I’ve always bought my games on steam or OFFICIAL key resellers (GMG) since I was an adult, but sometimes it has got really expensive.
Do you consider ‘cracked games’ safe for your PC, your data, and finally your privacy?
You should always support developers, but it’s not always possible.
GOG digitally signs their games and have no DRM, thus no need for cracks.
If you can get a hold of a GOG version, you can check its validity.
For games outside the GOG ecosystem, they are all unfortunately at risk.
I played Baldur’s Gate 3 via a pirated GOG version on release with friends until I was able to afford my own copy, then moved the saved game over to the legit copy.
Run them in a sandboxed VM?
VM escaping is not impossible, but its probably outside of the ability of most cracked games with malware.
Even better; Go with a bare metal linux install, and then use a sandboxed VM.
Even less malware is going to be able to VM escape and then also have any idea of what to do in a linux environment, purely because the vast, vast majority of
exploits(I should say malware, not exploits per se) are designed to fuck up Windows.Is this perfectly safe?
No, but nothing is.
Any legitimately purchased game with closed source, kernel level anti cheat could be doing literally anything to your PC, and you wouldn’t know.
I only trust two things when I pirate games: official GOG installers and FitGirl repacks.
thats why i always run close source software in bwrap. not only cracked games.
Plundering in the early-mid 00’ was dicey but in the last ten years I think the only problem I’ve had was getting a tarbomb once and even that could have an honest mistake on the part of noob coder. I am a little wary of games that have online hacks and normally block all online features. Honestly you have to be more careful with torrent client than anything. Most of them try to back door a ton of garbage when you first install them. And yeah always use a vpn or you’ll get angry messages from your isp.
Running any binary that you can’t examine the source of (and confirm it was built from it without modification) is risky. It’s mostly a balance of trust and risk. Even developers have been known to insert what we could malware.
That said, if you get your cracked content from a trusted source, I’d say it’s generally safe. Otherwise, exercise extreme caution.
Is GMG an official reseller? Maybe I am out of the loop, but I thought they operated in the grey market.
GreenManGaming is a legitimate reseller, in a similar fashion to humble bundle or similar sellers.
I also do not like them because their keys if you are buying on sale for a new launch, their keys are usually UK based as they are UK based and they will not let you play on sooner launch dates, as I learned with Mirrors Edge Catalyst’s release when I wanted to play on day 1 and should have bought direct through origin, but instead now I had to wait a week, and they did not offer a refund policy.
So instead I bought the game again on origin and gave away the other key as a free giveaway to spite them 😂
Probably G2A you’re thinking of, I’m pretty certain GMG are official.
depends on the source, but generally no, run the game in a vm or container
do you need a powerful PC for that though?
for a vm yes, but depending on the game you can just firejail and block internet access
You do, especially if its a new game.
I had seen other comments mentioning the same and had considered mentioning that is out of reach for a lot of people but then didn’t.
Like my PC is running STALKER 2 great on the lowest settings, but if I had to run it through a VM first I would lose a lot of performance and probably dip below 60fps.
Most games people want to pirate are brand new so telling them to do something like reformat their (probably only) PC to run baremental Linux with a Windows VM for the game is just silly and unreasonable. At that point you may as well just buy the game if you need a whole extra computer to pirate it safely.
I couldn’t possibly run brand new games in a VM and I only have one computer that can even play modern games. Silly suggestion.
DODI repacks 4 lyf
Also FitGirl. Often she repacks DODI’s repacks, but makes them much smaller for those with slow connections or limited bandwidth.
💯 been using FitGirl repacks since 2014, never ever had any issues.
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Short answer: no.
Long answer: hell no.
No.
I pirate everything, but am very very reluctant to do so with software or games.
I only pirate in cases where the company involved is just too gross to support (looking at you, Adobe), or if there’s absolutely no other option.
But I consider pirated software and games absolutely suspect 100% of the time, because I’m old enough to remember when every keygen was also a keylogger, and every crack was also a rootkit and touching any pirated software was going to give you computer herpes without fail.
So maybe it’s not that bad anymore, but I mean, do you fully trust in the morals of someone who would spend the time helping you steal someone else’s shit to not add just one more little thing to it for themselves?
Exactly my thoughts. I already missed a deal on GMG twice because they’re not super clear when they’re discounts ends, and I were too late. I won’t buy a game full price on steam so unofficial key resellers are probably what I’ll use.
Since the money won’t go to the developers for sure, I thought I may as well pirate it, but yeah I’m a bit concerned about safety tbh. It isn’t anime or netflix we’re talking about.
IsThereAnyDeal.com helps a lot with knowing when it’s worth to buy a game.
Technically it is not stealing, because it is a digital good. 🤓
every keygen was also a keylogger
Always worth rolling those dice - think of the amazing trackers jams!
No I am of few means and I wait until games are on sale. Like Solasta I waited for until I got a good deal. There’s really no rush. As an exception I paid full price for BG3 because Larian have shown extraordinary community spirit.
Running executables from whatever source is scary.
Well, since I run them in Linux, they’re basically sandboxed in an environment that most malware isn’t made for, so as long as I’m downloading from reputable sources like Fitgirl or DODI, yeah. I figure my chances of picking up a virus from a source like that, given my setup, is highly unlikely.
That is not entirely true. You can still get windows viruses true wine. And wine isn’t sandboxed.
I think he mean bottle(flatpak) when he talk about sandbox
Yeah, i haven’t had anything go wrong in at least a decade.
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I run them under a different user, but the same for non-pirated games.
