An Open Letter to All Porn/H-Game devs

[Deleted member 323920]

Dear devs,

Please stay the hell out of my documents, registry or any other location on my device other than the folder the game is in. I don't think I should have to say why. Make it fully portable.

With Love,
Everyone

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Well, renpy saves to appdata like a fuckton of other applications, but I don't think that's what you're talking about. If I had to guess, you're talking about a Unity game? If so, I totally agree. I don't know much about Unity, but I remember reading about its default saving method being Playerprefs, or something along those lines, which writes to the registry. Any Unity devs reading this, don't do that.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I am talking about any folder outside of the folder the porn game is in. Keep it completely within its folder. I can hide a folder of shame but I can't deal with the surprises.

If you are ashamed of what you are doing with your computer, and/or fear that it can be discovered, just don't do it, period.

 

[qwoppe]

I do like not having to manage my saves though. If it's just appdata stuff I can go over it and delete shit myself if I want. Not that I would, considering my lappie is my fortress and nobody else will ever get to use it for any reason, ever.

Seriously, I think I'd let a man die of cancer if the only cure was to browse through my files for like 5 seconds.

 

[gingisep]

Dear devs,

Please stay the hell out of my documents, registry or any other location on my device other than the folder the game is in. I don't think I should have to say why. Make it fully portable.

With Love,
Bob

This one is, basically, the reason that sandbox in computing exists, stuff like

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,

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, etc. have been created.

I don't trust Steam itself I had it run in flatpack with restricted permissions, and separate sanboxing for non-steam games.

If you are ashamed of what you are doing with your computer, and/or fear that it can be discovered, just don't do it, period.

"I have nothing to hide" is the N°1 sin in security: you got nothing to hide until it's too late to hide it.

Proper behavior is the requested one: maximum restrictions on access to disk & memory to just the files needed.

 

[NeonSelf]

I like how renpy saves work. When a new version of the game comes out I just delete the old one.
Even if I delete original game and a few month later download a new version - I can resume from where I saved before.

The only incovenient thing is checking appdata for saves that I want to delete, because I dropped the game for some reason.

Make it fully portable.

Yeah, if you want it portable on a usb drive to play both at home and at work - managing saves can be annoying.

 

[anne O'nymous]

"I have nothing to hide" is the N°1 sin in security: you got nothing to hide until it's too late to hide it.

The guy just don't want to be caught by his parents or his girlfriend.

Proper behavior is the requested one: maximum restrictions on access to disk & memory to just the files needed.

And it's what is happening when an application store its dynamic data into a folder dedicated to the storage of application's dynamic data. From your paranoid point of view, it's thousand times more secured than having them laying into the userland, like you want them to be.

Applications can be installed to be shared between the users, what imply that, when stored inside the application folder tree, the said users can then access to the dynamic data with few difficulties. This even with the *nix access right policy.
But, storing them inside a dedicated tree structure (generally AppData for Windows, and ~ for Linux/MacOS), add a level of security. This especially since it's perfectly possible, through a smart use of

You must be registered to see the links

by example, to keep that structure out of sight, and therefore out of reach, for any other users. This even if the application itself have been compromised.

 

[gingisep]

The guy just don't want to be caught by his parents or his girlfriend.

"I am the danger" (cit.)

Nice pun, by the way, but we were talking about software you run with your own user, so they're "same access rights" by the OS point of view.

And it's what is happening when an application store its dynamic data into a folder dedicated to the storage of application's dynamic data. From your paranoid point of view, it's thousand times more secured than having them laying into the userland, like you want them to be.

Home folder encryption is the answer to that, as different users won't have access to others' data folder.
Even root user could change the users password, won't have access to the files without knowing the password or brute-forcing it someway.

Applications can be installed to be shared between the users, what imply that, when stored inside the application folder tree, the said users can then access to the dynamic data with few difficulties. This even with the *nix access right policy.
But, storing them inside a dedicated tree structure (generally AppData for Windows, and ~ for Linux/MacOS), add a level of security. This especially since it's perfectly possible, through a smart use of

You must be registered to see the links

by example, to keep that structure out of sight, and therefore out of reach, for any other users. This even if the application itself have been compromised.

Jails is a fine example, I still believe we are thinking about two different attack surfaces.
What the user said was simple: my game of Lewdemon should not care if I were to posses save files from Yuri Maid Sluts Deluxe III.

By example: usage of

You must be registered to see the links

offers this kind of sandbox technique, because you're allowed to have a single installation of

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but multiple data directories, each one invisible to the other. This way when the game/program runs it can only see what has been saved on its dedicated area, and not anything else.

 

[F4C430]

By example: usage of

You must be registered to see the links

offers this kind of sandbox technique, because you're allowed to have a single installation of

You must be registered to see the links

but multiple data directories, each one invisible to the other. This way when the game/program runs it can only see what has been saved on its dedicated area, and not anything else.

Bottles changed my life <3. It also makes it easier to run Japanese-encoded games as i have a bottle just for those with the right encoding.

 

[Winterfire]

but I remember reading about its default saving method being Playerprefs

Not really, it is just misused by newbies.

That being said, almost every game will write in the registry (Install information, display, ...) and while once upon a time games had a localized save folder, the standard now is to save in appdata. You can't trust the user to put the game in a location where save data can be written.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

If you have to hide porn from mommy or your wife, it's not on the dev to make that happen for you. Either learn how to live without lying to people in your life about your habits or take responsibility and implement any of the dozens of privacy measures that are out there. If I ever make a game I will make sure it shits up your whole PC with porn references.

 

[おい！]

If I ever make a game I will make sure it shits up your whole PC with porn references.

So you claim that you might be able to make a game?

 

[TurtleGiroflex]

I don't have the same worries as the OP, really, i mean, when the computer is your private computer and you have a good relationship with people that come around it i wouldn't say you have to be so much concerned. Unless you live with someone that is known to snoop over others stuff or is a detective of some kind.
Usually people will just overlook things if they aren't as obvious as a folder called "porn" on the desktop area. That said is almost null the chance of someone normal, would go as far as in the registry look over dozens of keys to check if there is traces of something naughty in there. Same goes for appdata folders.
And if eventually someone is messing around your appdata, what is the chance that they look at a folder called "Eternum" for an instance and instantly realize that its a adult game? What is the chance they'll actually think "Oh, that smells naughty, let me google it".
Ill tell you what will really happen, people will simply pass by without noticing a naughty stuff.

Still, if you are so paranoid and ashamed about it, run the game inside a virtual machine. I would argue that its definitely more safe (virus-wise speaking) and would hide any trace better than the methods the friends above were speaking of, since you can erase all the machine with a single click.

 

[hoshimota]

Dude almost every renpy game (maybe every one) uses a folder in users/(your username on the pc)/appdata/ .... for the final folders, it's USUALLY roaming/renpy but a few have put shit in local or other weird places.

What I think should be a castration-level offense is these fucking unity games that try to sneakily access other shit and pull "anonymous" data about your PC, those shit lickers can fuck right the hell off.

 

[qwoppe]

Would it be difficult to make portable versions of games? You seem concerned enough about this time to make that a worthwhile investment of time, almost.

 

[morphnet]

Dear devs,

Please stay the hell out of my documents, registry or any other location on my device other than the folder the game is in. I don't think I should have to say why. Make it fully portable.

With Love,
Bob

Just some food for thought here but "portable" is not really going to help you at all. Windows has long had a feature that records "recent activity" with quick access to it, windows 11 randomly pins recently used folders to explorer, your AV keep logs of all scans etc. etc. these include portable apps and games.

OS and other software keep track of what you do so that they can speed up access / load / launch times and ensure compatibility amongst other things. Making porn games portable in no way erases the tracks they leave, so even if every porn game was made portable it would NOT stop someone so intent of finding out what you are doing that they comb through the registry as they could easily find out in a number of other places.

Others have mentioned using VM or sandbox but having those in itself would raise questions if you do indeed have someone going through your registry, plus they would still not stop your AV and other 3rd party app from logging their scans etc. before running the game.
I'm assuming that by making this thread you do not have the option of using your own personal pc, laptop, phone, tablet etc. in which case as AON said, if you are that worried just don't do it.

 

[woody554]

sadly this is one of those things like "why is a simple utility program 4 gigs when the code takes 4k in assembler" things, where we live under the oppression of corporate decisions motivated ultimately by dystopian greed. the problem here isn't the unity dev but the direction windows development was taken in some board meeting where marketing department called all the shots.

or in other words: this is the world we live in now. it didn't have to be this, but someone thought it's gonna extort more profit out of users regardless of the annoyance the change causes. they thought the could force the loss of privacy on people, and so far they've been right. and it's probably gonna get worse before it gets better.

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Would it be difficult to make portable versions of games? You seem concerned enough about this time to make that a worthwhile investment of time, almost.

RPGMaker does it by default, and it's really easy to do in renpy, if I'm understanding correctly. It's a single line of code in the options.rpy file. You just have to change config.save_directory to none, like so.

config.save_directory = None

Unity and Unreal though, I have no clue. Depends on what save system the dev is using.

 

[Hunters0]

If you have to hide porn from mommy or your wife, it's not on the dev to make that happen for you. Either learn how to live without lying to people in your life about your habits or take responsibility and implement any of the dozens of privacy measures that are out there. If I ever make a game I will make sure it shits up your whole PC with porn references.

I agree with this.
Almost all game engines save data to the registry and documents by default. If you don't want anybody to see what kind of games you play then just delete the files when you uninstall the game.

 

[morphnet]

I'm assuming in making this post you didn't read the other posts. I did try a sandbox earlier when VMs were mentioned and that works great. Great solution for all the clutter these games make. I still think devs should strive to stay in their folder as best as possible.

Firstly, none of your replies state or imply you tried and used sandbox or VM so not sure how you came to the conclusion I did not read the other posts.

Secondly, in your OP you say "Please stay the hell out of my documents, registry or any other location on my device" this would and has lead others including myself to assume you are using a "shared or work" platform. Your later replies however make it seem like this is not the case.

If this had been the case then sandbox / VM does NOT hide your activity. Even if every game was portable windows still needs to log and store the path to the games location, AV and other security apps still log file names that are scanned and as mentioned in my previous post windows tracks your usage to make files and folders easier and faster to use etc. etc. This is how the system works so you would be asking the wrong people to fix the wrong things.

You are correct, logs and breadcrumbs will always exist but giving up on privacy/clutter/anything just because you can't get it perfect is very stupid and I hope I don't have to explain why.

This is the second time you've said "I hope I don't have to explain why." but actually, yes please do explain why! because you are not making any sense.

So far from your replies it seems you are asking dev's to hide their game from YOU, which has NOTHING to do with "privacy/clutter/anything".

What does YOU being "reminded" of what YOU played and YOU needing a "clean break" have to do with privacy?
Privacy is hiding what YOU played from others NOT hiding what YOU played from YOU!

I can hide a folder of shame but I can't deal with the surprises.

You know nothing of my worries. I just don't want to be reminded of my random degenerate urges while I troubleshoot problems. I want a clean break sometimes.


They should all stay in the folder with the exe. Just keep them portable. Not a large request.

Seeing as how you haven't mentioned or implied snooping spouses, children, bosses, friends etc. this seems to be all about YOU not wanting to see what YOU did. Asking all devs to modify their games because of your? guilt / shame, you getting horny while working or what ever the problem is, seems absurd.

Honestly from your replies it seems like your problem is with you not being comfortable with and accepting who you are and nothing to do with portable games or privacy or clutter.
That is something only you or you and a little help can fix.