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Part of the inspiration for the development of a uniquely powerful anti-tamper solution  and the follow-on licence management and licence protection tools was the realisation by the companies founders their own hard-won IP was being pirated.

MetaFortress was the result and has proven itself as a new gold standard on the protection of Game IP sine the first titles launched in Autumn 2009. Titles featuring MetaFortess Protection have their resistance to hacking measured in many months as opposed to days or even hours.

The problem seen in games consoles consoles is far from unusual; locked-down, closed systems with “gatekeeper” protections often have a single point of failure. Once that is broken, there is no longer any protection for the majority of applications. 

To solve this problem, a protection system has to deal with an entirely hostile system and a legitimate use case at the same time. This is particularly difficult, as increasing protection can often affect backwards compatibility with legitimate software, essentially alienating paying customers. Therefore, the only way that protection can work longer term is to ensure that it becomes part of the software on the cartridge and is able to protect itself whilst running. Further, the protection scheme cannot have a single point of failure, and must be easy to apply to any application.

 

In an entirely hostile environment, where users can run any program and even replace the firmware, it falls upon each individual application to provide its own protection from compromise. The key to success is preventing the application being modified in any way such that the function of any running code cannot be stopped, changed or subverted. This allows the application to then take defensive measures to prevent piracy, which hackers cannot easily remove.

Metaforic’s engineering team directly engaged with the customer’s development studio in order that MetaFortress could be incorporated into the production environment allowing automated protection of all games. At the same time, the developers were trained in the use of MetaFortress as an integral part of their release procedures. 

As expected, there was a first appearance online of one of the protected versions of the first game in advance of the launch date. However, almost immediately, posts were placed on various online forums that the uploaded file did not work and that no one could understand what was wrong.  Across all the forums and torrent sites on which the various pirated versions appeared, individuals claimed that they had patches that would cure the problem. Once other forum users downloaded these, the feedback came quickly that they too still failed. 

It became clear to the elite hackers in the community that there was a major new protection system in place and that it had some form of checking code as the “active ingredient”. 

The reaction of the hackers themselves has been interesting; the level of consternation, concern and above all confusion has validated the Metaforic’s approach to game anti-piracy.

MetaFortress is the only secure anti-tamper software protection system that has enough performance but with a light touch to be used on commercial games. MetaFortress was created specifically to solve three real problems in protecting games:

Low performance impact - MetaFortress could cost as little as 0.1Hz in operation – a negligible impact at runtime.

High protection strength - Unlike other offerings which can be cracked by script kids in 35 seconds, MetaFortress protection can keep you secure for months; well beyond the profitable selling curve of all your games

Easy to use - You do not have time to learn a complicated security system when you are deep in crunch for a Xmas release. MetaFortress has a unique 2 step process that can protect your game in less than ten minutes - without complex set up.

That rapid software build that your marketing team so desperate wants for reviews and pre-release PR can be the primary source of revenue loss. MetaFortress stops that internally generated loss as it is part of your build process. With MetaFortress every build can be secure from the moment it is made, including marketing and review pre-releases - protecting you from internal and external losses.