Slashdot Mirror
The Problems With Game Copy Protection
Next Generation has a piece looking at the sometimes overly enthusiastic copy protection schemes used in PC games. From the article: "In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares. These days, however, copy-protection software is ubiquitous, and any PC game bought at retail is going to have it embedded on the game disc(s) in one form or another. I'm okay with that in theory, but some of these anti-piracy software programs are so potent that they cause issues for legitimate game buyers. One of the leading brands, StarForce, is notorious for not only making it difficult for a small percentage of legitimate users to load up StarForce-protected games, but also for leaving potentially problem-causing StarForce software behind on your PC, even after you've deleted the game it was protecting."
There to easy to crack and anyone determined can find a way around it....
Seriously though, if a game is worth $50 to buy, I'm not likely to be uninstalling it anytime soon.
><));>
C-Dilla is another one that leaves nasty executable droppings on your computer even after you remove the game. Gee, and who makes C-Dilla but our good friends at Macrovision.
In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares.
... I remember years ago the copy protection was simply to enter "The 4th word on the tenth line on the 10th page of the instruction manual", etc.
It wasn't only "ask nicely"
It wasn't so successful, but... it was an interesting idea at the time. (Even if it was a pain having to dig out the manual if you haven't played a game in a while)
I completely forgot about that until reading this article. I'm not sure how many companies did it, but I remember this on some Sierra Online games I played (Police Quest, for one)
The best defense against this sort of this is the operating system. The ideal mechanism for software management is for the OS to only permit software to be installed in a specific directory tree, one per application, instead of allowing software to sprinkle DLLs all over the place. Installation should be a recorded transaction which can be replayed in reverse by the OS to verify that software has truly been removed. This, along with really good privilege separation, will ensure that rogue applications cannot evade detection and removal.
Too bad Linux doesn't do any of this...
- I wanted to call myself Anonymous Coward, but that name was already taken by somebody
> In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares.
What? I was able to put a 16 byte sector inside a 256 byte sector, which itself was located inside a 1024 byte sector, on a floppy, in the late 70's. Even the best copy programs had a hard time to crack that. I have produced things like that and I have seen others doing similar things. Most people could not copy such games. And hey, there were always people who knew how to do it and there will always be such people.
I used to steal software left and right (please feel free to tell me how it isn't theft so I can summarily ignore you). Then about 8 years ago, I really thout about it and deleted anything illegal, or outright bought it (very expensive conviction, let me tell you ).
I don't illegally copy, and don't think anyone should. Yet I am annoyed by all the inconveniences that I have to put up with in the name of protecting someone's profits. Registering crap, difficulties in backing up. Annoying requirements to periodically validate, etc. I will return products if they are too invasive. I am tired of being assumed guilty.
Yet, I see nothing improving. I fear than in 20 years we will look back at this era and view it as a "golden age of computing". Things will be locked down so tight, and all software will be pay-as-you-go.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares.
No, they did do some things. Rumors of bad sectors on floppies burned in by lasers. Certainly floppies that had sectors marked as bad where the installer/runtime had code to force the disc controller to check for the errors and overlook them if they were found (i.e., intentionally put there), which prevented casual disk to disk copying.
Then HD's came out, and many forms of copy protection that were to stop floppy-floppy copying did not play well with those who wanted to run their games off of the HD. Eventually it was business software that had the worst problems with this, and they were the first ones to give up on it, lower prices to the point where the "fun" of copying programs was reduced, etc. Games came along shortly after. The least obtrusive game copy protections, IMHO, were those that required the manuals. But they were easy enough to defeat programmatically (SoftICE...), too.
Now with CloneCD, DaemonTools, the Internet (availability to NOCD cracks), etc., it seems like the industry should just realize that $50/game in the US probably wouldn't be as profitable as $19.00 and minimal CD protection. Requiring the CD to play a game, if only to keep SecureRom happy (all the media content gets d/l to the HD usually anyways...) sucks. And to think that some of the no-copy stuff is getting pretty sneaky (installing device drivers?) with little/no concern for user's computer, etc.
If they're that paranoid about it, they should just license MS' activation technology and methods, or go full on-line (where they can control the servers).
Ahh, the 90s.
"Now geek, don't you copy this game!"
It's like saying...
"Now Homer, don't you eat this pie!"
Demented But Determined.
This reminds me of the good old days - the late 80's to early 90's, to be exact, when games came on floppy disks and companies like Psygnosis were well-known for the execution-protection, err, copy-protection on their games.
In fact, my friends and I had a saying - "Psygnosis - Latin for won't boot".
Good to see the youngsters will get to enjoy that experience. Of course, back in the day, when you were done playing the game you rebooted your computer and the system was back to normal - you didn't have the games leaving little turdlets behind like they do now.
Kids today. Always have to go us old farts one better.
www.eFax.com are spammers
It used to be that I'd say "I won't buy or recommend anything I have to struggle to get working due to copy protection." Recently it was "I don't buy copy-protected games." Now? If it's not Software Libre, I pretty much don't want to play it.
What they really need to do is work with the makers of the next storage medium (and quit putting games on CD sets in the US. A game that needs 3.0 GHz + Processor will probably have access to a DVD drive...). Movie makers have been teaming with hardware makers since macrovision to deter pirating. The game industry should try a similar approach instead of trying to tweak existing technology to help them.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Step 1: Buy game
Step 2: Install game
Step 3: Download NoCD crack from MegaGames, install crack, copy ISO to hard drive, run Alcohol %120, run program to hide Alcohol %120, yadda yadda yadda...
Step 4: Play game
Step 5: Realize that you probably spent more time protecting your computer from DRM perversion than actually playing the game
and the only people not affected by these copy protection issues.
The pirates.
Oh the irony, best get your eye patch on and set sale to bittorrent and usenet!
http://www.qnx.com/developers/articles/article_920 _1.html
Have a look at their Package Filesystem.
You never have to install a think. Any changes to the package tree get saved in a special overspill area; and it all gets cleaned up if you kill off the package.
It's really quite neat.
Companies really have a hard choice on this one.
They can either:
a) Lose sales to piracy, thus risking failure even if they make a good game.
b) Add on such dreadful copy protection that it alienates their legit users, thus risking failure even if they make a good game.
c) Put on some weak copy protection, and then BOTH Lose sales to piracy AND still alienate some legit users.
No matter what they choose, they can be screwed.
Look at Steam... it works, but yet the delay it causes in loading up the game causes me to not play HL2 much. And since it assumes Im a pirate unless I log onto their website, Im insulted a little every time I have to prove I'm not a criminal. I did buy HL2, but I reccommended AGAINST it to friends, because of Steam. And I won't buy another Steam game.
This is the same reason I was against the DCMA and similar issues: They assume you are a crook until you prove you are legit.
So, really, any form of copy protection, I will find more-or-less insulting.
But I know if they don't, the games will be pirated like crazy. It's easy to rationalize -- you are only stealing from a Big Company, right? And they overcharge for crappy games anyways, right?
The companies are in a bind.
Optimistically, if you want to see less of the restrictive copy protections, you need to A) buy the game legitly, B) peer pressure friends if they pirate, and C) consider not buying a title if its copy protection is excessive.
Pessimistically, that only works if everyone does, so I can't see copy protection getting less invasive. I just don't look forward to a DNA scan before loading up HL 5
Apple II games had all kinds of copy protection schemes, and there were all kinds of tools to get around them. Nibbles Away, Lockmaster, Locksmith, etc. Some games had holes punched in the disks in various places and wouldn't run of those areas could be read/written to. Etc.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I've got stuff on my PC that is far more valuable than this $50 game. There is now way I'd buy a copy protected game for fear it'll damage my photos, financial files, and the like. If there is any sort of worry, on my part, that it'll make my system unusable, I don't want it even in the same room as my PC. Just in case it also has airborne viruses. /gotta go make some more backups.
Here's a pretty damn complete list of protections
t ections.shtml
http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_pro
It includes how to detect the protection, how to back 'em up and usually a bit about how each one works
I remember that many years ago, I based my cd-burner purchasing decision on it's ability to rip/burn copy protected discs.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The only people that game copy protection effects are those who legally buy the game, it's not hassling anyone else.
I flat refuse to install anything with StarForce on it. Google starforce and you'll see plenty of articles and rants about it.
.exe file at gamecopyworld. I'm sure I could find a copy of the whole game somewhere if I bothered to look. Not only did they lose a sale because of their anticopy software, it turns out the damned thing doesn't work anyway. Real good business decision there.
I have games that include SecureROM (GTA SA and VC) and SafeDisc (Sim City 3000) and I've never noticed them causing any problems or installing anything other than registry entries. StarForce, on the other hand, installs hidden device drivers, which totally fuck up a cd/dvd drive in some PCs. On some XP machines, it can cause actual physical damage to the burner. It also elevates access priviledges for user-level applications, although I can't imagine why the hell it does that.
Fuck all that. Not on my machine.
After seeing the commercials for Brothers in Arms, I decided to buy it. Then I noticed this disclaimer on the publisher's web site:
"NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some DVD-RW, and virtual drives."
I looked around and discovered it was StarForce, so I just put my credit card back in my wallet. Then I sent an email to the publisher to tell them they'd just lost a sale.
Funny thing is, there are four different cracked copies of the game's
Only on
That most games are *easier* to pirate than buy legit. The *valid* reasons are actually pretty extensive. I've played demos. Liked them. Then I bought them only to find that it doesn't work on my computer, and there is no patch. (Gawd-dammit EA! I hate you fuckers!) To make matters worse, I can't return it (Even WAL-MART fears I might be a pirate, aaargh!) An AMD XP 2500+ with 512MB and an ATI 9600XT isn't a flame thrower, but it should run everything to some degree.
...No wonder consoles are "winning."
Also, I have kids. Young kids. And any gamer-parent knows that the first rule is to hide your CDs. I keep my originals SAFE. I MUST copy them onto the harddrive and use an image, or copy the disc. One minute alone with my computer is all it takes...
Requiring the CD also introduces unnecessary wear. DVDs are exponentially more vulnerable. I bought MGS2:Substance on DVD for PC, and the installer won't run due to a CRC error, le cry! I should be able to send my CD back for another - I can't exchange w/o the packaging - 3 years later.
To copy the original that I got from a store, I need a daemon tools and alcohol, so protections that require I not own those programs piss me off - at least put it on the damn box - It's my money and I deserve to know.
*or*
I could fire up bittorrent, download, install/patch, visit gamecopyworld, and start playing without having to go to the store, get bilked, figure out how to *keep* my game, and *then* play crappy FPS XXI (barring hardware issues and lack of patches.)
Shit, I've had freaking pop-cap games not work! Diner-Dash, crashes randomly - even after reinstalling windows. (Only thing left is to install new/more memory, and maybe a mobo replacement...) "Tech Support" doesn't exist, I get the middle finger for my $50.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
I don't know if anyone but me has noticed this, but Galactic Civilizations II (a recently released game), has absolutely no copy protection, and it's wonderful. No worries about losing my CD key, any sort of online authentication, or anything else. A great game, and a great set of developers.
Vandemar.org
...if we could rent PC games. (And I'm not talking about services like Gametap that only offers really old games that came out years ago.)
I'd rather pay $15/mo to a Netflix style service and get PC Game DVDs and CDs delivered to me than go to my local retail store and spend $60 (or go online and spend $40 + shipping) on something that MIGHT be fun and may provide me with a few hours of entertainment depending on how quickly I finish the game. If I rent the game and really like it so much that I'll want to spend days playing it and playing it over again whenever I want, I'll buy it so I can do just that!
Oh, but people would just rip PC games from the CDs, crack the protection, and keep them forever? Before there was affordable broadband Internet, I would agree, but you can do that today by downloading the game from public torrents and get it a lot faster than waiting for the CDs to arrive in the mail and without paying a monthly fee to some rental company. You can do that with PS and X-Box games with a modded machine or with DVD movies, but that hasn't stopped companies from offering PS/X-Box games and movies for rent.
Am I missing something? I don't understand why there is no place to rent PC games these days.
A little off topic as this discussion is mainly PC based, but has anyone cracked the Saturn's copy protection yet? Unpopularity combined with a nasty unreadable track has left it uncracked for over 10 years now as far as i know
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
They could protect them if they wanted to.
:(
My 1st retail game (for XT! in hercules mono graphics!) had a required play disk AND an ID the photo in the manual.
All this activation stuff sucks tho, what if you want to show your kids/grandkids what you used to play 20 years from now? Is that online activation still gonna work
Not that putting in the 5-1/4" key disk is much better but it DOES work.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hex editors and disassemblys worked nicely for those of us who weren't script kiddies.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Use GNU stow and install as a regular user. It was designed specifically to make this happen, and it works quite well.
I remember the old days of enter the third word found on page 5, line 2. I even remember the first time I got out the hex editor and found and changed all the words to 0x20 (space) or 0x0D (CR) to by pass it.
Then there were the floppy disk protections that you had to use Copy2PC and neverlock or something like that... Ah CGA Testdrive, dating myself here...
The last game I bought was Star Wars: Empire at War. It has SecureROM7 protection and detects and refuses to run on my virtual game drive. I legally own the game, and the game drive software, but can't use it. So I have to have the CD in drive to play. Okay, not so big a deal right? Well it refused to allow that to be running and wanted me to un-install it so all my OTHER games that do work with it would be affected.
That combine with the extreme LOW quality of Electronic Arts games, I have finally given up on them. Just yesterday I went back and started playing old Star Control II. (now open sourced as http://sc2.sourceforge.net/">The Ur-Quan Masters) and having just as much if not more fun.
And lets not forget http://freshmeat.net/projects/sdl_sopwith/">SDL Sopwith another CGA classic!
New games are over priced, have poor game play and just don't entertain me anymore. The funny thing was, I think it was Star Control 1 that was one of the games that asked for word found on... that I cracked back then. Now SC2 is open source and free. Good times!
I bought the collectors edition of HL2. I'm not into counterstrike or any of the other games, I just wanted HL2. I installed it on my machine and tried to run it and ended up spending the better part of 2 weeks trying to get it working.
I had the priviledge of participating in live chat, e-mail and phone support with several different reps working from scripts in India. None really knew what was going on, but their flow charts did point in the right direction: there was some problem with the DVD or the drive that was keeping the game from running.
Upon launch the HL2.exe process would run, ramp up it's memory and processor usage and then quietly quit. no error, no feedback. After several reinstalls of both game and OS I exchanged my dvd for a new one, only to have the same problem. Rather than swap out my drive I pulled disc check crack off the internet and sure enough the game loaded without any issues.
Not only is there issues with their remote auth for the game, but there are issues with the SecuROM protection they use on the actual discs, forcing me to crack my legit copy of HL2 just to get the damn thing to *run*.
Apparently they removed this protection later via a steam update, but prior to that it was easier for me to pirate the game than to launch it legitmately.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
"I used to steal software left and right (please feel free to tell me how it isn't theft so I can summarily ignore you)."
It's a violation of the contract artists made with society.
"Yet I am annoyed by all the inconveniences that I have to put up with in the name of protecting someone's profits. "
I find that not buying or illegally copying quickly takes care of that problem. Shame none of the "victums" have the backbone to give it a try.
"I am tired of being assumed guilty."
Will the "guilty" person please stand up. Now you see the problem.
"Yet, I see nothing improving. I fear than in 20 years we will look back at this era and view it as a "golden age of computing". Things will be locked down so tight, and all software will be pay-as-you-go."
Here's the lesson that humanity has yet to learn. Bad people have a negative effect on a society. Now will society continue to make excuses for these bad people, or will it apply social pressure against those who seemingly can't live in a structured environment aka society.
This guy didn'teven mention steam -- Valves way of taking revenge on all it's consumers for the actions of one harker.
Seriously, I loved the Half Life games, but does ANYONE like useing steam?
I recently purchased Battlefield 2 from EA. After a Lengthy install, the game refused to run stating I had CDRom emulators on my system (I didn't). I verified in my device manager that there was a single CDRom and it was the physical one in the machine. I opened a support ticket with EA and got many canned answers that had nothing to do with my problems. When I finally got the attention of a tech there that had some insight, I was basically told I'm screwed. They didn't know why and weren't willing to refund my money. Compusa was also inwilling to provide a refund as the box had been opened. So I'm stuck with a $50 game I cannot run legitmately. I did however finally get it to run using pirate mechanisms.
Once again, this shows their copy protection only hurts those that buy the game.
I started with nothing and have most of it left.
"Step 3: Download NoCD crack from MegaGames, install crack, copy ISO to hard drive, run Alcohol %120, run program to hide Alcohol"
I don't know if some of you realize this, but those "crack" sites are a good way to get infected.
Renting computer software without permission of the copyright holder was made illegal in the US by the Computer Software Rental Amendment Act of 1990.
In a nutshell:
On December 1, 1990, President Bush signed into law the "Computer Software Rental Amendments Act," an amendment of section 109 of the copyright law, prohibiting the rental, lease, or lending of a computer program for direct or indirect commercial gain unless authorized by the owner of copyright in the program. Behind the amendment was a concern that commercial rental of computer programs encourages illegal copying of the rented programs, depriving copyright owners of a return on their investment and discouraging creation of new works."
Previous to this amendment, you could rent computer software. I used to rent software via the mail for the Commodore 64 and Amiga computers back in the '80s - long before GameFly.
About the only thing you can do is buy used games on auctions sites like ebay or www.gameswapzone.com.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
"Therefore, give away something cool every month or so for your legitimate users, such that it's easier to just buy the software than to download a pirated version AND try to find all the goodie packs you missed. Something like extra decals, extra models, extra maps, extra vehicles."
Oh lovely. The Pokemon Protection Scheme. Free with every MS XP, a clippy sticker. Collect the whole series.
I am a bit late in this thread, but I actually pirate software I have paid for.
That's right, I pay for a license, then download pirated copies. Why?
Because the copy protection schemes are so intrusive, I just cannot stand them. I do a majority of my 3d work ona laptop, and I don't have USB ports to spare for my 2+ dongles, much less want to run the risk of the dongles being stolen, OR should I mention the fact that the laptop won't even fit in the fucking case with the dongle on OR the fact that the sentinel driver software for the dongle is unstable and I don't want another 3rd party service running. Games too.. I grab a NO-CD crack for every game I own. All the data is on the HD, why should I have to have the damn disc in my cd drive constantly spinning up and spinning down eating my battery power? Not to mention that it *renders the optical drive useless*. It's so obnoxious.
When I was young & in my prime (and an underemployed student) I rarely bought anythign but instead ogt "free" versions from friends.
p port/FaqSearchResults.jsp?problemType=3&searchText =&game=177&platform=3
I'm employed, and a father, and now I buy the games.
My 3.5yo son loves robots. So last week I bought the LEGO Star Wars game. He has no clue who R2D2 is, but dammit, he knows R2 is a robot, so he wants to play! My boy was crying he was so excited to play the game.
The install was slow, but it it was copying media to the HD, so thats fine. I'll sacrifice space for speed. After a few minutes it finished and I started the game. My boy was holding a joystick, staring at the screen, and just shaking. I thought he was gonna start seizing.
"Wrong Disc Inserted"
Yeah, turns out EIDOS released a version of the game with defective copy protection. Their website flat out tells you that the disc is defective if it says "Disc 1" in yellow text on the disk. Ours does. We bought this year-old game brand frickin new, and its defective. And EIDOS knew it. Their website gives you a number to call to order a replacement.
http://support.eidosinteractive.com/GI/CustomerSu
So instead of 'splaining to junior that EIDOS quality control needs a kick to the sack, I hit up good ol'gamecopyworld and found a no-cd crack. Game starts right on up. The downside is the cracked version is not what I'd call stable, so I'm gonna have to send off for a replacement CD anyway, but at least we can keep the boy playing with robots until EIDOS sends the replacement.
So if EIDOS knows they released a bad batch, then why haven't they recalled the shitty ones & replaced them already? Strike one for EIDOS. I'd tell them I was so pissed that I refuse to buy the next Boobraider, except Lara Croft bored me to tears so it would be an empty threat.
I think the copy protection of Steam & CD-keys works very well. I don't find Steam intrusive; I don't have a problem with it. I never "loan" out cdkeys because I'm keen on not getting banned. Of course, these work best on online games.
Save the Music; Save the World at http://www.TuneTriever.com (Our latest Android game)
The Apple II was (and still is) also good to produce copy-proteced disks for computers with a floppy controller of the Western Digital family. Format a track with the WD controller, put the floppy into an Apple, write the same track with the Apple "controller" (it is actually just a shift register) for a brief moment and interrupt the procedure so that only a small fraction of the track gets overwritten. The Apple does not care about the index hole and starts to write at a random location. With a bit of luck you overwrite just a fraction of a sector written by the WD controller. Repeat until you succeed. The Apple writes the data with a different clock frequency than the WD controller. Thus every time you read the prepared disk with a WD controller, the WD controller's pll oscillator fails to synchronize with the bits of the manipulated sector on the floppy. Consequently the controller produces random information, plus a checksum error, every time you try to read the manipulated sector, very much like a hole punched into the floppy disk. From the outside the disks looks perfectly fine. And there is no way to duplicate that without a lot of effort, certainly not with a standard controller. This scheme still works today for PCs. The PCs floppy controller is just a clone of a NEC controller, which itself is a clone of the WD controller.
Input, output and processing... that's what they do. Much more reasonable to harness the power of word of mouth, foster a community and spread awareness of value of time and effort than to stand against the tide... telling people to not do something that their hardware was designed to do. Assuming the worst and punishing everybody doesn't really work. Find a better model... WOW isn't hurting, consoles have reasonable specs... sure it's not a business model that's an easy sell to business backers used to and expecting harsh systems, but it is one that actually works. Personally, I'll download a game and a crack, play it, if it's any good I'll buy it... I don't game much but I do see the effort required for such ventures and that effort should be rewarded. That is how it should be, imo. Raise awareness of effort, encourage self assesment of enjoyment and be thankful for reward. Much more progressive.
Ya, they thought of this a while ago (like 1980s) when they built the MacOS and OSX.
It's a dream.
I'm surprised more people don't know this.
I remember a card for the Apple 2e that had a button that you could push that took a snapshot of memory and allowed you to save it to disk. To start the program, you just loaded the snapshot it back into memory. I seem to remember that it worked pretty well, for a while.
To find the intrusive Starforce device, look in Windows Device Manager, select Show Hidden Devices, and look for Starforce in the Non-Plug and Play tree.
Now that's something an application program should not be doing.
There's a StarForce removal tool, but it's from the Starforce people, and probably should not be trusted.
Starforce is threatening to sue Cory Doctorow for calling their product "malware". That would be amusing if they went through with it.
Diner Dash crashes? Well shoot, I thought that was just a built-in timer meant to encourage me to go purchase the full version. . . =)
this article looks like it was ripped straight out of PC Gamer
If you want to support *the artists*, attend their concerts
Which would require sitting on one's ass while waiting to become 21 so that one can enter the bars in which the artists play concerts.
Here's my solution,
They should give *all* the games away for free and charge $5/month to access their gaming servers. If the game is good and I play it for 2 years, they get $120 of my money for their game, more than double the $40 they would have got. If the game sucks, i'm out $5, big deal.
Since they will no longer charge for the games, they will get distributed by p2p costing the manufacturer $0 in distribution. Money they can put back into their online servers.
They could charge $50/month for people/clans to be in control of their servers and reduce the price of them hosting the games. Give the people/clans paying for the servers a cut of the action. If they run a clean server and keep it full of paying customers then they might not only end up not paying their monthly server fee but making a profit. Paid to play and admin a server. This would create great admins who would make sure customers are paying and keep out the riff-raff and team killers.
This would of course create server admins who keep trying to out do each other by creating new and better mods and maps so they can get more people to their servers. The more people that play on their servers, the more money they make. Once admins start making serious money by running a good server you'll see a flux of basement dwellers creating incredible gaming experiences and getting rich at the same time.
On top of everything else, it would be much easier for the companies to find people running illegal servers than to track illegal copying. Much easier since they would have an army of server admins who would be more than happy to hunt down illegal servers that are taking away from their potential profit.
Or, the companies could keep cripling their games and pissing off their paying customers.
You mean: They're too easy to crack...
Everyone loves a grammar nazi.
lol sorry I had to. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4837609090 332617729
Maybe my thinking is too Machiavellian, but I think all these companies know that to destroy piracy is to destroy their industry. The fact is, the biggest game players are too poor to afford to feed their insatiable gaming appetite.
If I was rich enough to buy all my software, I wouldn't be wasting my time on a computer. I'd be off galavanting around the globe getting in adventures and stuff. In order for software to be ultimately successful, people have to actually USE it. The more people use it and like it (starting with the 'ol "early adopters"), the bigger the early and late majority will be. These companies know this (at least the savvy ones do) and, in my mind, copy protection schemes are there to keep this dynamic operating at level that keeps things profitable (i.e. making it hard enough to get enough people to the stores).
I know I heard that Microsoft turned a blind eye to piracy for this very reason. Companies using schemes like StarForce are blinded by greed, and think pirated copies equate to lost sales in a 1:1 ratio. The backlash against them is as much a corrective effect than rage about messed up computers.
A big fat screw you to the game companies for thinking I'm going to spend a single penny to let you screw over my computer with your root kits and Starforce and whatever else bit of crap you have to make me more miserable. You've taught me that I don't need a game that much. I won't be treated like a criminal, I won't be a slave to the install disk or a intrusive copy protection scheme that only annoys me, makes it hard to play and installs spyware, bloatware and anything else I don't want on my computer. No sale ass monkeys.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
One of the nice things about Stardock's new Galactic Civilizations II game, besides it just being ridiculously fun, is that there is no CD copy protection at all.
Likewise, MS-DOS worked the same way. deltree c:\gamedir would pretty much eradicate any the game from your system.
in all the discussion of copy protection, why has no one mentioned the security wheel?
I had tons of games that needed a wheel.
it was easily copied with a xerox machine.
They're using their grammar skills there.
What really annoys me about games that require the cd/dvd in the drive is they won't actually run from the cd/dvd. Back in the DOS days some of the first cd games were quite well behaved -- they'd save a few savegame or config files on the hd, and run the rest from the cd.
I'd rather just pop in a DVD in my nice fast DVD-ROM game and have it play all the movies and load game data from there. I know HD space is cheap these days, but it seems inexcusable to require users to have cutscenes they'll only see once loaded on their hard drive..
Playing from cd works for game consoles..it should (still) work for PCs too.
Maybe with all these pirates around the Flying Spaghetti Monster will fix global warming with his noodly appendage!
StarForce encrypts the executables, so for it to run you need their special driver (causing system crashes, etc.) Once TPM chips are in our new motherboards companies don't have to worry about the side effects of invasive copy protection, it will be incorporated seemlessly into our new hardware. Problems Solved! http://trustedcomputinggroup.org/
In recent months, there were numerous threads on the Bethesda Softworks message boards regarding whether TES: Oblivion would be released with Starforce as its copy protection scheme. Most people posting to these threads were steadfastly against the use of Starforce, and many stated that they would outright refuse to buy the product if it included Starforce.
Not too long ago, Neowin.net published a podcast interview with Pete Hines, the PR guy for the Elder Scrolls series. He was asked about the antipiracy scheme that Bethesda and Take Two planned to use on the PC version of Oblivion, and more pointedly, he was asked about Starforce.
He said (paraphrased) that while they couldn't comment on what antipiracy scheme they were going to use, they were not going to use Starforce.
Score one for the consumer.
My friend, this is why I make my purchases on Visa. If it don't work, backcharge. In most cases, when nobody else supports you, and the big guys are big enough that they can happily screw you, Visa will still bend them over, because they are bigger.
Did I hear you right, did I hear you sayin' That you're gonna make a copy of a game without payin'? Come on, guys, I thought you knew better, don't copy that floppy!
Compusa was also inwilling to provide a refund as the box had been opened. So I'm stuck with a $50 game I cannot run legitmately.
Exchange it, and exchange every copy they give you as having the same defect.
While I was on holiday I picked up 'Runaway - A road adventure'. It looks like a Monkey Island type game and it was $20 so I put down some cash (as did a friend of mine) and took it home. After installing it on my SO's new computer a screen came up 'Starforce blah blah blah driver blah blah blah'. Here is where this got fun.
:-)
:) ) and I don't think EB is at fault here, so I won't.
The new computer is a Dell. My SO decided to buy one herself and it mostly went ok. The computer arrived and she turned it on. A nice screen comes up saying 'by pressing a key you agree to Dell's EULA'. My SO works in IT. She has a two degrees. This uselss message really concerned her. The only thing that I could say to reassure her was 'no one has ever enforced an EULA in a court - so at the moment it doesn't hold water'. I dealt with this bullshit in the usual manner.
Now, getting back to this game. I got this game for her. I had to, once again, determine what this software was doing and how it would affect her PC. The new PC only has one drive - a burner. After hearing that the drive this malware 'needed' to install *may* damage it she said 'no! get rid of it!'. At this point I took the route of 'I own the game. I have the box in front of me. It's installed. Screw you assholes." and now the game works
Good one Dell. Scare the hell out of people by making them think that they are going to be sued. Good one Starforce. I really should return that game to EB to make a point here. However, I do want to play the game (when she's finished
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
I've had runins with this sort of thing myself. Such as a game that used SafeDisc or some other hard to copy method where you need a 3.5 sheep burner or whatever to have even a chance of duplicating. My disc got scratched up, and I could no longer play the game I'd legally spent far far too much money on. The thing is, very very few stores will allow you to returned an open box of software, so the companies get away with this. It's only when users can return an item that the message gets back to the manufacturers that a particular method is unacceptable. The manufacturers are vaguely aware that people may be stealing their software, but, for the most part, they just pay the mafia -- excuse me, the ESA (aka ISDA, too many people were beginning to realize what they were, so they changed it again) -- and they handle all of it for the company, including protecting those games they made ten years ago and no longer produce in any way whatsoever or even still employ the people who made them or even actually still have the original copies of the data. In other words, your average company just is scared they'll loose money, so jump at the chance for something like StarForce if they can afford it. As far as they are concerned, what few sales are lost are just because the game wasn't as popular as they'd thought. Since you can't take the game back, most people just give up and go the illegal route, using patches and cracks and such to get the game they bought to actually work. They spent $40+ on the peice of junk, the least it can do is run, right? I think right now, more than anything else, the issue is lack of communication.
The thing that probably ticks me off the most of all though is the fact that you may not legally backup your game. Oh sure, the law says you can make a backup, but, they managed to get a law passed adding a loophole that ensures you may no longer make a backup. You are not allowed to circumvent any copy protection (however minor) to make a backup as I understand it (please correct me if I'm wrong, it really worries me that they can actually get away with this, but, as nearly as I can tell, they somehow did with the DMCA.) If there's a game out there without even the cheapest most basic copy protection in it, it's because it's an illegally released internal beta or an opensource/otherwise free game. (Ok, I exagerate, I'm sure there's some exception somewhere, I just haven't seen it in a long time.) So, we may no longer make backups even though the law says we're supposed to have a right to, and my discs have a habit of getting scratched somehow even though I keep them in the cases and take good care of them, holding by the edges, not leaving them lying around, etc (I swear there's some kind of mini gremlin that gets in there and runs it's claws across my CDs or something.) It just bugs me so much knowing that I've bought the right to play the game for as long as I darned well please, but, they lied to me because most of us mere humans can't make a disc last as long as some games are actually worth keeping for, so they actually just sell us the right to use them for a while while falsely advertising that we can use them as long as we like. If the disc breaks well, off to the store with you to increase their revenues a bit further if you want to keep playing. BTW, has anyone else noticed that lately discs seem to be a little cheaper and softer, or is it just my imagination?
Anyway, I once tried a friend's copy of X3. Or I tried to try it. We couldn't get it working with his legitimate IDE drive (and if you're a SCSI user, well, the game no longer costs $50, it actually costs $70 because you are required to buy an IDE drive to legally play X3 from what I've read since StarForce is poorly designed enough to assume there's no such thing as a SCSI cd-rom.) After what I swear felt like an hour of it trying to verify, it failed. Needless to say, he wasn't particularly happy considering that he bought it soon af
There are methods of "copy protection" which are not really hampering users. One of the best ones I've seen is to release a game with a nice think manual so that it is really not economically sound for anyone seriously interested in the game to copy the media only - though to make that idea work you really have to have a good content that requires attaching a book to the media (or perhaps it's the other way around...) - like a detailed flight simulation for instance... 600+ pages of "Falcon 4.0", anyone?
That way you really can justify $50 price tag on it as well. But most of the games being released can't fill more than 50-100 pages with useful contents.
On the other hand you as a publisher have a dilemma whether investing a lot of capital to print all those book will yield profit in the end, then you have retailers which are not happy to carry titles that fill their shells and are heavy to transport as well...
yeah, keep starting the CD every few minutes, freezing the game, and generally keeping it some 30% below its normal speed capacities. Even mosr of the legitimate users downloaded the crack.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I've a laptop wich I use to game during the movement between house and workplace,
and thus crack every game I bought as it's simply too power consuming having a
data dvd in the drive!
The copy protection scum is an absurd way to enforce legitim copy.
Even half life 2 has been cracked!
There's no way to stop piracy using these ways.
Studies evaluates the piracy loss at arount 10Million dollar at year...
at 50$ piece it's almost 200000 pirated copy out there... the gaming industry
claims that piracy takes almost 50% of their sales, so the best anti piracy system
qould be selling games at 12$. Everione would buy the game, so the gross
profit will remain the same, it will cut production costs as marketing will
be no longer necesary and cut down piracy once and for all.
Who wouldn't buy a legitim copy of half life 2 at 12$ without the hassle of
the online registration???
The problem with Steam and the like is its reliant on an Internet connection.
I remember when we lost the Internet connection, and my roommate could play very few of the games he had bought.
I'd forgotten about that. Just another stupid law with an easy workaround. One business would sell the software, and let you return it for any reason or no reason at all. All you had to do was pay a "restocking fee" that was not coincidentally the same cost as renting used to be.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I'm a programmer for a major game developer (self-publisher) in the Los Angeles area. We recently had a meeting about copy protections for our upcoming games.
We came to the conclusion that we did not want copy protection. However, because European retailers *refuse* to sell a game that is unprotected, we *have* to use it. The retailers even have a list of protections that they consider "good enough", and every single one of these installs device drivers.
The European retailers also refuse to sell a game that was released unprotected in another country, so we have to protect the American one too.
I wish I could say which company I work for so I could apologize for the use of protection.
Sorry, but I don't understand why that doesn't apply to console games as well? Surely console games would fall under the definition of "computer software"?
Here in Australia places like Blockbuster Video rent console games, is this not done in the US?
Despite the inflated "loss" numbers the industry likes to spin from whole cloth, I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the amount of money they spend on copy protection is actually more than they could ever lose from piracy. Copy protection *might* stop some casual friend-to-friend copying, but at that level I can't imagine they are losing as much as these protections are costing them. Certainly this "protection" is doing nothing to stop the pirates.
... you get the idea.
I'm among the throng of people here who are disgusted by the state of "anti-piracy" measures on the PC platform.
But it only takes ONE good, profitable hit without those measures to turn the industry. Where is it?
One big hit that has the policy of "we trust you, $15.95 is our price, no stupid codes, no CD required, etc". That would change the industry.
But, I don't see it, and neither do you. In America, if you went to a yard sale and saw a Porsche in mint condition, with papers, with a $10 price tag on it, you'd still offer $5. It's no different with piracy.
But, somebody would post a copy of the $15.95 game, and millions would download it, and shareholders would grumble and breathe down the necks of the company, and
It's like the assholes who vandalize the public bathrooms downtown, so that you have to go to a shop and beg for a johnny. It makes life harder for those of us honest people who end up paying the bills.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Annoying copy protection existed back then. We once mailed a Commodore 64 game collection back to the store because two of the four games didn't work. They came back with a note: "The games work just fine! If they don't, flip the disk drive to stand on its side." I flipped the disk drive to vertical position and lo! The games worked.
But yeah, I really fear about over-enthusiastic copy protection. Back in the 64 days, I didn't play some of the games I couldn't copy with my ordinary floppy duplicator or cartridge's freezer. I was kind of worried about wearing down the floppies (never mind that 99% of my C64 floppies still work.)
And now, I have one game that has StarForce in it. Assuming I had a Windows 2000 or better, which I don't (unless you count Linux as "better", har har har ho ho ho), I'd need some intricate procedures to play the game, like powering down, opening the case, disconnecting the hard drive that has Linux, installing a spare HD, closing the case, installing the operating system on it, and then the games, and play. Yeah, insane compartmentalization just to play a few games! Why? Heard rumors that Starforce can hose entire HDs. Would not be fun to lose Linux partitions due to some idiotic copy protection scheme?
I'm also kind of worried about another thing - legislating the copy protection. Here we have things like Starforce or the Sony CD copy protection, they're trivial to break with a little bit of hackery, but hey, that's illegal. People can get away with killing people if the person in question was trying to kill them, but it's not okay to protect your own data and information confidentiality from insidious copy protection systems that are trying to destroy your stuff! Would it be use arguing that breaking a known, provenly harmful copy protection system is nothing but self-defense? Hmm...
Had a mate who bought a game that turns out to need "shader 2" support he has no clue as to what it even means. Cant return the game, they are not interested.
:)
,its a symptom of our society motto of everyone for himself ,take take and take and screw you, you had your chance - mentality , a civilization of greedy , selfish children!
How the fuck is a guy who knows zip about computers supposed to know this.
Before i buy a game these days i
1) download it
- allows me to check out the full game ( and not a bloody demo aka beta ) and
confirm it will run on my system does what the fuckers say it does.
-apply current ( 350MB anyone )patches to see if its even stable - sheesh
- confirm that a nocd patch exists and works.
- im patient i guess to do so over a dial up modem
2) loan from a mate
3) buy cheap buy on trade sites , if and only if it passes inspection above.
And i have a non verbal licence agreement attached to my money stipulating that
as i pass over all rights to my money the recipient gives up all right to their goods.
Which i think is quit fair after all have you tried returning a game after reaching install state and clicking no on the license agreement . good luck !
Piracy is not the problem
If you bought Elite for the Sinclair Spectrum in the mid 80's you got a small prismatic viewer that you had to hold to your screen so you could read a graphically scrambled code to then type back in. I think it was called the Lensloc or something like that.
...and stop being such a wimp. There is no way in hell this is legal in your country. If it doesn't work, you get your money back. All you need to do is learn and quote the specific law and you get your money back straight away. The magic phrase here in the UK is "it's not fit for purpose" in this case.
I bought it. Then I downloaded a pirate copy, because Starforce wouldn't let it work on my machine.
I did the same thing with Halo, but for a different reason ; the disk has a scratch. I need the burned ISO to install it, and (irony!), the original to get the copy protection to work.
I actually have played nearly 20 hours on it this week alone and I will be going out to purchase the boxed game next paycheck. Even with bugs, it's a much better game than those that came before it.
Every game I have gone to buy at the store without a decent demo or pirating the damn thing ends up being a steaming pile of shit that I never spend more than a few hours with.
I bought a copy of the Pacific Assault DVD edition and ran into a similar problem. Only the game refused to run because I had a DVD burner installed as my only optical drive. They immediately assumed because I owned a DVD burner, that I was a pirate, despite the fact I had legitimately bought the game. The website said that you had to have a straight DVD-ROM player only. The local store doesn't even sell straight DVD drives any more, they are all CD/RW or DVD/RW and that's it.
So I had to go download a workaround just to play a game I had actually paid for. I got the latest version of Daemon tools and that took care of the problem. So there is a legitimate reason to have such software... to play games you legally bought.
It's a pity EA is going to do the release of Spore, and I know I'll have to go on the crack-go-round again to get that one working too.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
With console games they can usually pay a fee to get permision to rent the game out as copying console games successfully usually requires hardware mods to the consoles and a PC to do the copying with. In addition some consoles use very non-standard discs that only resemble cds and dvds.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Step 1: Buy game
Step 2: Install game
Step 3: Visit MegaGames, look for a crack other than for the english version, you don't find one
Step 4: Hope that you can play the game nevertheless
Step 5: Realize that you're fucked and have to hope that the copy protection won't affect the system. Playing with a system other than windows isn't possible 'cause there is no nocd crack (cedega isn't always a solution with restrictive copy protection).
Snide comments aside, Microsoft has its system more or less secured. They also have a rather fast (RATHER, ok, RATHER) way of dealing with security issues that spring up.
Or, let's at least say, they do something against security holes in their software.
The question is: Will the developers of such software do the same? Will they care? Will they offer patches?
First of all, most of those companies are not really interested in telling the user they're on their system. You, the customer, don't necessarily know that you have various copy protection plugins in your system, often at kernel level. So you don't necessarily care if a security exploit gets known.
If there's a security threat in Windows coming to the surface, every Windows user, at least if he is interested in having a secured system, will take the necessary steps. Now you hear that there's a bug in UltraGoodCopyProtection (I hope I made this up, if there's a company that really makes something called like this: I'm sorry for using you as an example, and the name sucks!).
Why should you care? You don't even know it's on your system.
Now, if a copy protection mechanism is widely used, it becomes interesting for people looking for backdoors into a system. The only reason why Sony's rootkit wasn't widely used by trojans is simply that it got so much attention and that Sony pulled the plug on it. If that rootkit was to become a more or less standard on PCs, we'd now drown in trojans abusing the "features" it offers.
And exactly the same can happen with any kind of anticopy soft that becomes part of the core system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Remember Lenslok? Protection that was used for Elite back in the day when. A horrible, cheap, plastic lens that you briefly adhered to your screen (actually a 14" TV at the time) in order to decode a couple of alphabet characters.
The crowning irony is that this was used for Elite on the Spectrum, which had incompatibilities between the 48k and 128k version. It took me _ages_ to twig that sometimes my machine would reset after one entry (i.e. when I'd got the characters correct, and the game would crash immediately afterwards) rather than two entries (when Lenslok would force a RST 0 and restart the machine).
All together then... "We bought it to help with your homework". Great days.
Very simple proof: I got a PATA cdrom, a SATA hdd and a firewire dvd burner.
Bought a starforce game (never again I might add), installed it on a clean xp pro image.
From then on the firewire dvd burner started disappearing from the list of drives at random and the machine would take forever to boot. I ended up having to reboot my machine everytime I wanted to burn a cd, and pray the drive would reappear - after a 5 minute wait for the login screen to go away.
Removed the game, removed the starforce drivers (a utility is available from their site)
My firewire drive came back to life and it no longer takes 5 minutes to boot.
Conclusion: Starforce IS malware.
Meanwhile we have a sleeper hit called Galactic Civilizations 2
r eatens_.html
www.galciv2.com
It has NO ZIP ZERO NONE copy protection at all. Instead, they give feature filled updates and patches that require a valid serial # to download.
Here's what the latest patch does (and this was done in just a week or two, unlike the just announced and badly needed to fix critical issues Battle for Middle Earth Patch that wont be ready for release for a month):
http://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=104660
Notice that while there's a good amount of bug fixes (lots of it stuff most people wouldn't even notice) there's also a lot of added features and game content.
Here's an example of what fans have done in ship design in the game, incredible stuff:
http://forums.galciv2.com/?AID=105823
They just sold through thier first printing run after a couple weeks after release. And the 2nd batch of orders EXCEEDS the initial order! This is frigging UNHEARD of. No game sells more copies weeks after release than the first weeks. (except maybe half life 1, and that was from the most popular online FPS in the world, a free mod incidentally, called Counter Strike). And this from a game with no copy protection.
THIS is the model that should be pursued by game companies, improve the game as an incentive to buy it. Actually multiplayer games that let you only play online with a valid serial is a good method in and of itself to encourage purchasing a legit copy of a game. I've never understood why they felt the need to add additional copy protection if the main game that people are interested in is multiplayer.
Or at least companies should adapt the alternative model below:
Epic games has a great model I wish companies would emulate. After a few months to a year, they will often release a patch which REMOVES all cd based copy protection (you still need a valid serial to play online). Its GREAT not to have to put in the Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2k4) DVD anymore when I want to play the game. I just click and go! After all, most copy protection is only designed to just delay a crack from being released on the internet. If it can just be delayed for a couple weeks (or even a few days), they get over the biggest amount of sales and pre-orders, and all the people desperate to play will probably have bought it. Even the copy protection people admit that its practicaly inevitable that a game will get cracked, they just hope to delay it. And almost always, the pain, suffering, incompatability and annoyances are mostly felt by LEGITIMATE CONSUMERS who have a purchased game! The pirate will just go grab a crack somewhere and apply it and hes set.
Anyway this is just my 2 cents. And all the above without mentioning the thing that is called Starforce. I'd better not say anything about that or else I could get sued:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/31/starforce_th
...copy protection scanners and by-pass programs are for.
I've used a protection scanner/analyzer (can't remember the name) and bypass programs to make legit back ups of my games.
I'm no pirate, and think (like a lot of legitimate game owners) that we should be able to make back ups of our games in case the original disc gets scratched. I do recognize that this opens the door to piracy.
Then again, there are products such as D-skin that alledge to protect CDs and DVDs from becoming scratched. I've not tried these yet.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
...the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares????
c kerbecausewenewkidscallhackerscrackers?
i assume you were not playing games in the 80's?
because using copy protection is as old as computer games. in the 80's the manufacturers used little tricks like writing bad sectors on a floppy disk which were not able to be copied without special hardware.
but in these days there where people (i was one of them) called crackers. i never understood why nowadays they are not called crackers anymore, but they still are here. please kids, tell me: how are they called today? theguysthatremovecopyprotectionandcannotcalledcra
even if they can't do anything against starforce version dunno now, just give them a few month and you're free again to copy your games.
and exactly this is why i don't get the game developers... why spending several thousands of dollars for a software, this is already useless, or at least useless soon?
Take the game back, and if they don't let you, make a really big scene at the store, I mean a *really* big scene for a good 30 minutes, and then they'll give you your money back.
Actually with the ammount of hipe about games out there there is also the problem of spending $50 on a crappy game you won't play more than 5 minutes. I usually do these steps.
Step 1: Download the full pirated game. (just because the demo s almost the same size and a lot of demos suck)
Step 2: Install game and apply NOCD crack.
Step 3: Play game for about an hour (wich is all you need to play to see If you will play this game even for another hour)
Step 4a: Realize that the game sucks, delete image, crack and game of the hard drive and forget about it.
Step 4b: Realize I do like the game, but the original copy, put the box in some obscure closet, forget about it and keep playing with the cracked version.
I only pay for entertainment. I don't pay for headaches and pc instability and I dont pay for unplayable games with lies in the box either....
Now, why is it that I do a lot of piracy and feel absolutely no regret about it?
Hey, man, I was only in high school then. All I wanted to do was get the games to work. :-)
:-)
Besides, I was an Integer BASIC kiddie. PR#6 and 3D0G, babee!
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I guess they've forgotten about the floppy disc copy protection of the 80s. Put the disc in the drive, boot up the computer and sit there for 30 seconds or so while the drive makes an awful grinding as it got past the copy protection. Apparently the process was potentially damaging to the drive; eventually developers abandoned this sort of protection.
Then companies started introducing protection that came in the form of a series of questions requiring the gamer to refer to the manual or some kind of decoder wheel. Sierra was one company who really took advantage of this form of protection, sometimes having someone play through part of the game before they encountered something that was referenced in the manual.
All this never stopped anyone from making copies of the games. Copy-protection is completely pointless because all it does is cause inconvenience for the legitimate end user. It sure doesn't pose any challenge to those pirating games.
This copy protection I encountered some years back was truly the triumph of marketing over common sense.
White Lightning, a programming/games design package for the Commodore 64, used a great idea to stop people from pirating the software. They printed the manual on red paper.
Imagine trying to read small black text printed on red paper - particularly when you're reading about a relatively complicated subject. It made it very difficult to photocopy but also pretty nasty to read for anything more than a short while - even if you had very good lighting.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Take Sacred (or in my case, the Sacred Gold edition) as a copy protected game. You have to have the original game CD in your HD when you start the game. It checks for daemon tools, something I use so when I play an older game, I don't have to go to my bookshelf looking for the game CD.
Well, once Sacred starts, you don't need the CD anymore. And if you don't go online to play, but stick to a LAN game, you can start as many copies as you want, as long as the CD is there to start.
Copy protection cracking is a game itself to several groups. They get a certain joy in cracking them, and beating other groups to the "release" of the crack. No matter what the protection is, someone will eventually decide it would be fun to beat it, and they will.
I tried a cracked version of Sacred, and liked it so much, I bought it, due to the many bugs in the original game CD. Imagine my surprise when the Gold version of the game, which contains the last patch that Encore appears willing to publish, is still bug laden. Those bugs are the reason I won't buy my wife a copy of the game to play, but will use the one CD to launch both our game sessions.
I think the big reason so many people want to play a cracked version is that way too many games SUCK!
I've spent good money on more crap games than I care to admit. Games that didn't have a demo, or had demos that weren't actually reflective of actual game play. Ever played a flawless demo that was pretty decent, and then bought the game and found it to be bug laden crap? Yeah, me too.
That, and some of the games use TOO much protection. I remember playing Morrowind the first time. The game would lurch around as the damn thing spun the CD again and again. It was pointless to play without a NOCD crack, as it made the game suck. Once that was in place, the game was awesome.
With online modes becoming more of the "in thing", a lot of copy protection just isn't needed. Those online serial #'s attached to your name means that you can't use a cracked copy, unless it is a LAN type session.
I lost a DVD drive to StarForce. It worked fine for a full year, until a month or 2 after installing a StarForce-protected game (a Splinter Cell series game). Then it would start doing crazy things like spinning out of control and losing its ability to read. One day it just switched on, freaked out, and never worked again. This is regardless of playing Splinter Cell or not.
StarForce (the company) wants me to fly to Russia to "prove" that this happened. Why would I want to fly to a country I don't want to visit, to a company I hate, to prove to them they screwed me? To "win" $10,000? Frankly, with the attitude that pervades all of StarForce's letters and public statements, I'm sure I've a better chance of winning the lottery than StarForce handing me that money for the damage to my machine that they've caused.
This is one of their choice comments: "The truth about StarForce drivers. It is obvious that all the rumors around StarForce hazards are spread by international piracy groups." I'm sure the people making accusatory remarks like this about the end-users they're harming are going to be quick to help me.
Ubisoft needs to stop using this awful copy protection NOW. The rudeness Ubisoft has approached me with is bested only by StarForce. I've got a new DVD drive, I've reformatted, and I am never installing another Ubisoft or other StarForce-protected game again until StarForce is done away with. No game is worth this.
According to them:
"Today something unprecedented happened -- for us anyway. Several retail chains re-ordered more units in a single go than their initial order. EB Canada, for instance re-ordered a very large number. Yay Canada!
See, typically what happens at retail is that you get your initial "sell-in". Re-orders are only designed to bring stocking levels back to that initial sell-in level. So over time, the game fades away. It's very unusual for a game to actually increase its retail stocking after the release.
So now we're in unknown territory. We no longer have any idea how many units the game will sell. The first one sold roughly 75,000 units in North America and roughly that many overseas / electronic. We've shipped around 50,000 so far and we're starting to run into a back order so availability is going to get tight in the coming days as we're now rush manufacturing another batch to handle."
Looks like it's working out ok to me.
Activision released "Test Drive 2: The Duel" in the early 90's, and I begged (as a child) for the game for my birthday. It was expensive enough that that was all I got. It still does not work to this day, and still sets on a shelf to remind me of the hazards of commerical software.
I will not buy software. It comes with no warranty. Would you buy a car from some guy who made you sign a 15 page contract every time you put the key in the ignition? The contract says that he can not be sued for fraud, deceptive trade practices, or any other scam. It says that he can watch everyplace you drive in your car. It also says that he can take the car back without refunding your money at any time.
Andy Out!
To claim the reward, you have to fly to StarForce's headquarters in Moscow and demonstrate the problem (presumably on your own hardware that you have flown in). They get to decide if they are convinced or not.
I was born in the USSR, and I've kept up with what's going on in the region, and and voluntarily flying to Russia is not something I'd like to do. Going to a hostile, Moscow-based "business" strikes me as even less of a good idea.
My other body is also not wearing any.
I bought a video game few weeks ago (BET ON SOLDIERS). I knew nothing about starforce. The game had some promising features but in the end it was too "repetitive". Anyway back to the topic.
The loading time of starforce is approximatly 5 min. Then 3 minutes more for the game and their repetitive ads (I don't care what the distributor is ESC, thank you, I don't care that you advice AMD CPU, thank you ESC).
And then the game needs around 4 min to load the saved campaign.
So I have to wait +/- 12 min. or so simply to play a game.
I don't know if it is the video game fault or starforce: Each time you die, you have to wait 3 min to play again. After three reloads, you leave the game. It looks like you spend more time looking at the loading screen, than actually playing the game.
The producers have never played a video game and they don't know how frustrating the whole thing is when you simply want to "play".
My computer's hardware matched their requirements.I bought it, I paid +/- $50.
I won't buy a single game with this copy protection software.Until they dramatically improve the loading time of starforce. It takes me even less time to play a game on a commodore 64 with a K7 driver.
I worked in the field of copy protection for a few years... and our data was pretty telling.
1) the cost to protect any software rises geometrically while the time to remove the protection increases linearally
2) the cost encountered when software protection interferes with the normal operation of the product has a cascading effect when dealing with future sales of ANY vendor product
3) the resources available to crack protection are infinitely larger than those to provide it
So here was our eventual conclusion; physical copy protection wasn't effective, regardless on how much was spent on product development. All it did was cost money and slow crackers down by weeks to months depending on strength of the physical measures.
The surprising thing is how effective non-software methods were, as well as enabling users to do certain things.
Latter first; removing CD turnkey actually decreased the number of people hammering on our protection. It seemed requiring the CD in the drive was a huge motivating factor for people to attack.
And subsequently documentation and external gimicks proved to be highly effective. For example, CD keys printed in black on red paper (hard to photocopy) using internet registration was effective. Putting the key on a toy in the box was also effective. (However requiring internet connectivity to validate and play was another cracker target.)
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Espically with pro software. I bought some samples about a year ago, samples as in sampled instruments. You use them to get good synthesized music from a computer, it's actually amazing how real they sound these days. Well, back in the day, sample CDs were basically just collections of PCM data. Sometimes just a bunch of wave files with some info, sometimes AKAI format, whatever. You could load them up in any sampler that knew the format.
Not any more apparantly.
Now you have to install the included Native Instruments sampler and activate it. This entails going to NI, registering with them, which requires a lot of personal info, register your product, send a code, get a key back, and activate. Grrrrrr. You have no idea how tempting it was to just go get a crack.
I started using computers with a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (and later upgraded to a CoCo 3), around 1984. About a year later I got my first floppy drive (!) - yeah, I was stuck on tape until then, sue me! Anyhow, one of the first games I begged my parents for was a game by a Canadian company called "Diecom Software". The game was "Gates of Delerium". Basically, it was an Ultima clone for the Color Computer.
When it finally arrived in the mail (there was some kind of Canadian postal strike that happenned at the time, and a lot of mail got held up for a couple of months at the border or something), I read the manual, and saw, to my dismay, that there was a form of copy protection on one of the floppies. Basically, you could make a backup of the game floppy (the player data floppy was not protected), but if you wanted to restore the floppy for whatever reason, you had to restore the backup to the original game floppy. If the game floppy became damaged, you would need to send off to Diecom to receive a "new" blank floppy with the protection on it for it to work.
Oh well - I made my backups, played the game, enjoyed it - but never finished it. Fast forward about 15 years...
I get my old computer and all my old floppies from my parents, and I decide that I want to take all of that old software, and move it onto an emulation system. I build a PC running DOS and a few CoCo emulators (mainly David Keil's emus), with a 5 1/4 floppy drive I pick off of Ebay. I find out I need a new drive for the CoCo (my original died for some reason), so on Ebay I find another, get it installed, etc. I decided to try out some of my original floppies. Most of them work. I begin the process of transferring stuff (most of it my old BASIC code and stuff I typed in from old Rainbow and Hot CoCo magazines), and trying it out on the emulator. The majority of it works great. Some of it fails, the floppy is bad. Then, I get to Gates of Delerium.
I tried to run it on my CoCo 3, and it fails to work. I try it on my CoCo 2 - still fails. It gets part way (text title screen loads), then it just hangs. Nothing I do makes it work, I am at a loss. I put it on the "back burner", and continue with the conversion. I get it done, and I would say 95% or so of my data transfers fine - which isn't bad considering the age of the whole system and floppies. But Gates of Delerium - what to do there?
I decided I would try to contact the owner of Diecom software. Through a bit of googling, some link tracking, and whatnot - I eventually get in contact with one of the founders (Dave Dies, incidentally, and he was working as a programmer of cell phone games). I talked to him about Gates of Delerium, mentioned my problem, but he wasn't able to help me - most of the stuff from the Diecom days was gone, the rest was in some storage unit or warehouse that he didn't have the time to search through. I asked him if there would be a problem with me attempting to create a clone of the game from my memory - he said he didn't think there would be an issue, given the amount of time that had passed, etc. I also asked him about the status of the copyright on all of the Diecom software (there were some nice CoCo 3 pieces) - this he wasn't sure on at the time, and was hesitant to say anything, especially when I asked him about abandonware.
So - there I was - no closer to having my copy of the software, which I had the manual, original floppies, etc - ie, I owned a real license, not pirated - but the floppy was dead, and I couldn't get it to run - I had no recourse. What to do?
Some more time passes, and I eventually join the CoCo Mailing List, and I recount my woes there. One person responds to me saying he had a copy of the game as well. To make a long story short, me and two other guys eventually, through a bit of coding, some very deft hardware usage by one dude (without which we never would have gotten anywhere), who had a KopyKat (or
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I recently went to load up Quake III Arena on my game machine. I can find everything (box,receipt,instructions), except the fucking CD key.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Being a professional troubleshooter, I'm not going to claim this is complete proof, but it does have me a couple steps away from being able to isolate it.
I had a nice Sony DVD+/-RW drive in my main computer at home. I installed an entertaining game, called Restricted Area, http://www.restricted-area.net/; which was "protected" with StarForce's code.
I like to use the DVD ISO images from Fedora, but after installing that game, I wasn't able to get my DVD-drive to recognize that any DVD type of media was present in it's tray. It would recognize CD media without any problems. This was the case, whether I was using XP or Fedora didn't matter; which led me to believe that the problem was the actual drive.
After trying to troubleshoot the problem on my own, I google'd everything I could think of and I came across the mention of a possible cause being that I might need to update the drives firmware; so I tried that. No matter what versions of the official firmware I tried, they didn't even recognize my drive as a valid target for upgrading. I found some unofficial firmware packages; which at least recognized my drive, and did install without any hiccups. The drive was just as (non-)functional as before the firmware upgrade though.
Last week, I read this article; which made me wonder if this was related to my issue. Sure enough, Restricted Area used StarForce "copy protection". I found the un-install executable, and removed the Registry entry, as the instructions said to do. I didn't think this would fix my DVD-drive problem, since these two actions only dealt with XP, and not the actual drive. I wasn't surprised when I still couldn't get the drive to recognize any DVD media.
At this point, the only thing I could do is replace the actual drive; so yesterday I did. There weren't any problems getting the drive to recognize any of the media types. After giving it some thought, I still believe that something invasive has "set a flag" on my old DVD-drive so it won't recognize DVD media, but the only way I can think to prove it is to try installing Restricted Area again, and see if I have the same problem with my new drive.
Am I willing to do this? No way!!! Is setting a flag in the firmware considered physically damaging a drive? That's debatable.
"Put your message in a modem, and throw it into the cyber-sea." - Rush