Microsoft, Blizzard Crack Down On Piracy, Cheating

Microsoft has confirmed that they've been wielding the banhammer lately over modifications to the Xbox 360 which allow players to run pirated games. Xbox Live's Major Nelson said the action would also void the warranty on the offending console, and that Microsoft will "continue to employ and bolster anti-piracy security measures to counter piracy in the gaming industry and improve security in the Xbox LIVE community." Meanwhile, Blizzard dealt with 350,000 of their own problem users on Battle.net, saying simply that they wouldn't tolerate cheating. This is likely one of many steps to clean up the system before it gets revamped for use with StarCraft II.

Comments

Is this really news?

[shinmai]

I might be in the minority here, but both Microsofts and Blizzards views on piracy and cheating have been very clear to me for quite some time, and haven't drastically change as of late.

Microsofts die-hard attitude towards modded 360s is actually quite understandable. If I'm not mistaken, 360 games aren't areacoded, and there's really no huge homebrew-scene for it, so the only thing modchips are good for are "backups", which - let's face it - are an excuse to run pirated games...

Re:Is this really news?

[aliquis]

Yeah, I really appreciate Blizzards hard work to ban all the cheaters, it would suck if they didn't cared. (And the same actually goes for farmers in WoW if they ruin the game experience for everyone else.)

An opposit would be Nintendo there they don't seem to implement some sort of cheating test (for instance control which bricks come in tetris and see if they fit in the location the game claim they fit in tetris, or that you can really walk where the client claim, or that it have the amount of resources, and so on and so on.)

Their lame trust of the client because they know the game can't be modified (unless there was flashcarts ..) has led to videos on youtube there people play for instance Tetris DS vs someone who only get 4x1 bricks .. Talk about a ruined experience. They could just had sent an array of say 20 bricks at a time and see if the current game state allowed position such a brick in the position claimed.

Anyway, hurray for Blizzard trying to make online gaming an enjoyable experience. If only there was some way to vote for ban of a player in random team games in WC3 or such if they team kill / just leave the game / ..

Re:Is this really news?

[jcd2025]

I'm pretty sure that PS3 has the region free games and the Xbox still has nasty region coding on its games :(

Re:Is this really news?

[Vskye]

so the only thing modchips are good for are "backups", which - let's face it - are an excuse to run pirated games...

Personally, I have kids that might trash a game cd, so I can't make a backup from something I've already purchased? That's just wrong. In other words, I should go spend another $50 on the same thing?

Re:Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

so the only thing modchips are good for are "backups", which - let's face it - are an excuse to run pirated games...

Personally, I have kids that might trash a game cd, so I can't make a backup from something I've already purchased? That's just wrong. In other words, I should go spend another $50 on the same thing?

Absolutely not. Why should you buy your kids another copy when they couldn't take care of the first one?

Re:Is this really news?

[blahplusplus]

"But 'going without' seems to not be part of today's vocabulary...."

There is a fundamental, philosophical, problem with the traditional means of distribution: the product is abundant.

Cars are not abundant. It takes a significant expenditure of materials and effort to put one together. When I drive off in one, I cannot simply dupe it and give the dupe to my friend. The laws of physics dictate a level of scarcity to this good, and as such it makes perfect sense to expect to receive money from every person who obtains a car.

The world of "data" follows different laws of physics. Once I have the data in my hot little hands, I can dupe it and give it to my friends at zero direct cost to the producer. There is no deprivation of use nor loss of mineral resources nor expenditure of manpower nor anything of the sort on the part of the original developer when I dupe the game. None. And I can keep duplicating this ad infinitum, at the same cost (of zero). Furthermore, my friends can do the same thing with the copy I gave them...there is no quality loss. Once the good exists, it can instantly exist everywhere. It is "abundant."

So, since data follows these laws (rather than the laws of physics as they apply to physical goods) people feel like they are being cheated when they are asked to pretend like data follows the laws of physical matter. They feel like they are buying into a game of control that is unfounded in reality and ultimately to their detriment (since they have to pay money for something that doesn't cost anything to produce *at this point* (excluding initial development costs).

I think that is the crux of the issue. We all know the good is abundant, and we all feel like pretending it is not abundant is just silly, and harmful to us (our money is valuable and if we can get games for free then we have optimized our entertainment budget and have more money left over to spend on things like real cars or educations for our kids or what-have-you).

What about the potential sale that we are "stealing" by copying a game? We tend to respond to such a representation of the situation with great cynicism. We feel like the only reason you feel entitled to every single "potential sale" is because of your insistence in everyone pretending that an abundant good is not abundant. We also feel that the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism doesn't guarantee a ROI on any kind of development project, so when you pound your fist in frustration at your inability to monetize your efforts we just say, "so try something else...thats what every other entrepreneur in the world has had to do...what makes you special? If you can't make money making games, do something else, and stop whining." That is the same answer we get when we complain about being downsized, or having low-paying jobs, or what-have-you...so we are just responding in turn.

Lastly...the age-old mantra that if you can't get money for every copy of a game sold then nobody will produce games. I call BS. Piracy has been alive and well since before the computer games industry even existed...and since long before DRM existed...and the games industry thrived anyway. And it still thrives, despite the continued piracy. Enough people pay for the games (even though they don't have to) that the industry remains profitable. If that model suddenly stops working, alternative models will take its place (subscription-based games and so on). If that doesn't work, and we actually reach a state of utter cultural impoverishment where no games (or music or movies, for that matter) are being produced because nobody can figure out how to make a living doing it (and no hobbiests manage to churn out anything but crap)...which I maintain is an economic impossibility...but if it actually does occur THEN it might make sense to talk about legislation...and there would be a conscious buy-in to the legislation from the masses who are hungry for cultural enrichment. However, this has not happened, and I therefore submit that it makes no sense to try to preemptively pass laws based on the premise that it might happen (given that it is unlikely and that the situation could be remedied after the fact anyway).

Re:Is this really news?

[iainl]

Yes and no. Some 360 games are region-coded, some aren't. Just like with Blu-ray movies, oddly enough.

Re:Is this really news?

[blahplusplus]

"The good is only abundant after decidedly non-abundant software engineers, artists, musicians, etc. have worked for a few years to produce the "abundant" final product."

Which is entirely irrelevant, according to the laws of supply and demand, their "product" should net zero because supply always exceeds demand. Imagine you had the same situation in the real world, lets say someone invents replicator technology, suddenly entire industries would go belly up. I find it highly annoying that slashdots resident capitalists are so pro protectionist, you want to protect an industry that clearly has "whip and buggy" issues, they want to try to profit off something that is not scarce. If it were food and water and the means to transport them virtually free, these people would be politically ostracized. These people still profit mightily despite piracy and artificially restricting supply. So until these industries go belly up any argument to the contrary is quite hollow. I could talk about the violation of civil and consumer rights that these industries engage in but I won't bother here since most of the responses are too mired in ideology, rather then reason.

There's no right to profit, period, if you don't like the situation don't work in the industry. Maybe you'd have us go back to pre-internet times and have all our hardware locked down with orwellian spyware just to make sure we were paying for our goods. The truth is modern protectionists need their head read, did prohibition work? Trying to go against the flow of human advancement with primitive territoriality and propertarianism is only going to further stifle innovation. We've seen what "protecting IP" has done for the patent trolls.

Re:Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not. Why should you buy your kids another copy when they couldn't take care of the first one?

Heh. Do you honestly think kids only trash their OWN stuff? Even not taking into account that the kids might not even be old enough to take proper care of discs, the games might not even belong to them.

Or, if you will, let me tell you about my own experiences. I haven't got kids, I've got a dog - and you'd be *astounded* by the sheer amount of destructive energy that exists in a four-month old husky pup. If you feel like it, google for "husky damage" some time; scratched game discs are really the least of my concerns, but being able to make backups is NEVER a bad idea.

(BTW, I should probably also say that despite everything she's done, I really love my pup dearly and wouldn't trade her for anything in the world!)

Re:Is this really news?

[WorkingDead]

We kind of already found an answer to the fundamental flaw in IP type distribution methods. It was the copyright system. A long time ago, people noticed the difference between making books and cars. Books, music, poems, games, and such were much less costly to reproduce than to initially create as compared to something like a car. So we all kind of made a deal with the content producers. The people said that they would refrain from copying their stuff for a small period of time so that they could recover their investment into the IP's creation and earn a profit. Intern for that grace period, that work would then fall into the public domain after a reasonable amount of time had passed. Well, they broke their end of the deal by changing the rules and never letting their copyrights leave the grace period, so I just don't fell bad about breaking my end of the deal.

Copyright is not a natural right. It was created by compromise between the public and the content creators. Until they come back to the negotiation table they are going to have all the problems they are having for the obvious reasons they are having them.

Re:Is this really news?

[Endo13]

This. It's rather unfortunate for the small guys who get caught in the big web, but the reality is until copyright is fixed and made reasonable again, the content providers do not have a leg to stand on. They can rant and rail about piracy all they want, but when the legit customers always have the short end of the stick and have no means for redress all due to horribly twisted IP protection laws, eventually even the most honest will turn to piracy out of sheer frustration. Rampant piracy is not an indication of dishonest consumers, it's an indication of greedy producers and developers. The degree of piracy relates (pretty directly) to the degree of unfairness in IP protection laws/methods. Fix copyrights and patents and the piracy problem will solve itself.

You don't say?

[theReal-Hp_Sauce]

"Meanwhile, Blizzard dealt with 350,000 of their own problem users on Battle.net, saying simply that they wouldn't tolerate cheating."

The b.net that I play on sure seems to tolerate cheating. Or at least it has for a LONG time.

Diablo 1 had Auto PK, Auto Revive (and then PK again of course), Town kill, dupes, and I believe there was even a god mode.

Diablo 2 had Way Point PK traps. Now it has Map Hack, dupes, auto aim, far cast, pick-it, chicken (auto exit), dupes, Town-Portal PK triggers, town kill, and more dupes! It's nearly impossible to play in a public environment on their public server. Most solo in passworded games, or perhaps with a friend or two... almost never with strangers.

I was one of a hand full of Diablo 2 players who were NOT included in this recent ban, and I must say that it was great to see it come. It was vindicating to see so many cheaters get what they deserved. It would be wonderful if they continued to enforce it (though they never have in the past after mass bannings, so I see no reason why this time will be different).

But for them to say that "they simply [do not] tolerate cheating." Well that's a bit of a stretch people! In fact, I thought it was convenient how the bannings came so near to the release of WotLK. Suddenly there was 350,000 gamers who needed a new staple to play.

-hps

Re:You don't say?

[antifoidulus]

Cheating is why I quit playing Warcraft III online, and well, Warcraft altogether. In Warcraft II the maximum level any unit could have was, IIRC, 5(2 weapon upgrades and 2 armor upgrades), but it was pretty commonplace to have level 16 grunts mow through groups of ogres.... Not to mention the ubiquitous map hacks and whatnot. Warcraft III was pretty much the same. That coupled with moving out of the dorms(where my friends and I would play LAN games) pretty much caused me to get out of Blizzard games altogether.

Blizzard, at least in my opinion, was doing almost nothing to stop cheating.

Re:So Microsoft...

[Drinking Bleach]

I would imagine one of the simplest ways to test is load a piece of software encoded for each console region. If they all run, it's modded.

Re:Simple

[Bacon Bits]

Because it destroys the value of the online community. What good would being able to play over the Internet be if your opponents could cheat and get away with it? Who'd keep playing that game? Only cheaters. Legitimate players would just play a different game.

It's the same reason Valve bans accounts on Steam.

Re:So Microsoft...

[master5o1]

Wii is different. There is an exploitable bug (buffer overflow) in the Twilight Princess. This allows for the Elf-Loader hack to load various files, one of which is the HBC installer which installs the Homebrew Channel. This channel is basically just a loader for the same files as the Elf-loader hack does. Completely a software based hack, no harder mods required.

I've got the HBC on my Wii and it's great. It even looks like an official (to some extent) thing because of it's (visual) quality.

Re:Simple

[thermian]

I don't see how Blizzard would earn more money going after cheaters? It probably cost them more money to look thru replays and such. Sure if someone is permanently banned they may buy the game again, but except in that scenario? For WoW I can get it since it's a subscription game.

Back in the long ago the online gaming community for Diablo 1 was wrecked literally within weeks after some fucknut released a utility to allow you to hack characters.

As a non cheating player with what I considered to be an awesome character, I was really upset. Certainly I stopped playing within a few days of realizing that the servers were full of tricked out characters that should have taken months to create being played by people who obviously didn't have a clue how the game worked.

I don't doubt Blizzard remember that too, and don't want to see it *ever* coming back. The number of present cheaters is relatively small compared to the deluge that wrecked Diablo 1, but without action it would only get worse.

"Major Nelson", possibly off-topic

[ruprechtjones]

Yes I work in the games industry, so there is your disclaimer. But having a grey-haired accountant as the spokesman of your games division really says a lot about how much you take your customers and your own division seriously. This guy is actually not bad to work with and I have recommended in the past that he go after a broadcast career, but I simply do not see how he appeals to anyone under 46 or how he can be the front voice of one third of this industry. Even Chris Paladino (might have spelled that wrong) is clearly a better choice, at least you can see his passion in his videos. You want to give the hardcore players someone they will listen to, not give the Microsoft middle-managers someone they love. There is a huge difference there. I have no clue if Sony or Nintendo have an equivelent to this guy, but when I think games, I don't think of a middle-aged white guy. /end rant.

Re:So Microsoft...

[fractoid]

Twilight Princess? Elf Loader? Am I the only one that finds this amusing? :P

Or am I just that far behind the times... :P

I hate to say it...

[erroneus]

...but Microsoft and Blizzard are right in their regard against cheating. Most paying customers would prefer a cheat-free, level playing field to enjoy. And just as I feel very strongly about the notion of personal property rights of the end user, those rights end precisely where others begin. (Am I showing my Texas personality?) So while everyone should have the right to modify their consoles and their games, they shouldn't then turn that into an advantage in game play that reduces the quality that Microsoft and Blizzard deliver. (I hated saying that too.) I endorse Microsoft's and Blizzard's position on this as far as it supports the general fairness to all users. (Of course, I stop supporting the position where they identify false positives and unfairly lock out innocent users... does that happen? I can only assume it does since no technology from Microsoft has ever been perfect.)

ELF = Executabe and Linkable Format

[jonaskoelker]

Turns out it's Executable Loader File.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELF says it's "Executabe and Linkable Format".

It was the first time I had come across .elf files and thought it was a specific extension.

Ever noticed .orc or .hmn? How about .dwf, .hbt or .gnm? .kbld, .trgldt, .bhldr, .drgn or .nvsblstlkr? ;)

And don't you start a flame war between a GNOME pyrotechnician and firebreathing KDE dragon, okay? :P