How to prevent and react to stolen models?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Hey everyone,
I work on a game called Project Stardust (Project Stardust - Roblox), and I have an issue where exploiters are constantly stealing our assets (models and thumbnails) and releasing them as their own, and sometimes even selling them as their own. Last time my group contacted customer support, they dismissed it as the exploiters having studio access(?!?) and we shouldn’t have allowed them on in the first place, which we never did. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do, anyone have any recommendations?

EDIT: Our assets are being sold on an external website. We submitted a ticket into roblox, but we haven’t really heard anything about on them about it. They’re selling our models and thumbnails for both robux and USD…

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#2

There’s nothing to do. The exploit they use basically download the whole game file, except server-sided scripts.

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#3

Welp, roblox did try their best to prevent exploits… But theres is some scripts that are too power and can download the whole game files etc. But what you can do is that add some Anti Exploits which might reduce the chance for the exploit to be injected into the game. Thats the least you can do.

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#4

This doesn’t prevent them from stealing but idea:

Maybe make a value or script inside your items and put like “I made this” and hope the exploiters don’t delete it and their buyers understand what’s happening?

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#5

How does one write Anti Exploits? I hear it being tossed around all the time, I just don’t know what needs to be done and/or checked.

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#6

We put hidden watermarks in each model since the first incident we found our models outside our game, but it sadly doesn’t prevent buyers from buying them in the first place.

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#7

It would prevent them from buying any more items. Maybe try reporting them if you know who they are and put like selling items for robux and usd since selling for usd is illegal in roblox

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#8

Some anti exploits have virus or don’t even work, you can try Anti Dex Scripts which exploiters mainly use it to download the whole game and assets. I found a video that might help you, if your interested you can try it out. ROBLOX BEST ANTI-EXPLOIT[ANTI-DEX, ANTI-LOADSTRING, ANTI-KICK BYPASS,ANTI-INFJUMP N MORE] - YouTube

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#9

I would just find the source of the exploiters and either report them to roblox or ban them from your game.

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#10

We kind of know one source of exploiters, but we don’t exactly know how to stop them, especially from making alts joining the game via that method. It doesn’t stop the other opportunists from performing the same routines, either…

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#11

I’ll have a look at this when I’m home, thank you!

#12

Not sure if it has already been said here, but if you uploaded each asset as a mesh part and still have their files handy, archive each stolen asset and reupload them.

This will not stop asset theft, but it will discourage the purchase of them.

This has happened to me many times before, and the best way to react is to take it with a level head.

6 Likes
#13

Oh, I never thought of that. It’ll be a bit tedious to pull off, but it is worth a shot. In theory this should affect 3rd party selling websites as well, right?

#14

This will affect any file which uses the meshpart ID.

Best of luck.

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#15

This same exact thing happened to me. An exploiter stole a few copies of the entire map of a few of my games and posted them on the Roblox library. I emailed Roblox about it and they told me the exact same thing they told you. Strangely, the account that was selling the models was terminated shortly after I emailed Roblox, but the models were never taken down.

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Continuing the discussion from [How to prevent and react to stolen models?]
#16

Yeah… I’m not sure if models can truly be deleted. From what I can tell the best that can be done is their archival.

#17

Maybe try using ServerStorage? I hear that is all server stuff and access it only through RemoteEvents/RemoteFunctions?? Maybe give that a go.

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#18

Hard part is, a lot of the client UI requires the assets to be in ReplicatedStorage (Previewing ships via viewports), plus a lot of the models have to be loaded in anyways to be used in-game.

#19

I believe you can use RemoteFunction to grab the model you want through the name, and returning it to the client- then using :Clone() to make your own unique copy in the client. This way they cannot steal all of your models.

#20

Hmm, I would suggest that you IP Ban them as that will prevent any alts or other accounts from exploiting, you should send roblox an Email requesting them to IP ban the source.