The Problems With Game Copy Protection

The problem.... by ZiakII · 2006-03-09 10:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

There to easy to crack and anyone determined can find a way around it....

Re:The problem.... by thepotoo · 2006-03-09 10:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

WHAT are you talking about?
I've played games that require Starforce 3...namely X3 and PoP:T2T.
I can say that anyone willing to go through the required process to break these games has no life. Basicly, these games require a special piece of (illigal) software, and then, you have to physically unplug your IDE CD-ROM drive power cable. Every time you want to play
That's something not many people are willing to go through, thus, Starforce is doing a good job. Now, read TFA, and notice that they are doing a little too good of a job; namely, harming legit systems. It's a mess.

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Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Re:The problem.... by ZiakII · 2006-03-09 10:45 · Score: 2, Informative

I've played games that require Starforce 3...namely X3 and PoP:T2T. I can say that anyone willing to go through the required process to break these games has no life. Basicly, these games require a special piece of (illigal) software, and then, you have to physically unplug your IDE CD-ROM drive power cable. Every time you want to play That's something not many people are willing to go through, thus, Starforce is doing a good job. Now, read TFA, and notice that they are doing a little too good of a job; namely, harming legit systems. It's a mess.

Have you ever used daemon tools......? Its actually quite simple...
Re:The problem.... by Psykosys · 2006-03-09 11:09 · 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...
Re:The problem.... by Rei · 2006-03-09 11:21 · Score: 2

Do people not attempt to crack the games themselves any more? What's this with trying to fool StarForce - what prevents the code from being ripped out or damaged? That's the historic way of cracking games, anyways.

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Beautiful Blueberries
Re:The problem.... by Bios_Hakr · 2006-03-09 11:30 · Score: 4, Informative

Dude, instead of unplugging the drives, there is another way:

1. On BIOS, change the IDE detection to "No Drive Connected" or "Disabled"
2. Boot WinXP. It'll ignore the BIOS report of drives and do it's own detection. WinXP will find the CDROM.
3. Install Daemon tools.
4. Install your pirated game from the image you downloaded.
5. Open up your Device Manager and disable the physical CDROM.
6. Run the SFCrack or SFFuck tools to remove SF.
7. Play the game.

It works in almost every case. If you have a NForce3 mobo, you don't need to do anything. SF can't determone which drives are real and which are fake on NF3 chipsets.

BTW, X3 was a shitty game anyway.

--
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Re:The problem.... by wolrahnaes · 2006-03-09 11:34 · Score: 5, Informative

From what I understand, Starforce actually converts the executable, or parts of it, to a bytecode format which is encrypted and only usable with Starforce installed and functional. The developer can choose how much or how little to protect, generally leaving the high performance areas unprotected and a few well chosen pieces heavily protected. This effectively means that one needs to reverse engineer the Starforce bytecode or acquire the source for the executable.

This is also why a popular method for defeating SF in the past was to use the demo binaries with the full version data, which has now led to demos being infected with this crap.

--
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Re:The problem.... by Rei · 2006-03-09 12:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

Then why can't you crack the starforce drivers to bypass or glitch its CD checks?

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Beautiful Blueberries
Re:The problem.... by Trifthen · 2006-03-09 12:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, the real problem is that these draconian copy protections make it easier for a pirate to play a game, than the person who actually made a purchase. Why buy a game and jump through 1000 hoops, when you can just get a pirated copy with all that garbage removed? It's as if they're encouraging piracy at this point...

--
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Re:The problem.... by dhakbar · 2006-03-09 12:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm sure there's a good reason, because StarForce 3 has been around for quite a while and many of the games it "protects" are still not conveniently cracked (Splinter Cell comes to mind).
Re:The problem.... by Zerth · 2006-03-09 13:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Wire a switch between your drive and the power or just get a USB/Firewire enclosure for your CD drive

Which is what I did, since it didn't like my drive on bloody legitimately bought games.

It's sad when you have to crack a game that you bought.
Re:The problem.... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-03-09 17:47 · Score: 5, Informative

This one's quite a bit more devious though than a silly little shareware game. There's many layers to it. When you first run the game executable, it checks to see if you have the starforce drivers installed. If not, it installs them and you have to reboot before the game will work.

Once the drivers are loaded, the game will start up and make numerous calls though them which includes a load of debug-hostile code (standard anti-debug checks plus things like using the single-step and breakpoint interrupts as part of their own code). They manually load portions of the ntdll code into memory and call those functions via their own routines rather than making standard system calls. Pretty much the entire cd-check process is not written in x86 assembly. It's a CPU emulator with a virtual CPU of their own design. Reads the pseudo-code and their interpreter translates it instruction by instruction. So you have to figure out their opcodes and any associated decryption that takes place inside their virtual machine. Once you pass all this, the game itself might have entire functions removed and replaced with their virtual machine code as well. These would have to be figured out and replaced with x86 instructions so that the code is not dependent on their VM to run.

In some cases, they also encrypt a number of the game resource files (audio, textures, etc) into one large file instead, then redirect game calls for these files into it like an ISO image. This is the starforce file system (in newer versions, the first four bytes of these files is "SFFS"). You'll have to decrypt and extract all of these files as well.

Plus there's all sorts of other nasty tricks to make performing the above steps even more difficult..

Despite all of this, games with this protection HAVE been cracked completely... It just takes a lot of time and dedication by people with the right knowledge and inclination to do so.

If it were as simple as you think, this protection would have been tossed aside long ago, like so many others.
Re:The problem.... by StillAnonymous · 2006-03-09 17:53 · 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.
Re:The problem.... by Disguise · 2006-03-09 18:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think the point is not that it's hard to crack but SF leaves unwanted and harmful traces of itself on your computer even if you remove the game. That might not be a problem for tech savy people but for the average tech ignorant gamer, it can lead to a bunch strange problems.
Re:The problem.... by rtb61 · 2006-03-09 20:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'll stick to the easist way to crack star force or any other hidden driver protection scheme, you publish games with it, I will not buy your games. I have stopped buying games as a result of idiotic protection schemes and based upon games company revenues it seems I am not the only one.
Until publishers list on the site which protection scheme goes with which games, I wont be buying any more games. Let's see who cracks first, their bank balance or my desire to play a computer game, oh wait, I've got many years worth already cluttering up my cupboards.
One thing that is suprising, is the game companies are not pushing for a shift to Linux to get everybody to renue their games, to go from windows compatible to Linux compatible.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:The problem.... by KlaymenDK · 2006-03-09 20:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

I agree.

I manage a stack of gaming computers for a local youth center. We ditched the idea of handing out original cd's for the games that kids wanted to play, and went for imaging and emulation instead. The reasons are obvious: handling hassle; broken, lost or stolen cds; etc.

It's a PAIN to do this. I mean, naturally we have a full set of cds (one for each pc), but still have a legitimate need to separate the original media from the actual use.

So yes, it would be easier to just crack the fsckers (ie. use pirated versions of our legitimately bought games), but we can't do that because we're a public institution. Just great.

--
"Good news, everyone!"
Re:The problem.... by sbrown123 · 2006-03-10 02:03 · 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. :(

Old methods of copy protection... by dividedsky319 · 2006-03-09 10:27 · 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)

Re:Old methods of copy protection... by jtorkbob · 2006-03-09 10:33 · 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.

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Re:Old methods of copy protection... by JaredOfEuropa · 2006-03-09 10:48 · 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.

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If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by _xeno_ · 2006-03-09 10:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

My brother and I both bought copies of Galactic Civilizations 2 - one of the primary reasons I decided to buy it was because there was no copy protection. It's a good game, although I personally still prefer Ascendancy. Definitely worth the $40, but it's also nice to know that I don't have to worry about where the CD is.

Most of my other PC games I play are hacked versions (even though I own a legal copy) because I hate having to deal with copy protection. I hate having to swap disks on my PC, and I hate having to wait the extra pointless time for whatever copy protection they use to "validate" my game CD. I've got 2GB of hard drive space used by the game, I shouldn't need to deal with the CD.

So instead I use the warezed versions of the games I actually purchased...

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You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by JackDW · 2006-03-09 11:07 · 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.

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You're an immobile computer, remember?
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by TheGavster · 2006-03-09 11:13 · 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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"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by Rob+T+Firefly · 2006-03-09 11:32 · 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
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by baxissimo · 2006-03-09 12:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

Ok, so make it work either by online activation or by putting the CD-ROM in. If the company goes defunct, then you still can play if you have the CD-ROM.

Personally I'm never going to buy another game that requires me to put the CD-ROM in to play. It's just too annoying when you do most of your gaming on the go with a laptop. Not that my "boycott" is worth anything, because I don't have time to play games anymore anyway. :-(
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by Gadget_Guy · 2006-03-09 20:48 · Score: 2, Funny

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.

I wonder if they used a crack written by somebody else. If so, they may have infringed on some poor pirate's copywritten software!

The bastards!
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by KlausBreuer · 2006-03-09 21:23 · Score: 2, Informative

Nope - GalCiv II is written by StarDock, and they have nothing to do with MOO.
Their previous Game - GalCiv - was also not protected. They thought that they'd sell about 30,000 games, but it turned out to be over 100,000 - no copy protection seems to pay out.

And it does explain why I've bought both games. Yes, bought. I *like* not being bothered by some damn Digital Restriction Management, and the games are both very good - and well supported, on top of it.

Have a look at http://galciv.com/ (no, I have nothing to do with them)

--
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by cluke · 2006-03-09 22:05 · Score: 2, Informative

That can backfire though. I had a friend tearing his hair out over Metal Gear Solid on the PSOne, he was telling me how a character was asking for the number on the back of the CD, and how he went everywhere looking for this CD in the game. His jaw hit the floor when I said "Er.. they mean the actual GAME cd".
(MGS was particularly bad for that though. Way to break the suspension of disbelief, when in game speech starts talking about the triangle buttons, and Psycho Mantis tells you to put your controller on the floor. It would be like people in films stopping to ask you if wanted to go get a cup of tea!)
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by Devistater · 2006-03-10 01:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

Take a look, they've done smashing so far: http://forums.galciv2.com/?AID=105470 They've sold out of thier first printing, and the orders for the next printing EXCEED the first. This is UNHEARD OF for a game to sell more as it gets older. 99.99% of time, games sell the most in the first couple weeks. BTW, I bought this game, its GREAT!
Re:Old methods of copy protection... by bonk · 2006-03-10 05:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's amazing, isn't it? A company produces a solid, FUN game that isn't a hassle to play (other than it asking for your serial # when you download patches) and doesn't contain draconian measures that get in the way of playing (i'm talking to you, mister game that wants me to insert the cd even though you don't read anything off of it once you've started) and people want to play it?! And they're willing to pay for the pleasure? A company that doesn't treat it's paying customers and potential customers as potential thieves?

I love Galactic Civ II - best game to keep me clicking without realizing it is now 3am. And I love Stardock now, for producing the game in such a fashion.

--
I hope to die peacefully in my sleep like grandpa, not screaming like his passengers.

Re:Uninstall? by iknowrobocop · 2006-03-09 10:28 · Score: 2, Informative

In the days of several gig games, this becomes a real issue. If I'm playing one game and get stuck or bored with it, sometimes I have to install everything but the save-games to make room for something else.

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Internet Archive: Live Music Archive

Blame the operating system by Anonymous+Howard · 2006-03-09 10:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

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...

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- I wanted to call myself Anonymous Coward, but that name was already taken by somebody :-(

Re:Blame the operating system by Nasarius · 2006-03-09 12:32 · Score: 4, Informative

instead of allowing software to sprinkle DLLs all over the place
Too bad Linux doesn't do any of this...
No, it's really not. The whole point of dynamic (shared) libraries is that they are shared. Windows may be terrible at dealing with different versions of the same shared library, but Unix is not. There is no "ideal mechanism for software management"; there are pros and cons to any approach.
Windows likes to have each program confined to a neat little space, except for DLLs, which are utterly inconsistent, and the registry, which is a terrible idea for many reasons. Honestly, I'm not sure how this approach is beneficial, other than aesthetically.
Then there's Unix. Executable binaries go in a /bin, shared libraries go in a /lib (tagged with their version, so incompatible versions of a library can happily coexist), configuration goes directly on the filesystem in /etc, documentation goes in /usr/man, et cetera. A good package manager has no trouble keeping track of this for when you want to remove the package, it makes your PATH easy to manage, you know where to go when you want to reconfigure something, and so on. If you're running "rogue applications", you've got bigger problems.

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LOAD "SIG",8,1
Re:Blame the operating system by jonwil · 2006-03-09 14:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

The answer is not to put each program into its own folder...
The answer is for each program to register everything it needs (non-shared program files, shared program files, registry keys etc etc) in a central database.
Then, an inteligent uninstaller can remove the program.
When the last program claiming "I need this file" is removed, the file is removed.
Combine this with a decent way to prevent "dll hell" (i.e. any new release of a dll that is not backwards compatible with old releases gets a new filename etc like unix has had since day one or so) and most of the problems go away.
Any program that installs itself can never install a dll that will break other programs (since it can only ever install a dll that is the same as what is already there or one that is newer but still backwards compatible with what is already there) and it would be simple to uninstall.

Patches, upgrades, expansion packs, addons, mods and service packs would either be things that install stand-alone and dont touch the main program (in which case they get seperate uninstall entries) or they modify the install entry for the host program (e.g. patches simply update the host program install entry)

Also, this system would allow for dependancies so that one program can be dependant on another program. For example, you wouldnt be able to uninstal "microsoft office" while "Voice Recognition 2000 for microsoft office" (say) is still installed and dependant on microsoft office for its functionality.

And, this could be used to provide a simple way to backup configuration data (every item registered would be marked with a flag indicating if it was something that should be backed up as part of the configuration data or not)

Going to the example of Starforce protection, every game that uses it registers that it needs the starforce drivers and dlls.
When you uninstall the last game that needs it, the drivers would be removed.
Re:Blame the operating system by NereusRen · 2006-03-10 02:57 · Score: 2, Informative

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...

GoboLinux does. That's why I like it so much. (Well, that and the fact that both source and binary installs are first-class citizens). To remove a program completely, delete a folder (and run a script to automatically clean up some symlinks if you feel like being tidy). During the install, programs are only given write permissions in a specific folder, so this scheme is enforced by the system even if a badly behaved programs tries to put things outside its target directory.

It even goes one further than your suggestion, by separating directories by version number as well. If the different versions of the same program/library have differently-named files they can simply co-exist, and if they have conflicting names then it's a simple switch to decide which one you want to be "active."

The cool part: most programs don't require any modification to compile/install properly using the GoboLinux-provided installer (including anything based on autoconf or a decent Makefile, or standard Perl/Python apps).
Re:Blame the operating system by NereusRen · 2006-03-10 03:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you're running "rogue applications", you've got bigger problems.

But you shouldn't, which is exactly the GP's point. There's no reason the OS shouldn't solve those problems for you. Proper software management should not depend on all programs being well-behaved, nor should it depend on every program being in your package manager.

Of course, rather than arguing about whether centralized locations (/bin,/lib,/etc) are better or worse than segregated programs (/Programs/Xorg/6.8.2/), maybe we could just use an automated system of symlinks to get the benefits of both. Heck, while we're at it we could break the dependence on a centralized package manager too, by letting people install from source (or even third-party binary) while maintaining the same restrictions on the program tree. Oh wait, already been done. :) (Sorry, couldn't resist the plug for my current choice of desktop OS. It seemed pretty relevant to this discussion.)

We did it in the 70's! by msbsod · 2006-03-09 10:31 · 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.

Caught in the middle by MyLongNickName · 2006-03-09 10:33 · 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.

--
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year

Re:Caught in the middle by ngdbsdmn · 2006-03-09 11:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

Please, don't play victim here. You're conviction screams the fact that you're the average Joe and this is what happens to Joe. It's just the way the world works: Joe gets a big stick in his behind with the Law as lubricant.
Re:Caught in the middle by umbrellasd · 2006-03-09 11:17 · 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.
Re:Caught in the middle by DSP_Geek · 2006-03-09 15:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Nature DRM? How does Monsanto suing farmers for sowing their land with second generation seeds of its products sound?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/bigbeans0 22602.cfm
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives /0311/msg00010.html
http://www.chattoogariver.org/index.php?req=monsan to&quart=Su2005
Re:Caught in the middle by cgenman · 2006-03-09 16:02 · 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
Re:Caught in the middle by Dunkirk · 2006-03-10 00:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
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.

You've really hit the nail on the head, here. I've been a huge PC gamer for about 15 years now. In fact, I just spent last Saturday evening at a friend's house playing some games, and his teenage son could not get over my vast collection of games. (I introduced him to Outlaws for the first time, and he loved it!) After all this time, though, I find I'm getting more and more put out with gaming on a PC. However, it's not even about the DRM for me. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I know that's the topic in this discussion, but if we're talking about the hassles of PC gaming, let's talk about:
- Patching the game
  If you haven't played in a couple months, and the game's less than 5 years old, you'd probably better check on a patch. Just last Saturday, we were playing UT2004... there's been a patch released in the past few months.
- Driver updates
  Be sure to keep these up to date as well, or face blue screens.
- Upgrades
  Whether you're trying to improve performance, or add new functionality, I think most "gamers" are the type to hack their boxes, and it gets to be a hassle. And sometimes, your machine is out of commission when you "just want to play a game."
- Obsolesence
  Speaking of upgrades, I can't. My machine is a dual Athlon XP with a GeForce 6600GT. It might play the games coming out now, but, if it does, I'll have to shut off enough of the eye candy so as to make it look like a game that was -- wait for it -- released 3 years ago!
Adding to these are the hassles of dragging the machine someplace else to play at a LAN party. Is it anyone else's fault but mine that I've spent money putting together a dual, and just spent money making a MythTV PVR, and now can't put $1000 toward a new gaming rig? No. That's just how I chose to spend my money. But it means I've also implicitly chosen not to play the latest, greatest games.
What I'm saying, after all these years, is that I'm fine with that. Maybe it's that I'm getting older. Maybe. But I think it's just economics. Not just money, but the entire picture. The total hassle. When you buy a console. That's it. You might buy some nice controllers, maybe a better A/V cable, but that's about it. I'm ready for that kind of simplicity. Just pop in a DVD, and play. No drivers, no patches, no hassle.
Inevitably, someone will argue that, with games like Half-Life 2 / Counter Strike Source, the PC platform is moving to a console-like model already, and I would agree. But the big difference here is that a PC, as a hardware platform, is such a difficult, fast-moving target to hit, and game makers are doing their best, but the experience will always be more "optimized" on a platform. Not better overall, necessarily, but it will take better advantage of the platform.
And, on top of that, the platform will be subsidized ! What's the latest figure on how many hundreds Microsoft is losing per XBox 360? And how much is Sony estimated to lose per PS3? I think I can get with that! Sure the controls suck, but I can get used to them!
There's another discussion going on about Vista and EFI, and I think it's missing the point. Microsoft doesn't care about whether Vista will run on Mac hardware. That's a strawman. Think about it. What's actually, truly new about Vista? That's right. Nothing except eye candy. And... your friend and mine: DRM. Microsoft doesn't want Vista to run on anything but a platform that they can "trust" down to the bare metal. If you haven't been paying attention, all the whining about TCPA or whatever it's called has had the exact same effect as did all the whining about the CPU identifier. Zippo. It's been going into our hardware for years now. And Vista will exploit all of
--
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

80's & 90's... by Forbman · 2006-03-09 10:34 · Score: 4, Informative

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).

Re:80's & 90's... by cliffski · 2006-03-09 21:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

"the industry should just realize that $50/game in the US probably wouldn't be as profitable as $19.00 and minimal CD protection."

yes... and no.
I sell my games for $22 and no copy protection. And no surpise, some assholes bung them on p2p. Thanks guys, you are the people encouraging me to use online activation and authentication.
At the end of the day publishers and developers dont want to waste any time or money on DRM, but the ease with which pirates allow people to get free copies forces their hand. Next time some 'l33t sc1pt k1ddie' tells you where to get the latest hit games for free, remind him that its attitudes like that that cause the need for DRM in the first place.
The guys that add the DRM support to games hate DRM as much as you do, games coders are hardcore geeks, but they also know that crap feeling in your gut when you see the 4 year game you worked on on bit-torrent, and your employer lays of 100 staff.
Some DRM practices (starforce etc) are unforgiveable, ditto sonys tricks, but dont pretend that "if they stopped DRM piracy would end" because thats BS.

--
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games

Haha! The 90s... by Dr.+Eggman · 2006-03-09 10:35 · Score: 5, Funny

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.

Ahh, reminds me of the good old days... by wowbagger · 2006-03-09 10:35 · Score: 5, Funny

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

They should work w/ Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drive makers... by ShyGuy91284 · 2006-03-09 10:41 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

Ubiquitous PC Game Installation Procedure by ToxikFetus · 2006-03-09 10:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

YAAAARRRRR!!! by xtieburn · 2006-03-09 10:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

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!

Re:I just don't by Spy+der+Mann · 2006-03-09 10:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

If it's not Software Libre, I pretty much don't want to play it.

Yeah, but i'm still waiting for the Open Source equivalent to Silent Hill... or Castlevania... or Indiana Jones...

speaking of Indiana Jones, the Last Crusade game was awesome, to pass the game i didn't only have to figure out the clues, i had to study the authentic paperback edition of Henry Jones' diary that came with the game. I could admire the map of Alexandretta, or the mural paintings. I still remember myself looking for the cable Codirolli sent Indy's father, and searching for the grail's description in that.

Now THAT's copy protection done right. Instead of annoying the user, it makes the gameplay even more realistic.

I remember using Locksmith and such in the 70's... by Richard+Steiner · 2006-03-09 10:57 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

This is why I no longer by protected games by morryveer · 2006-03-09 11:00 · Score: 4, Funny

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.

Uber-List of Protections by TubeSteak · 2006-03-09 11:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Here's a pretty damn complete list of protections

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_prot ections.shtml

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.

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[Fuck Beta]
o0t!

Re:Companies have a hard choice to make by sstamps · 2006-03-09 11:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Copy protection schemes do little to nothing to stop real piracy. At best, they slow down some of the Average Joes who don't have the savvy to circumvent it themselves. Instead, they slow down all the legitimate purchasers

As a matter of policy, I eschew copy protection schemes on all software I write with plans to distribute to the general public. I don't see the point in punishing people who paid for my work just so I can toss a spitwad into the hurricane of software piracy. Instead, I use a registration-for-bonuses policy. Legitimate customers get support, discounts on future purchases, and various other individual perks.

Sometimes, the carrot DOES work better than the stick.

--
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."

I won't install starforce by mikeswi · 2006-03-09 11:11 · 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.

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Only on /.

I've often found by zarthrag · 2006-03-09 11:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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. ...No wonder consoles are "winning."

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Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???

Galactic Civilizations II by Mr.+Vandemar · 2006-03-09 11:18 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

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Vandemar.org

Re:Galactic Civilizations II by Rob+T+Firefly · 2006-03-09 11:26 · Score: 3, Funny

Hot damn! Can you make us a torrent?

--
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned

PC Game piracy wouldn't be so bad... by Kawolski · 2006-03-09 11:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

...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.

Has any one cracked the Saturn by pluke · 2006-03-09 11:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

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

Re:Has any one cracked the Saturn by xtieburn · 2006-03-09 14:51 · Score: 2, Informative

As far as im aware no optical drive console with the exception of the dreamcast has ever been cracked.

Early ones didnt have protection so couldnt be cracked. Later ones have all relied on mod chips and the like to run. (I believe the Saturn has a mod that will allow them to run like the others.) So its not unusual that the Saturn is uncracked and may remain uncracked.

The fact is copy protection to stop CD-R's is virtually impossible to stop by using CD-R's. The only reason the DC failed was because they left a gaping hole in the security. (Emphasis on gaping, its not something that will happen regularly, so you cant rely on errors like that to crack consoles.)

Unfortunately your best bet for using your backups (ignoring mods and disk swapping) is to utilise an emulator.

C'mon now by hurfy · 2006-03-09 11:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

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 by account_deleted · 2006-03-09 11:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Use GNU stow by Anonymous Coward · 2006-03-09 11:42 · Score: 2, Informative

Too bad Linux doesn't do any of this...

Use GNU stow and install as a regular user. It was designed specifically to make this happen, and it works quite well.

Old days by linuxkrn · 2006-03-09 11:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

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!

SecureROM Copy Protection and HL2 by Anti_Climax · 2006-03-09 11:53 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

DRM Victim by GutSh0t · 2006-03-09 12:05 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:DRM Victim by theelemur · 2006-03-09 14:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

What does the EULA say? Most say you can get a refund if you do not agree with the license and return the game.
Re:DRM Victim by cortana · 2006-03-09 20:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

Take them to the small claims court.

Computer Software Rental Amendment Act of 1990 by snuf23 · 2006-03-09 12:13 · 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.

I pirate things I own!! by Anubis333 · 2006-03-09 12:43 · 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.

Re:I pirate things I own!! by PitaBred · 2006-03-09 15:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

So write to the company and request a refund for a defective product, then bring it to the attention of the newspaper when they tell you they won't. Newspapers love stories of companies ripping people off.

--
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.

Why i want to pirate by josteos · 2006-03-09 13:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

When I was young & in my prime (and an underemployed student) I rarely bought anythign but instead ogt "free" versions from friends.

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/CustomerSup port/FaqSearchResults.jsp?problemType=3&searchText =&game=177&platform=3

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.

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Save the Music; Save the World at http://www.TuneTriever.com (Our latest Android game)

Re:Uninstall? by Eccles · 2006-03-09 13:24 · Score: 4, Funny

My user number is the same as my bank account balance. Woo!

Me too... :-(

--
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.

Re:I remember using Locksmith and such in the 70's by msbsod · 2006-03-09 13:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

StarForce installs a driver, like Sony by Animats · 2006-03-09 14:55 · Score: 4, Informative

The StarForce protection system apparently installs a virtual device driver that takes over the CD-ROM. That's similar to what Sony was doing.

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.

Time to adapt, were smarter than this by twistedcain · 2006-03-09 15:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Not all games have copy protection--GalCiv II by Ensign+Regis · 2006-03-09 16:21 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

Re:Blame the operating system - It's called a MAC by toddestan · 2006-03-09 16:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Likewise, MS-DOS worked the same way. deltree c:\gamedir would pretty much eradicate any the game from your system.

Playing with the cd/dvd in drive.. by Zanthrox · 2006-03-09 17:21 · 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.

Starforce versus Oblivion by Dachannien · 2006-03-09 17:34 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

Visa by phorm · 2006-03-09 17:36 · 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.

DRM and protections aren't cutting it. by Nazo-San · 2006-03-09 18:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

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

Bah! by WWWWolf · 2006-03-09 20:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

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

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...

Learn the god-damned law by glesga_kiss · 2006-03-09 21:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

...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.

Re:Caught in the middle-Victumhood. by shmlco · 2006-03-09 21:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Why do they have more rights than I do?"

Since the work wouldn't exist at ALL without the artists, and since, by and large, they tend to be some of the most creative people on the plant, I would tend to support their rights to their work. This, say, as opposed to the "rights" of the parasitic types who believe that they're entitled to whatever it is they want...

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Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Starforce IS malware by StephanTual · 2006-03-10 00:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

Sleeper hit Galactic Civilization 2, UT2k4, etc by Devistater · 2006-03-10 01:05 · 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

Take it back by mindaktiviti · 2006-03-10 01:35 · Score: 3, Funny

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.

Re:This is what.... by Knight2K · 2006-03-10 02:33 · Score: 2, Informative

FWIW, I've used D-Skins, and my impression was that I wasted $10. I tried it on my DVD's and my DVD player couldn't read the disk. The skin also didn't seem to fit on tight enough to use in my slot load PC DVD drive. I had visions of ejecting the disk and watching the drive strip the skin off and screw up the internal mechanisms. I have no proof that it would do that, but the build quality of the skins seemed so flimsy I didn't want to risk it.

It's cheap enough that you might want to see for yourself, but I wouldn't recommend them.

--
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In X-Windows the client serves YOU!

Worked out ok thus far by Sycraft-fu · 2006-03-10 04:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

My experience with copy protection... by cr0sh · 2006-03-10 06:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

I have told this story before here on Slashdot, but it needs repeating. I will try to make it as short as possible.

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

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Reason is the Path to God - Anon

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The Problems With Game Copy Protection

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