Inside The Game Copy Protection Racket

simoniker writes "German game company and Accordion Hero creator Schadenfreude Interactive have been carefully considering what copy protection to use for their next game, and have documented their process in detail in a new Gamasutra article. After rejecting scratch and sniff cards, dongles, and musclebound Russian copy protection outfit NovaHammer ('You would not want any of your computer games to get hurt, would you?'), they come to the (fictional but agreeable!) conclusion: 'We decided against using any sort of copy protection on our games. After all, you shouldn't feel you are being forced to buy our games. You should want to. And if you do not want to, that is really our failure — not yours.'"

Comments

Ah, the memories

[Southpaw018]

I remember losing my Prince of Persia manual and having to guess the first letter of the last word on page 30. That was annoying enough. But it's perhaps frightening commentary on the current state of DRM that I can't tell if the scratch and sniff card is or ever was real. Honestly. Was it? I can actually see a proprietary happy company like Sony coming up with something like that...

I disagree

[davevt5]

While the gamer in me rejoices when reading this, the practicality of things are such that copy protection is needed. I agree all attempts to thwart the pirating of games never succeed 100%. But what about the vast majority of people that don't know the intricacies of bitsettings and book types and after toasting a few CDs they give up. Sure, they can get a torrent of the packaged release that circumvents these measures.

But in the end stopping /some/ piracy will result in more money in their pockets.

How many more roubles would they get if just 1% of people intending to pirate the game bought it instead?

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This writing may not necessarily reflect my thoughts and beliefs -- but it probably does.

Re:I disagree

[Sycraft-fu]

I dunno, as to if no copy protection can work I suggest you ask Stardock. They seem to have sold a ton of copies of Galactic Civilizations 2, and in fact are still selling it (if you don't have it, buy it, it's great). Do people warez it? Of course but then they warez everything. You show me the most locked down software, I'll show you the crack for it. Yes even things like Cubase 3 which has more code for protection than for program.

Something you also can't forget is copyprotection software isn't free. Macrovision doesn't had out Safedisc out of the good of their hearts you pay for it, most likely a per disc license. So while you may get some more money from people that can't copy the disc and don't know how to look for a crack online, you'll lose money in having to pay for that protection. You might assume it's more, but have you done a study to see if that's the case? You also have to take in to account what happens if legit users get locked out. Starforce is notorious for not working on legit copies, and for even hosing systems. You end up footing the bill either in terms of patches, refunds, lost business, or all three.

Either way, it's clear no matter what protection you use, people can and will break it and your game will get warez'd. It's also clear that it is possible to make money on a game with no protection.

Re:I disagree

[dgatwood]

You alluded to this with your comment about locked out customers, but that's only one of many problems that copy protection causes. Not only do you as a company pay for the protection, your customers pay for it, too. The only difference is your customers keep paying for it over and over every time something goes wrong with the protection software.

There are a great many expensive products for which the protection is so buggy that people buy the software, then download the crack and use it because the "protection" contributes so negatively to the overall stability of their computers. Then, there are the apps that start out with the carrot (software authorization), then suddenly give you the stick (telling you "We're not going to give you a software key. If you want to replace your computer, you have to go out and buy a dongle to reauthorize this.")

I got burned by that once. Never again. Antares, Inc. is now on by absolute do-not-buy blacklist until they change that policy, and I recommend alternatives to their products to anyone who asks me about them. I don't care how good a product they develop. From now on, I won't even look at it. If I've spent several hundred dollars on an app, I expect to be treated better than that, and not forced to spend more money just because the manufacturer has decided that repeated software authorizations are costing them too much money. Life's too short to deal with companies like that.

The more draconian the copy protection, the more your users flock to alternatives. That's why I now use Digital Performer (no key) instead of Cubase, and Melodyne (software-only key, but only after emailing them to make sure they weren't about to force iLok on me) instead of Auto Tune, and that's why I will never use products by Waves and countless others. I vote with my dollars and purchased software whose authors didn't treat me like a criminal. I will continue to do so and encourage others to do likewise.

That's the sound of...

[TheStonepedo]

a joke going right over your head. How can you take seriously an article supposedly on copy protection when it's about the designer of mockeries of real games? The site is a (good) joke, but no comments should be posted with serious thoughts on the ins and outs of copy protection. Enjoy the funny and propose something more interesting than the scratch-n-sniff dongle. The Fast and the Furriest: Drunken Swerve with a breathalysing dongle could prevent copying and unlock new swerve powers and furries for each increase of 0.01% alcohol by volume. Drink up!

Simple Solution

[alexgieg]

To make sure you'll sell your game, just make sure that the official game packaging is so INCREDIBLE AMAZING AND COOL that the gamer will miss having the experience of owning it. Include a fantastic shining printed manual in full color with high-quality paper (a detailed manual, by the way), a CD whose cover has bright 3D effects, a futuristic or medievalistic box, one or more game character miniatures, coupons with codes allowing a gamer to obtain things he would love (such as game magazine subscriptions, calendars, official strategy guide etc.) at noticeable discounts as well as coupons to access ultra cool sections of the official website, such as, let's say, one where the buyer would be able to register his name and have the chance to win a trip to know the game developers with everything paid, and so on and so forth.

In short, add value to your official package by offering things a pirate would never be able to provide and people will simply prefer buying from you.

Practicality: Copy protection incoveniences users.

[Behrooz]

The practicality of things is that most copy protection schemes inconvenience legitimate users.

I hate having to find/switch CDs. I really hate programs which prevent me from even running off of virtual drives so I can image the CDs rather than having to listen to my buzzing CD drive all the time, and I can't stand programs that will not let me legitimately run the game with a legitimate CD in the drive if I have virtual drive software installed on my machine.

And when I find a form of copy-protection annoying enough, I no longer purchase games which use that method, because it's less effort to warez it than it is to fiddle around with my system to get the copy-protection working.

So, game publishers: Get with the program. If you release good games which don't inconvenience the user, I'm a potential buyer. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is that I'll check it out with warez and buy the sequel if you've learned your lesson.

Today's object example:
Battlefield 2: Copy-protected to some degree, but mainly relying on individual CDkeys to encourage players to purchase for online play, doesn't hassle me about running it off an image, and since I've got my CD key stored securely and everyone I know has the game, I don't have to worry about losing my disks. Excellent game. Total sales to me: $50 + $30 expansion pack.

Silent Hunter III: Copy-protected with StarForce, known for being nasty and occasionally *damaging DVD drives*. Since they still haven't released an official no-starforce patch for SH3, the only way of getting rid of the Starforce crap is warezing it, so total sales to me = $0. Great game though,and SH4 won't be using StarForce so I'll definitely pick that up when it comes out.

Galactic Civilizations II: No copy-protection, legitimate purchase provides the option of free access through an online account for new patches/content, no hassle, ongoing support. Total sales to me = $50.
 

NWN 1 right now has it right

[dfloyd888]

Right now, NWN 1 has piracy protection done right. After patch 1.66, NWN doesn't need the CD. However if you want to play multiplayer online (and possibly automatic update, not sure), you need to have a valid CD key stored on Bioware/Gamespy's servers. Pirated CD key? It gets disabled in their database. Keygens? Yes, they fool the client, but because Bioware's servers have a list of genuine keys, it won't get far when going online.

This is enough protection to keep 95% of the people from pirating the game. The last 5% will end up finding a crack from somewhere and bypassing it, even if it entails yanking hardware cables to disable physical drives.

Thumbs up, Bioware.

Re:Wow!

[Goldberg's Pants]

No other industry gets away with selling broken products, so why the fuck should the software industry? Treat them like they treat us. We're all thieves in their eyes. If we weren't, shit like Starforce would never exist. Pirate away folks!

Copy protection is why I've largely stopped bothering with the PC gaming industry. Neverwinter Nights was the worst. There was a two month period where, thanks to Securom, I couldn't run the game. Then there's Warcraft 3. I had to use a no-cd crack as the protection wouldn't work on my drive... But there's a CRC check when you log on to Battle Net, which meant I could no longer play the game I paid for online. (Same with Nascar Racing 2003.)

Starforce was the straw that broke the camels back. I installed a demo, and Starforce was installed. (Before someone starts yelling "Idiot, why would it be on a demo?" as has happened before on here, they put it on the demo as well so crackers can't use the demo executable to help them figure out how to get around it.) What followed was 18 months of being unable to read CD's I burnt after that shit was installed on my system. (CD's that worked just fine in every other system.) I eventually found a fix (Use the Starforce removal tools then go into the device manager and choose UNINSTALL for all IDE drives on your system, then reboot).

I bought Galactic Civilizations purely because Stardock treat their customers decently, and not like thieves. I'm happy to support a developer who has a clue. As for companies like Ubisoft and Codemasters who, when people complain about Starforce, call them pirates and hackers... Fuck them. All companies that use damaging and invasive copy protection deserve to go bankrupt. All they need to do is fire up Emule or a Torrent site and find out just how great the protection they're choosing use is. (Toca Race Driver 3, which used Starforce, was cracked and on the net before it was even released.) They're screwing the genuine consumer and, in some cases, causing damage to these peoples systems.

They're just as immoral as the pirates.