The fangame "Sonic Gather Battle" is malware. The game executable has "requireAdministrator" set, which is completely unacceptable. If you attempt to search for "Hack" or similar keywords while the game is running, it will attempt to kill the browser. If it thinks you're trying to tamper the game, it will remotely blacklist your system, and the only way to unblacklist it is to convince the developer that you're not trying to steal his precious sprites. It exhibits a lot of other malware-like behavior, including storing a hash of your system information on a remote server, and creating a DLL file, loading it, and deleting it. More information: https://www.reddit.com/r/SonicTheHedgehog/comments/7iynxv/psa_fangame_sonic_gather_battle_has_a_malicious/ This game was previously featured in SAGE 2016. Needless to say, the developer is now banned from SAGE.
I had malware detection from that fan game year ago during SAGE 2016 when I tried unpack it, but I through it was just antivirus sensitivity. Glad that I never unpacked that again until now. Trojans are viruses I despise the most, because that shit corrupted my previous PCs. That sucks, because I always wanted play that game (this kind of fighting game with Sonic characters and stuff I always dreamed off), but I prefer safety over this shit.
Say what? I thought I've seen it all. From shoving a keylogger in, to another fangame stuffing ripped character models in the exe. The guy does realise a good 90% of the assets in the game are just stolen from official Sonic games? For something to be stolen, you need to own it in the first place. I don't see Sonic Team installing malware on the PCs of ripped Sonic 3 sprites, just saying. Someone should hit up Aaron Webber about this. Their social media team has been really good about dealing with this kind of stuff.
Personally I'd rather people didn't. It's not a long shot for people to misread tweets, articles and such on the web and through ignorance lead to the very term "fangame" becoming synonymous with "malware". Even if it's a temporary thing, it could change how companies like Sega view fangames. That's a worst case scenario, but in this PR-sensitive age, it isn't unrealistic.
Can't say I'm surprised. The guy has been showing signs of being neurotic for a good couple of years, to the point he would delete his won videos a few days later for no reason, and if you dared to use any of his work, he would deem his game as canceled until you removed anything that is his (even if you just used it for a Flash animation nobody gives a heck about). His ego is just that far up his ass that he doesn't knows when he's crossing the line. His sprites aren't even that good either. Yes, they are good looking, but most of them are Sonic edits. It's nothing worth bragging about, let alone going this far.
Except that game didnt have a keylogger or a virus or a trojan. It just didn't let you make mods for it(#triggered)
EDIT: Because some Sonic Gather Battle fanboys are too ignorant to understand context: The below information is in reference to the Sonic 2 HD alpha build from 2012. Sonic Gather Battle IS MALWARE. The "Hack Detection" release didn't have those, but it was so poorly written that it was misdetected. The "keylogger" was because the game intercepted keystrokes even if the window wasn't active. (Incorrect DirectInput cooperative level; I've done this before.) The "trojan" was because of some stupid packing tools he used.
True, but I wonder if a bunch of kids ending up complaining that a Sonic fangame made their anti-virus go crazy would do more damage in the long run. I see where you're coming from - flashbacks of all the times people just read the title of an article and complained about it on Twitter, but letting it go rampant can potentially make things that much worse. If we let them know the once in a blue moon when this happens, it stops before it becomes an issue. SEGA managed to handle the stolen roms on the Classic SEGA game's Steam Workshop without shutting the whole thing down. I think they know what's up as a company.
^^^ This. If it stays within the fangame community, it's fine. Trying to get a SEGA representative to comment on it can backfire horrifically in many ways.
Well shit, I remember seeing this ages ago and I'm not even surprised considering it's history. Last time I tried it (SAGE 2016, I think?), my AV blocked it when I tried to run it, so I never played it. Which seemed to be a blessing in disguise, considering what has happened. It's sad, because the game doesn't look that bad (I remember there being a good chunk of sprites that he'd made himself which were pretty good, and the earlier builds showed promise), but he was always touchy about the game. He had even deleted all of the downloads and basically shut everything down at one point because people ripped the custom sprites.
Sprites aren't even that hard to rip. Especially with low res sprites you can just make a screenshot and cut the pixels. Or use a Direct3D / OpenGL intercepter if applicable. Imo if someone is determined to go to the effort to rip your sprites and use them, they should be commended. The only way to prevent something from being stolen is not making it in the first place.
Man, every time I hear about this- Which is a lot, considering it's still ongoing as of this post- it continues to horrify me. I can completely, unabashedly understand the desire to protect one's work, but when it gets to a point of insanity like this.. You put more effort into protecting your game than your game itself. It goes wholly illegal. How do you even get to this point? It's scary- beyond scary. Plus.. I'm still having trouble figuring out what he's trying to protect at this point. :v:
Please read what gerbilsoft said in terms of the "keylogging". Yes it's fucked up but it's not AS intense as some are making it out to be. Either way, it's been handled rather neatly and soundly by the community. Game is dead and the dev's bullshit exposed. Hardly necessary to keep beating a dead horse and NO, Aaron Webber does not need to be bothered about this. The dragon's dead, the fan gaming community policed itself as usual. SGB's installer no longer installs, the game no longer runs. GG The End.
This. Fucking this, I remember 5-6 years ago how every now and then he'd just come up and say "shit's canceled" and when asked why would divulge into "wahhh people are stealing muh sprites" (sprites of which I've never even seen credit for, but someone can correct me on this). Which is why I'm not even surprised with this level of paranoid idiocy. He's that much of a paranoid twat to whine and constantly cancel his shit over things that he never even proved. (He claimed numerous times his sprites were stolen and not in my memory did I ever see him show proof of this).
After seeing the extent to which this DRM is going to to protect reused assets, suddenly Mania and Forces' DRM look like they were released on GOG.com.
