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The Problems With Game Copy Protection

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the where-to-begin dept.

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."

20 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Old methods of copy protection... by dividedsky319 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares.

    It wasn't only "ask nicely" ... 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 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)

    1. Re:Old methods of copy protection... by jtorkbob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Masters of Orion used 'what ship is in the corner of page x'. With the recently-released Galactic Civilizations 2, they have completely disabled copy protection and they tell you so right up front. It's an interesting decision, we'll see how it works out, but it certainly relieves them of that copy protection burden.

      --
      AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful
    2. Re:Old methods of copy protection... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Interesting
      It wasn't only "ask nicely" ... 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.
      Ah yes, very annoying. So annoying in fact that I went out and got the pirated versions (without the password nagging "feature") of games that I owned legal copies of.

      That is the risk of copy protection on games (or indeed on music and movies as well). Why punish people for buying your software or music, with annoying passwords, dongles that don't work properly, DRM software that is little more than malware, and the inability to make backup copies for legitimate purposes? It's a fine way to destroy any goodwill people have towards your company, and you're only encouraging them to get the illegal, de-DRM'ed versions.
      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:Old methods of copy protection... by JackDW · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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 Infocom method required the user to possess certain physical items that came packaged with the game. You'd have to examine these items for clues in order to progress within the game. This method was really clever, as it integrates the copy-protection scheme into the game itself, while also making the game extend outside of the computer! I reckon that this is easily the best kind of copy protection from the pre-Internet era: it's not just effective, it adds to the game.

      --
      You're an immobile computer, remember?
    4. Re:Old methods of copy protection... by TheGavster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The issue with online activation is that there's no guarantee the company will continue to provide the activation service. They might decide to charge a fee after a certain period of time, simply stop activating old versions of the game, or even just go out of business. Unless there's a contract saying the company will continue to activate the game as long as they are able/willing, and after that time will release a means to activate locally from an escrow, I don't see any activation system that requires action on the part of the company as being viable.

      --
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    5. Re:Old methods of copy protection... by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have fond memories of Bard's Tale codewheels, and laughed for a solid ten minutes when I bought a re-released package a few years back of the old games and found the publishers themselves had added codewheel hacks to these legal, purchased versions of the games to avoid having to print up new ones.

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      Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
  2. We did it in the 70's! by msbsod · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > 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.

  3. Caught in the middle by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
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    1. Re:Caught in the middle by umbrellasd · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.
      And I will be outside gardening, which I like to think of as programming the biggest computer there is.

      Someday we will have DRM for nature, too...because we are idiots.

      Then we'll all be wiped out by the natural equivalent of a DRM violater, a virus, and in the waning hour of our species we'll wonder why it seemed reasonable to associate imaginary monetary unit value with a particular breed of rose, and why we thought we, as interesting but limited programs in the Great Simulation, thought we could realistically prohibit the Universe from doing as it sees fit with the codes that it has created age after age without any input from us.

      And the answer is pretty simple. We have an unmitigated greed for stuff and more stuff. Which means eventually, we'll all get stuffed.

    2. Re:Caught in the middle by cgenman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Whenever I buy a game, the first thing I do is run the No-CD crack on it. Then I scour my system for the anti-piracy security software and spend 1/2 hour deleting it. If you don't think those things sap resources, try saying that after you've had a machine for 6 years and installed 30 or 40 different games with competing security systems.

      Then I generally have about 10 minutes left to play the game before real life rears it's ugly head.

      I've moved back largely to console games. It just isn't worth an hour or two of hassle to play a game that is legally purchased. At a time when publishers should be pushing to raise the value of the retail product, instead it is much easier to get an illegal copy with the useless crap stripped out than to live with the restrictions the box set forces upon you. I don't have the slightest idea where my copy of Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is, and so if I wanted to play it without the No-CD crack I'd be out of luck. And I worked on that thing!

      As a side note, most of the people I've spoken to in the industry don't like copyprotection schemes. But everyone feels that if they don't use them, they will be liable to their shareholders. It's the safe option. And the toothbrush salesmen look to Macromedia (or whoever)'s presentations on how 1st month sales can improve by 20% by investing 500,000 dollars in their scheme. They're not math deficient, they just forget sometimes that ticking off your customers does not make for a happy client base.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
  4. Re:The problem.... by Psykosys · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You do have to use Daemon Tools or a similar program for the workaround/crack he's talking about, but you must also, as he says, unplug the drives or use separate software to fool the computer into their nonexistence (the latter only works with certain motherboards anyway). The D-Tools developers have been reluctant to add Starforce support, because it is updated so frequently and uses an insane number of protection measures (emulator-detection is just one of them). You can say a lot of mean things about Starforce, but it does work. I don't think anyone's cracked King Kong yet, for example, and by the time they do its sales peak will be over anyway.

    I tried this with an ISO of King Kong myself, solely for educational purposes obviously, and gave up very quickly. Then I had to use System Restore because my CD drives would not un-disappear...

  5. I won't install starforce by mikeswi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I flat refuse to install anything with StarForce on it. Google starforce and you'll see plenty of articles and rants about it.

    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 .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.

    --
    Only on /.
  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Computer Software Rental Amendment Act of 1990 by snuf23 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  8. I pirate things I own!! by Anubis333 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  9. Playing with the cd/dvd in drive.. by Zanthrox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  10. Visa by phorm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:The problem.... by StillAnonymous · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh yeah, forgot to mention: These guys don't use standard windows calls to access the CD/DVD drive either. They hit the hardware directly. Try this with a game protected with a starforce v3.5+:

    Disable optical drives in the BIOS, boot into windows, put the original CD in the drive and run the game.

    It'll spin up the drive and manage to authenticate the disc.

  12. Sleeper hit Galactic Civilization 2, UT2k4, etc by Devistater · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Meanwhile we have a sleeper hit called Galactic Civilizations 2
    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_thr eatens_.html

  13. Re:The problem.... by sbrown123 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So true. I bought a copy of Sacred for my computer some months back from Walmart. The problems went as such:

    1. First, it didn't like my virtual CD drive software. Even though the software was not running, it wouldn't let me start the game until the offending software was completely removed from my computer.

    2. The game would not work because I had anti-virus software running. I had to manually turn off the anti-virus software. Since it was Norton AntiVirus, this was quite a chore. And since I always wanted the anti-virus software running on my computer on startup, I refused to uninstall the anti-virus software or keep it turned off.

    3. It demanded that I had to load it from my DVD drive instead of the CD drive (and mind you that this is CD media, not a DVD). Unlike the DVD drive, I rarely use my CD drive so I figured just keeping the Sacred CD in the drive would save me having to load and unload the game disc whenever I wanted to play the game. Nope. Can't do that.

    4. Booting the game took forever and dragged my system almost to a halt. Durign this time, my DVD drive made some sickening sounds as it was started and stopped multiple times.

    5. After all the above, the game would still sometimes not run. I joined the voices of many others screaming at the company for producing this pile of steaming crap. All they could do was say they were working with the copy protection software company to resolve the problems. Waiting.....waiting....

    Annoyed, I downloaded a "no-cd" hack. I can't play the game online, but I CAN play the game. Thats all I ever wanted to do. This hack solved all my problems. I didn't need the game CD in the drive anymore so I could play the game when I wanted to without hunting for the game CD. My anti-virus software could remain running. My virtual CD software could remain installed. The game started in seconds!

    Ofcourse, Sacred will get an update in the very near future that will make the hack not work anymore and I will once again be stuck with a game I don't want to run because of its copy protection. :(