry. It's just a fact of life. If your assets are very popular, there's a decent chance that they'll be redistributed without a sale.
But the thing to take away from that is: Your assets are very popular. It follows logically that you'll profit almost as much as you would've had that piracy not occurred. In other words, it's awful to have your work pirated, but it does not necessarily constitute a lost sale. That's only true if you assume that nearly everyone who wants your asset will pirate it. My two cents.
When you buy an asset on the store, purchasers are given a unique invoice reference number. Asset developers can ask for this reference and check it against the API provided at http://api.assetstore.unity3d.com/ to validate whether it is a genuine purchase, the purchase date, and whether the transaction has been reversed / refunded.
Some asset store developers write "phone home" code into their assets that use this invoice number and disables the asset if not verified. Others ask for purchasers to confirm their invoice number before receiving any support for the asset, or in order to access premium features or beta version test groups, for example.
But @AlwaysSunny is right - no digital product is 100% safe from piracy. Your best defence is to keep innovating so that you are always one step ahead of the pirates.
I know I'm a little late to the conversation.
And before my points below, I personally do not condone piracy.
I'm just putting the points forward, as to date it has been assumed piracy is bad and hurts sales.
However,
The European Commission paid (360,000 Euros) for a study that found, "the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements." The study was initially suppressed study but suggests that piracy does not hurt sales. (This, however, was geared towards whole products such a films and game. And not necessarily constituent parts such as assets). If you'd like to read the report you can search for
Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU
If someone goes out of their way and intentionally steals your asset. Would they have bought the asset in the first place?
If someone uses your product and gets your product in front of many, many eyeballs, you have effectively have paid $0 for advertising (Whether that advertising is good or bad is a different story)
Again, NOT condoning piracy just making some points.
I don't have an asset on the store, but maybe there's a way to implement a first-time code that's sent to the paying users email address for activation.
