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About Copy Protection (DRM)

Info

This section notes things we should be mindful of when dealing with various pieces of Digital Rights Management (Copy Protection), and similar mechanisms.

The purpose of copy protection is to prevent 3rd party tampering with games.

And unfortunately, naturally, that means sometimes copy protection gets in the way of modding.

Sub-Sections

There's more protection schemes out there

If you know of any other possible challenges ahead, please contribute!

Suggestions & Actions

Prefer DRM-Free Versions

Mods should always target DRM-Free version(s) of games if available.

In some rare scenarios a game may be officially distributed in both DRM-Free and Defective by Design versions.

Example: Yakuza: Like a Dragon

The Steam version is harder to mod, may have more performance issues and will one day...

STOP. WORKING. FOREVER.

With the GOG version, you can at least have peace of mind and one day show your kids or grandkids the joy of your childhood games.

An 'encouragement' to buy DRM-Free version(s) in the future is suggested for launcher.

This helps with future preservation of games, and spreads awareness.

Provide Delta Patches

For some very old games which have releases in multiple regions, providing delta patches may be acceptable.

Likewise, many modders for old games usually make mods that target a specific region's release.

To make things easier for end users, under very exceptional circumstances we may provide delta patches which transform regional releases of games to the preferred region.

An example of 'exceptional circumstances' are SafeDisc games, which cannot be played AT ALL on Windows 7+ in their original form. (Modded or not modded)

Redistribution of unmodified game files is prohibited.

By 'delta patches' we refer to binary diffs (e.g. xdelta, VCDiff) that convert only legal installs to community preferred game version(s).