In a tweet released on the 4th, Crab Game creator Dani Dev announced he has fixed the IP leaking issue his game was causing.
Dani’s latest project, “Crab Game,” which isn’t a rip-off of Squid Game, hit Steam October 29th. It saw rave reviews, and player counts in the 40 thousands. The game was one of his YouTube projects, where he makes an entertaining video retelling the events of game development.
Crab Game is completely free to play, and as such, means he makes no money off the release or success of the title. His last public release was Muck, a multiplayer survival game he made after a commenter said he couldn’t. This title was also free, and only served as content for his YouTube channel, but spawned a strong audience on YouTube, Twitch, and even speed running websites.
The success of Crab Game was rocketed by the TV show it isn’t based on, where contestants face off in almost impossible challenges, earning their way to financial freedom while risking their lives.
The IP Leaking Issue
On release, Crab Game was using a “Peer-to-Peer” network type, the framework being provided by Steam. However, this P2P network by definition is connecting your IP address to the others in the lobby, instead of everyone in the lobby connecting to a server. To clarify, this isn’t exactly a “bug” or “leak.” By design this is how the network type functions
This exposure of IP addresses potentially led to the DDOSing of xQc, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch. After hearing news about the problem of IP leaking, Dani announced in a Tweet that streamers should stay away from public lobbies to avoid the same fate, while he would look into patching the issue.
Two days later, the issue was fixed, IPs could no longer be found in public lobbies. However, the “fix” was actually a complete reprogramming of the network functionality of the game, on a different Steam provided framework. The amount of work needed to be put in to fix this huge oversight can’t be overstated. Especially for a game Dani is making $0.00 on. The dedication to make right what he originally set out to make as a joke is comforting to see.
You can now safely play all 9 modes and 50 maps with your friends. But streamers are still to beware public lobbies. Moderation is not something that was in mind while making this game, and open proximity chat with 40 other people can lead to some awful things said that could get you in trouble with the platforms you’re streaming on.
