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OS Neutral Funny ways some developers get back at pirates
- Thread starter Dirtyharry50
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missed the best one i thought. althought it wont mean as much to a lot of americans i guess.
in one of the Football Manager iterations, they made it that when the world cup qualifiers finished, the bottom two teams in the groups qualified for the world cup.
it was just delicate enough, not in your face, as most people dont take charge of an international team, so it was only on playing a few seasons to hit the world cup that people thought 'wait, why is san marino, faroe islands, palestine etc in the world cup'
and then the football manager forums were full of posters pointing out this stupid stupid bug. and SI waited til people had dug holes by laying out in their posts that they to had the same problem, for somene from SI to come on the forum and point out it only happened in cracked copies.
followed by a lot of big post count posters trying to wriggle their way out of it 'i bought it but my dvd drive is broke so i installed a no cd crack', and a few tried to bluff their way out of it 'my copy is genuine, ill take a picture of it, and i have the same bug', which they didnt.
in one of the Football Manager iterations, they made it that when the world cup qualifiers finished, the bottom two teams in the groups qualified for the world cup.
it was just delicate enough, not in your face, as most people dont take charge of an international team, so it was only on playing a few seasons to hit the world cup that people thought 'wait, why is san marino, faroe islands, palestine etc in the world cup'
and then the football manager forums were full of posters pointing out this stupid stupid bug. and SI waited til people had dug holes by laying out in their posts that they to had the same problem, for somene from SI to come on the forum and point out it only happened in cracked copies.
followed by a lot of big post count posters trying to wriggle their way out of it 'i bought it but my dvd drive is broke so i installed a no cd crack', and a few tried to bluff their way out of it 'my copy is genuine, ill take a picture of it, and i have the same bug', which they didnt.
Witcher 2 had a nice one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYrewjumFaU
And a "chicken invasion" (chicken instead of proper enemies): http://www.gazeta.tv/wideo/10,92065,10444389,Wiedzmin_2__inwazja_kur_.html
There were more, like Geralt being hanged in the beginning, or forced to fight with immortal pirates, etc.
However, all that anti-piracy stuff was taken out when DRM was removed with the 1.1 update.
And a "chicken invasion" (chicken instead of proper enemies): http://www.gazeta.tv/wideo/10,92065,10444389,Wiedzmin_2__inwazja_kur_.html
There were more, like Geralt being hanged in the beginning, or forced to fight with immortal pirates, etc.
However, all that anti-piracy stuff was taken out when DRM was removed with the 1.1 update.
This garbage has nothing to do with pirates.
It has everything to do with publicity. You seriously think that the folks capable of breaking modern day DRM systems can't edit a few game files and patch out your super-secret-clever-pink-scorpion-of-death crap? Think again.
Furthermore, this kind of thing is generally a waste of time. How many bugs did The Sims 4 launch with? How many of those could they have squashed had they not been wasting time and money coming up with clever ways to temporarily annoy pirates? The only person that loses in the end is you, as a paying customer, by being sold a product slightly less polished then it could have been.
The only reason why companies do this is so that people talk about it, full stop. Pirates have absolutely nothing to do with it, and most of this "anti-piracy" protection is completely and utterly laughable.
-SC
It has everything to do with publicity. You seriously think that the folks capable of breaking modern day DRM systems can't edit a few game files and patch out your super-secret-clever-pink-scorpion-of-death crap? Think again.
Furthermore, this kind of thing is generally a waste of time. How many bugs did The Sims 4 launch with? How many of those could they have squashed had they not been wasting time and money coming up with clever ways to temporarily annoy pirates? The only person that loses in the end is you, as a paying customer, by being sold a product slightly less polished then it could have been.
The only reason why companies do this is so that people talk about it, full stop. Pirates have absolutely nothing to do with it, and most of this "anti-piracy" protection is completely and utterly laughable.
-SC
So true. A friend of mine plays pirated games. The sims pixel issue has already been fixed by pirates. These things slow pirates down by a couple of days but no more than that
I don't think the above mentioned things were ever meant to thwart the hardcore pirates but rather casual sharing/piracy.
The intent of bringing this up was just to have a laugh at the silly things they did to catch casual pirates off guard.
The intent of bringing this up was just to have a laugh at the silly things they did to catch casual pirates off guard.
You're aware the amount of people working on these big games go into the hundreds if not thousands? One or two people coding in something simple as (with the Sims) gradually pixelating borders is the kind of thing I could do in an hour. It's nothing. Games where enemies get tougher, again, it's easy. (on piracy detection; add 0.1 to difficulty)
Us customers aren't losing out at all. Well, I would like to see these pirated features in some games but I only buy games because I have a job. So maybe I am losing out by not pirating? It'd be nice if there was some way to trigger these for the fun of it.
A lot of the time it's used to catch people out. Didn't Batman AA have something that was so gradual that it wasn't noticeable until later in the game, and when people posted questions about it on the forums they were basically confessing to playing a pirated copy? Heh. I don't put measures like that in my games but if I were I'd opt for gradual ones that broke the game silently or flat out wiped the save file when the player is a long way in. To prevent pirates (as it can take days to fix these attempts) I'd probably release weekly updates each one introducing a new anti-piracy measure, and only the latest version will be playable (on Steam that'd be a 1mb update a week). I think the idea is to generally annoy the pirates which is fine by me!
It is true that such techniques do nothing to prevent piracy in the long run. I'd go as far as to say that such policies cause pirates to focus more on breaking the game (mockery most of the times backfires). It is more of a PR thing, rather than anything else.
I remember back in the days, where game makers where copy-protecting the media of a game by creating "bad sectors" on it (copied media reported as that). Even then, every variation of these techniques were broken in zero-day or a day after.
I remember the "unbreakable" Playstation 3. Sony had promised PS2 games compatibility. When they took that back (cause they obviously thought that PS2 had a few sales on it yet) seems that some people got pissed off. And - what a coincidence - after a while, the unbreakable firmware just got broken. Mockery is a bad idea.
I remember back in the days, where game makers where copy-protecting the media of a game by creating "bad sectors" on it (copied media reported as that). Even then, every variation of these techniques were broken in zero-day or a day after.
I remember the "unbreakable" Playstation 3. Sony had promised PS2 games compatibility. When they took that back (cause they obviously thought that PS2 had a few sales on it yet) seems that some people got pissed off. And - what a coincidence - after a while, the unbreakable firmware just got broken. Mockery is a bad idea.
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I buy all my games. However, there's at least 4-6 out of every 10 games that I buy that I don't like. The developer already has my money.
I got to the point that if the dev does not have a full game demo - no restrictions for 10 minutes or so, I will not buy it. It should also collect feedback on their website about the game play.
This forces devs to make better quality games.
To devs, if you don't want to offer free game demos, then charge 99 cents in Steam or what not for the demo and allow us to apply it towards the full purchase price of the game. I rather waste a buck then 10 or 20 or 50.
I got to the point that if the dev does not have a full game demo - no restrictions for 10 minutes or so, I will not buy it. It should also collect feedback on their website about the game play.
This forces devs to make better quality games.
To devs, if you don't want to offer free game demos, then charge 99 cents in Steam or what not for the demo and allow us to apply it towards the full purchase price of the game. I rather waste a buck then 10 or 20 or 50.
It's true what you write. Main problem though is simply the price. Why should I pay 50-60 EUR for a new game? It's just too expensive for what is offered. There are some titles I would pay 100 EUR for, but most are worth 30 EUR at a max.
Seems like it...
Somehow people are so easily offended.
Who cares that there are so many hyper-intelligent pirates.
They still are making it possible for cheapskates to play many hours of games without paying for their pleasure.
And, it's cool to see that the developers are making some funny ways of getting back, and yeah... of course... that is reversible too.
OTOH, I do understand the irritation of having to pay $50 - $60 for a new game.
That is too much money.
The way Apple "solved" the MP3-pirating issue by creating the iTunes Store was brilliant.
Steam / Mac App Store are getting there.
IMHO, the only way to "solve" the software-pirating issue is:
a) Easily downloadable (i.e. Steam / Mac App Store)
b) Availability of a demo (via Steam / Mac App Store)
c) Make them affordable (max $ 30)
Because the developer (who is selling the game since they wrote it) wants to be compensated and they get to determine by how much???
Guess what, you dont want to pay the price of the game, dont buy it. You are not entitled to it. I dont care what format it is in, its not your code and you dont have any rights to it.
There are lots of things in this world that we all would like that we consider expensive. We dont just get to rip the company that makes them off though. You want to derive enjoyment from something, you gotta pay.
Same rationalization offered by all petty thieves.
"They're asking too much for this shirt, so I'll just shoplift it."
"My boss doesn't pay me what I'm worth, so I'll steal from the company."
"Who is this programmer that she gets to decide how much to ask for her work. I would have paid (some contrived number lower than the asking price), but now I'm just going to take it."
Some peoples sense of entitlement...
i would never pay 60 euro for a game. however there are so many good games out there, that I'm never in the position of having to by a brand new game, i stock up during steam sales and always have a selection of games waiting.
at the extremes there are people who would never 'steal' in any way, people who are too rich to care about piracy, and at the other extreme people who will pirate for the thrill or can't afford to by the games they can't pirate.
but in the middle of it there are lots of people who will pirate if they get a better experience. that experience includes cost as well as fun of doing, ease of use. if its too difficult to start to pirate by cracking your machine, or it wasnt as much fun to use the pirate product as the original, those people won't do it. but when the pendulum swings so that its easier to pirate and the experience is as good, the number of people willing to pirate increases.
psp piracy wasnt just good because you got the games free (the big memory sticks cost as much as a few games) but it meant you could walk around with half a dozen games on one card.
wii piracy gave a better experience too. all the games on one hard drive, with a nice menu. no pile of boxes and missing or scratched discs.
i agree with you, steam steers people away from piracy because they do great sales and having all your games in one place is great, and it handles all the updates and everything.
before steam, the question was, do you drive to the store, hope they have it in, buy the game, hope its good, or do you download it.
now its, do you press the button and get a guaranteed experience downloaded quickly, or do you download and worry about updates not being cracked, it not working etc....
in the grand scheme of things $50-60 is cheap for software. Photoshop costs ten times that amount. Office is twice that.
The only apps I pay so little for are some utilities or simple webdev things.
Frankly I think it is awesome that developers are using annoyance and social embarrassment against these thieves.
Will it stop piracy? No. But it is preferable to doing nothing.
True story, I used to run a lot of cracked software back in my PC days. By coincidence my PC was crashy, virusy and generally a mess.
I decided to try only using shareware or paid software on my next build.
Wow, night and day. Beyond the morality of whether it is right or wrong. Using cracked-ware exposes you to whatever some script kiddie thought it might be funny to bundle with your 'free' copy of Civ 5, GOW or whatever.
The only apps I pay so little for are some utilities or simple webdev things.
Frankly I think it is awesome that developers are using annoyance and social embarrassment against these thieves.
Will it stop piracy? No. But it is preferable to doing nothing.
True story, I used to run a lot of cracked software back in my PC days. By coincidence my PC was crashy, virusy and generally a mess.
I decided to try only using shareware or paid software on my next build.
Wow, night and day. Beyond the morality of whether it is right or wrong. Using cracked-ware exposes you to whatever some script kiddie thought it might be funny to bundle with your 'free' copy of Civ 5, GOW or whatever.