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Rockstar Ships Max Payne 2 Cracked By Pirates
Jamie noticed a fairly amazing little story about Rockstar shipping a version of Max Payne 2 via Steam that was actually cracked by pirates to remove the DRM. The going theory was that it was easier for them to simply use the pirate group's crack than to actually remove their DRM themselves.
So Rockstar needed crackers help to release an old game in a digital download version? Maybe now it makes companies think that games without DRM are superior to DRM-laden versions, if even they need cracked versions to re-release the games whose developers are already gone.
On top of that they're using someones elses work and profiting from it.
Someone at kotaku's comments also noticed they're using cracked executables for the original Max Payne.
Just goes to prove that DRM only hampers legitimate paying customers. Pirates simply laugh (usually with a jolly "yar!").
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I think they confused "booty" with "boot sectarrrrrrrr"
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
"Pirates sue Rockstar for using and distributing unlicensed cracks."
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Most likely they simply found themselves unable to build the old codebase. You'd need a seven year old version of whatever build environment they were using, tons of other severn year old bits and pieces and a seven year old OS version. You'd probably need a seven year old machine too, and all the peripherals that go with it. Bits rot when left alone..
Using a cracked version is expedient, and clever.
"Pirates sue Rockstar for using and distributing unlicensed cracks."
There's another way you can sue them. Abondonware rights were added to the DMCA that made it legal to crack games that are "no longer being sold or supported" for your own personal purposes of archival. Now, it's still illegal to distribute those cracked games. So the people who cracked it might have a claim that they cracked these games for their own archival purpose after Max Payne left stores and did not distribute them. But the great part is that you don't need to sue them, you can write that up in a letter notifying the ESA who will take them to court and, effectively, may sue the copyright holders for distributing a cracked game even though they own the copyright on it. After all, it just might fit the description of abandonware and set precedent one way or the other.
I hope the crackers seriously stick it to them. Copyright length, game DRM and licensing really don't make any sense to me. Honestly I really am upset that I paid for ~$40 for Contra on the NES back in 1990 only to have to pay $8 for it on the Wii today with no ability to transfer it from that device to another. How many more times must I pay for the Contra license to what is the exact same game?
My work here is dung.
The bigger problem is the game industry is always telling us game cracks are full of viruses and trojans. And while I generally don't believe them, I wouldn't use a 3rd party game crack on a pc that had any sensitive information on it. In this case, they are redistributing a binary that they didn't code, and without extensive analysis (ie more work then creating a new patch from scratch) have no way to tell it does not contain malicious code. The fact that Rockstar distributed a binary of unknown origin with no Q+A done on it is a bad, bad thing.
The usual argument is that cracked software is dangerous, because it contains malware of various sorts. Rather difficult to support that argument, when you then go out and ship the same "malware" as a legitimate part of a software release.
One of the Rockstar coders was a member of Myth.
(you think I joke, but crack / warez teams are often loaded with industry insiders...)
Back when Babylon 5 was still being produced, some licensing issue had held up making any models of the ships being produced as toys, which prompted some outfits to start making their own models and selling them illegally.
JMS even mentioned one of these being shut down, but being impressed by the quality of these models, apparently made with nothing more to go on than screen caps.
In an episode soon afterwards one of the characters on the show was shown using a very detailed model of one of their ships... when questioned whether these two events were related, JMS' only response was "waste not, want not..."
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ