Your account security is important to us, and we want all players to feel secure while playing any of our games. This guide aims to identify the most common issues with account security and provide you with some advice on how you can ensure your account is secure and safe.

Password Safety

First and foremost, your password is the most important thing securing your account. Your password is like the key to your account, and just like your keys they should never be shared! It is common for some players to share account details with friends or fellow players, but these details should be treated with more care and never shared with anyone. Even if you trust someone not to share your details, mistakes can be made, friends can fall out with each other and there is no knowing how far and wide your details can be spread. Instead, it is better not to take the risk and to ensure the security of your account.

Password Sharing

Sharing passwords and account details is the main cause for the loss of accounts in our games. Players often tell us they have had their account ‘hacked’ and stolen from them. A ‘hack’ specifically refers to outside, malicious access to the game or server by a third party, which is not an issue any of our games has ever encountered. Instead, players share their passwords with friends, leaders or other players and then the account is accessed by that person. It is the same as if you were to provide your key to a stranger, they would gain unlimited access to your house and by this time it is already too late!

Simple Passwords

The second most common reason for accounts being stolen is the use of simple passwords. While choosing a password like ‘1234’ is not very safe, this is not all that is meant by a simple password. Commonly, people will choose some piece of information that is related to the account or to their lives to make it easy to remember. One example of this is using the name of your account, the name of your farm or the name of your dog as a password. Passwords like these can be guessed on a trial and error basis, and if your password is as simple as this to guess, then you are at risk. Even choosing things like your mother’s maiden name, your pet’s name of your favourite film can be dangerous, as such information can often be located through your social media profiles.

Password Tips

The shorter a password is, the weaker it is. It is much more difficult to guess a password that is ten characters long than one that is three characters long. It can be difficult to remember a long password, but there are some tips that can help you to remember a longer, but more secure password:

1) Think up a memorable phrase, something you will never forget. For example, “To be or not to be, that is the question”, a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Make sure it’s something that is already burned into your memory!

2) contract that phrase into single letters by taking the first letter of each word of the phrase, for our above example this would be:

tbontbtitq

To remember this, all you need to do is say the phrase in your head!

3) Next up, try capitalising a few of the letters. If you think you’ll have trouble remembering which ones are capitalised, it’s ok to use a pattern such as every second letter being capital:

tbOntBtiTq

4) Next, take some of the remaining lower case characters and replace them with other symbols. The letter ‘A’ can be changed to ‘@’, ‘L’ to ‘1’, ‘E’ to ‘3’, for example:

7bOn7B7iTq

5) Finally, you can add to this the first and last letters of the website you are logging into. This way, you can have the same password for multiple websites, but each will differ slightly so that you don’t have one ‘master key’ unlocking all of your doors! Just remember your phrase and then take a look at the URL of the website each time you need to login somewhere:

Big Farm password - 7bOn7B7iTqBM
Google Password - 7bOn7B7iTqGE

And that’s it! With this system you can keep your accounts secure, make sure nobody can guess your password, but also ensure you don’t have to use a completely unique password for every website you sign up for. Passwords crafted in this way are very hard to guess - but also very easy to remember - and so it is recommended you try out a similar system.

There is some old advice that passwords should never be written down. While this is true of an office environment for example, at home it is less of a concern. Passwords can be written down and stored somewhere for safe keeping, hidden or locked away and not visible. If you can get by with remembering your Big Farm password and not writing it down, this is preferable but not 100% necessary.

If a password can be written down and does not need to be remembered, you can also try using a random password generator. Searching your favourite search engine should reveal some results you can use, and these kinds of password are very difficult to guess.

Email Safety

Your email address is like a window into your account. This is what is used to recover your password if it is ever forgotten, and so keeping your emails secure is very important. You can use the previous password tips to keep your emails secure as well. If you have lost access to your email address or feel it has in some way been compromised, you should immediately contact your email provider to have the issue dealt with as fast as possible. It is best never to share your registered email address for the game with any other player and not to use the name of your farm or account in the email address. It is also important to use a genuine email address you have direct access to, do not risk entering a dummy address that someone else could already own or create.

Be Suspicious!

You may come across websites that claim to be able to add gold to your account at little or no cost. These websites are scams, setup to steal account information or credit card details. Never provide your details to such websites! You may also receive in-game messages from players who say they work for Goodgame Studios, or can get you free items or gold. These should be treated with equal suspicion and reported to support immediately. Never give your account details to someone asking for them within the game! The Goodgame Team will only contact players in-game on extremely rare occasions, and will not ask for a username and password.

Don’t bow to pressure, your account details are your own and should not be shared. If you are in a co-op that demands your account details, inform them that you are not willing to provide such sensitive details about your account.

Finally, do not give cheaters a chance! Report suspicious messages, never accept offers for our game outside of the game (on an external website), never give out your details to other players and make sure you have a strong, unique password for your account.

Do you have any questions about account security? Our forum team will be pleased to assist you! Just ask your questions in a private message to a moderator or community manager.

Keep it secret, keep it safe!

Your Community Team