Game Maker accidentally brands customers as pirates

An anti-piracy system used by game creation suite Game Maker has malfunctioned and vandalised several legitimate users' projects.

Following a recent update to Game Maker Studio, some users have had game resources including sprites ruined by a skull and crossbones motif being permanently branded on top of them.

No official fix has been released although some studio suite users have fixed the issue by uninstalling the software and deleting the related appdata and localdata system folders.

Head of development Mike Dailly has suggested the issue might have been as a result of viruses on affected machines or a bug in a new updated for the software. He also urged other community members to not assume those affected had been using pirated copies.

The issue has also affected some users who have downloaded the free trial. An anonymous member of YoYo Games' forums who had been affected pointed out what a bad first impression this had made on them. 'It got me thinking, what if I had tons of graphics? I really have second thoughts now. This error is a huge time waste.'

The bug was not enough to deter everyone however. 'I think you should still buy Studio. Even though this error wasted a whole day of development for me and my team, I am not going to give up using it,' said another forum member.

Several of those affected had downloaded or purchased Game Maker Studio from Steam. Valve's digital distribution front started selling the suite in October as part of its expanded software offering.