Mostly we need to protect the games from the 'bunnies' provider a.k.a c**cker,especially if we just have simple serial check,and save the trial info on registry,with few public tool it's easy to bypass,example code from manual :

as i have been developing for quite time,i have gone and come into several 'protector' from aspack,asprotect(both died!was a legend),icelicense(delphi-4 years ago was uncrackable but now has been stop the legend by the protector itself cracked!),armadillo(flaw in implementation of encryption algorithm).for .net app we have themida which is the strongest for now,not impossible but i said strongest,how about for other compiler?like us?lite c?.

I have come across to newcomer in these business called "Enigma Protector",so far from my observation it's on the list of the strongest,other protector has failed to protecting lite-c compiled exe because of as the enigma author conform this :
,and now the good news is the author has add 'basic' support without sdk support(hopely will be added soon) for lite-c!!i have tested to protecting one of the open source games "a7titude",it succeed!.

About performance wise,of course for every protector it will degrading the performance of the protected exe,my test is it depends on your setting and plugins,with addition into isdebuggerpresent plugin with lite-c plugin,it adds 3 mb to runtime ,for example a7titude before protected run using memory ~47mb,after protected it will add ~3mb so around 50mb~,consider the current pc are more using more than >1gb ram,this slight degradation won't affect much. If you interested you can ask around on the author forum on lite-c thread,including the custom plugin required to add support lite-c into protector :


if there is good demand probably the author will add support lite-c into their sdk.With more advanced features,like encapsulate your function in a VM,Marking,Simulating,etc.So far the basic protection will work but with sdk it will be much more to cr*ck!

That's a great news, but it's kinda expensive: $149 !

Slow down, slow down, get slomo.
As long as the majority of us are independet developers with small budget titles, I would hardly prefer to not use these protections.
Good budget titles are standing for good developers and many pirate copies have one big advantage - people are comming in contact with you and know your company.
Look at running with scissors and the main title postal 1. And now look after all the years what they are doing now and what they are.
They are only known because of the many pirate copies world wide.

No, I am not a friend of unpaid copies.
But they could be helping instruments for good lone wolfs.

i dont think so
my suggestion is to release it - as freeware - and publish it on every downloadsite you know. i think this has the same effect, even more (cause they´re not only filesharers). additionaly you can release it also in a p2p-network.
on this way your company get publicity (at filesharers AND normal people).

and if you want to earn some money with the game, release it as time- or functional-limited shareware. that the customers can test it before they buy

Seconded.

And you'll lose money.

Sure - for the game. In my case, I get contact with a company from england and I made many backgrounds for handy games for very very good money. Reason was a game of mine and I was very sure, that they don´t had a legal copy. Beside this, I am very sure that illegal copies, splattered around the world, are a very good instrument to get you (lone wolf) in a good position.

Not everyone who steals your game would buy it if he couldn't steal it

My plan for my game is impossible to hack, because i just include the demo's files, so it contains nothing for the full version. So if a pirate would steal my game, he should buy it, and then he'll upload it in the whole world.

Actually, we are going to test a good anti-piracy method soon ourselves. I'll probably post results on how it goes.

It comes down to this: there is no 100% sure way of stopping piracy, unless you have an On-Live style game. Even then server hacking could be done.

Look at it this way, if you can write a code to encrypt a file. Someone can decrypt it. Even if someone has to buy the game to release it as a torrent or otherwise, someone will do it. The best solution is to take some anti-piracy measures without filling your software full of a bunch of stuff that could bug the hell out of anyone who buys it. Simple cd-keys for unlocking a game are fine, don't over-complicate it because even after spending a bunch of money on a great program, someone will find a way to break it.