Inside The Game Copy Protection Racket 112
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.'"
Ah, the memories (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah, the memories (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
Leather Goddesses of Phobos (although it was interactivity aid, not DRM) Infocom liked to put goodies in that would make you want to buy it rather than copy it.
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What smell was it?
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Luckily, I'm still Mix 'N Mojo
Greetings Professor Falken, would you like to play (Score:2)
id, who apparently was forced into copy protection by their retail publisher FormGen to put in copy protection, had some fun by putting in a bunch of back doors into the game.
*gets indicted under 17 USC 1205 for saying this*
Melissa
KHAAAN! (Score:2)
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what's amazing is how often you'd actually get the letter right.
What I did when I lost my manual (actually, I loaned the manual to a friend when I loaned him the game and HE lost it) was write down the right (or wrong) answer each time, and eventually I had a list of the majority of the questions it asked.
then, I wound up buying PoP 1 & 2 on CD years later, and it came with a little cheatsheet t
Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
Otherwise no... People with money to burn will continue to buy games, people without will continue to pirate. People with money to burn that pirate for anything other than a trial deserve a special place in hell
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Are you suggesting that if you don't have money then you should be able to pirate without consequence? I really hope not. I am 100% against DRM (except for in rental situations), and I think the RIAA/MPAAs tactics have been really lame and stupid, but that's just stupid to say people who can't afford certain
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-Rick
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The problem with that? Try getting a game secondhand. Actually, I've even had enough problems getting games with just serial keys second-hand from yard sales. Perfectly usable disc, but if it's not in the right case... well, there's a five-dollar coaster. I'd look for a keygen, but there's little chance of finding one that isn't just a shameless Trojan.
You'd think (Score:1)
You'd think the companies would prefer more monthly subscriptions over the minimal profit of selling a boxed copy.
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As such, it doesn't actually take as much copy protection as content creators generally think. A single bit flag that commercial CD burning software respects would be enough.
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> buying it.
It's easier to buy (create an account, sign in, order, select payment, enter credit card details, wait 4 days for it to turn up in the post) it than it is to download it off then net (find torrent site, enter game name, click, download, install)?
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Amazon [amazon.com], no.
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They just spent the money for it and it just doesn't want to work, everything is the way it is but it doesn't work. They look around and find out they aren't the only ones and it turnes out the only ones not having problems are the ones who didn't pay for it.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I can most assuredly state it was the full version. (I however bought the PS2 version... I like my computer working thanks...)
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As for your "pro-thief" comment, I won't even dignify that nonsense with a response. Surely you lot who bang about that have learned your lesson by now? (That lesson being how grossly flawed your thinking is.)
And to save waiting yet another bloody two minutes... Replying to a post below.
"Funny, I bought it, i
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i went and bought a box set.. 3 of the 5 discs wouldn't play. i take them back and they had the policy of no refunds so i exchanged it.. same thing same discs that didnt' work.. again they wouldn't let me return it at all..
after fighting my way to a district manager they findly put the damn dvd's in there players and realized - they didn't work.. he got worried because he realized he had a larger problem than i did.. i got my refund
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"going out" and buying it is vastly more inconvenient.
A single bit flag that commercial CD burning software respects would be enough
Why care about burning a CD when disc space and bandwidth is cheap?
Variations on a theme:
- Bytes transferred to user's machine + swapped disk images can run the complete game.
- Bytes captured from user's machine + swapped disk images can be copied.
- Tricks to look for original media are removed fr
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1. Hacked apps, or apps made to ignore the bit flag.
2. Hacked isos that don't have the bit flag
3. If #2 is enforced by CD checks, then crack them.
And back to step one, only without the legal ability to burn CDs as you wish.
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The game called the dongle regularly. It wasn't a protection laid on top, it was woven into the game code. The head guy was saying how damn hard it'd be to crack, and while it may be cra
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Anyway, to add a final line to the above, if a game is good, it'll sell. Protection is there just to protect shitty games.
The game companies can't have it both ways.
If you're that convinced copy protection works, then you obviously believe I can't copy the game... So why the fuck can't I return it to the store if it's a pile of shit?
If they KNOW it doesn't work, then why continue to include. As far as I'm concerned, if a game has copy protection on it, I should be
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Given a choice between software that always respects this flag, and software that allows you as a user to ignore it, which one would you want to use?
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So I guess you love systems like Steam, then? Download and play, perfectly legally, without even having to worry about finding a crack or trusting the pirates not to have stuck any malware in there.
As more and more companies catch on and begin to distribute online, the convenience argument will dry up too. I wonder what lines
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I disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
But in the end stopping
How many more roubles would they get if just 1% of people intending to pirate the game bought it instead?
----
This writing may not necessarily reflect my thoughts and beliefs -- but it probably does.
Re:I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Stop right there! Analogy police, sir. (Score:2)
I'm going to leave it to others to dissect your larger point(s) and to weigh validity of your perspective (say, as to whether or not semi-serious copy protection really is treating buyers like "criminals" or not).
I am, though, going to g
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E.g. this guy [wsu.edu]
"I imagine that the original image in the minds of those who developed this expression was a donkey or mule laden with cargo rather than being ridden, with its master alternately holding a carrot in front of the animal's nose (by hand, not on a stick) and threatening it with a switch"
Not does wiki, for what that's worth [wikipedia.org]
Here's a better source [bartleby.com] "Combining a promised reward with a threatened penalty"
This is closer to your ideas [phrases.org.uk]
: CARROT AND
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You are school 1 obviously, but 2 seems valid too, and the way I have mostly heard it used.
I guess my point is that, having grown up around plenty of rural folks - includi
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You are, of course, completely correct about this. Some folks I know from rural PA simply cannot process some common terms. Less in the analogy vein, but more in the "not getting it" vein, they have a completely random - but always maddening - way of mixing up the words "suit" and "suite." Usually, they err on the side of pronouncing them both "suit." I'm afraid I have to bite my tongue
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You're not flaming, just missing the point.
Yes, word use changes - but the meaning of the things those words are used to represent do not. When people conflate to similar words to one word, and then use that one less-articulate, less-informing word, one of two things happens. Either they have to them work harder to provide context, or meaning (clarity, etc) is lost.
So when someone says "I
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For some reason, in the past couple of years (by my observation), people have started referring to the carrot as some sort of reward, and the stick as some sort of opposite.
Past half a century, at least.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/carrot.html [wsu.edu]
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Furthermore, my PC purchasing has dropped precipitously, as I can only play roughly two out of three purchased games. The rest generally refuse to run, usually due to buggy copy protection. Which means I have to bring
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And I should have clarified, I don't use the expensive applications at home. Getting the Cu-Base demo to work on my home computer was a nightmare of epic proportions, so I searched out and found viable alternatives, like Audacity [sourceforge.net] and others for my more straightforward at-home needs.
But I refuse to buy anything, especially anything expensive, when I would look over at the version the pirates are using with envy.
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2) The Stardock Central application can download and install the game / the patches for you, and also requires a one-time activation.
I don't see any "enter multiple times" anywhere.
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Let me reiterate: the latest patch [stardock.com] is freely downloadable. If you haven't activated GalCiv2 before (you have no sig.bin file in your GC2 directory), you will have to do it. Once. After you do it, no further patches will require activation.
As for SDC, no reason not to trust it. All purchases are handled through the web site, the program itself is not aware of any credit card or other sensitive information.
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Practicality: Copy protection incoveniences users. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Practicality: Copy protection incoveniences use (Score:2)
Same thing with product activation, etc - no pirate with the activation hack is inconvenienced, but every legitimate user is, every time they need to re-activate, etc.
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If a copy protection scheme can prevent casual copying which would apply to the vast majority of the players, then it seems like it would be beneficial to the company. I've obtained games illegally and you know, it can be so frustrating and time consuming that it's usually better to just pony up the fifty bucks. It also *feels* wrong to go searching torrent sites loaded with porn links to find games and cracks. If games could be casual
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This is something that really gets me about the games industry. The practice is unfair and I think should be illegal (it might already be), we can be sold a product that doesn't work despite the box saying it will
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Minor correction: TA required one CD per 3 players (but ten players still required only 3 CDs). It came out in the transition phase between 1 CD per player and 1 CD per match games when games allowed a certain number of players per CD in multiplayer (I remember other games implementing such a system as well). Starcra
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Really? Then why do you not reference any source that has reached this conclusion? Oh wait, that's probably because there are none. If copy protection was actually proven to significantly increase the profit on media, it would be used every single time. Unfortunately for you, no such proof exists.
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These days, all it needs is *1* person to crack it, and the rest of the world can potentially download it via bit-torrent (or whatever the p2p flavour of the month is at the time). Burning a CD
That's the sound of... (Score:5, Funny)
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Well that's no fun, I'll have all the content by noon then.
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I mean, come on... Guys... The article looks like a cross between Monty Python's Flying Circus, Godfather, and Clerks.
Arg (Score:4, Insightful)
Game On (Score:2, Funny)
What the..?! (Score:4, Informative)
TFA instead gives a belly-laugh of some strange russian software copyright company. Pardon the ignorance here.
I guess if I wanted to get a real summary, we go yet again to the Grouptionary [wikipedia.org].
Simple Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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A well done manual should be part of the game experience, not just something you refer to once or twice during the first few minutes of gameplay.
Anyone remember the original manual for Fallout? Yeah, it gave you information on how to play, but the style and everything really put you in the overall mood of the game. Same with the original Wing Commander manual.
And as for those games that have gone to all-PDF/HTML, I say BOO! I hate reading large documents on my co
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That's why I expect to see the demise of the PC game, as developers move to consoles and proprietary hardware that is much, much more difficult to get around. Those that don't will consist more and more of "online" games, where you're going to need that SN and a valid account.
So, in sum, give people $60 worth of paper (Score:2)
novahammer is my new nick dammit (Score:4, Interesting)
The guy has a great point - I've bought a lot of games in recent times, sometimes long time after they were released so that the price goes down (Valve episode 1 price down you bastards - its been out long enough) and they are games I'm rather devoted to. Half-life anything, Jedi Knight and Dark Forces, Quake, C&C, AoE, Duke, Legacy of Kain, Mechwarriors, Wing Commander anything (I want more of the last three and I still hold out hope for DNF!)... its a long list. I'll probably cae on Galactic Civilizations 2 in a bit because I've been told its the games Masters 3 ought to have been.
There are games I've pirated and deleted, the latest being Prey. Meh. Make your game worthwhile to me and I will buy a copy. I remember when I was in the midst of LoK each game cost more than the last and I still bought them - fricking Defiance was 50 bucks when it came out. It was worth it and I wanted it. The prices have gone up a fair bit so I'm not surprised that piracy has. Especially when a large chunk of your target audience is under 25s and a lot of that is still in school and college earning 6.25 an hour.
The cd protection is just annoying - fricking cd-keys are such a pain to keep and I hate that I cant legally back up so many of my cds now. I tried reinstalling Diablo last year and was heart broken when the disc had a CRC error all of sudden. I bought the damn game and now I can't play it because some money grubbing bastards at Blizzard were more bothered about their profits than my fair use. Bought it used again but I really ought not to have had to. If they have to have copy protection it'd be nice if game companies just made their games FOSS after a few years because they aren't going to sell it anymore really. Abandonware is a great idea guys!
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Complainer is my new nick dammit (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.3drealms.com/prey/download.html [3drealms.com]
Sheesh! There's absolute NO WAY a publisher can please a pirate. The above is a FREE demo, so people can try-before-they-buy, AND THEY STILL PIRATE. Then to add salt to the wound, they complain. Maybe all the content creaters SHOULD go out of business, just to shut all the complainers up* (my money's on some BITCHIN about that too)
*And for th
Was Loki Software done in by pirating or... (Score:2, Interesting)
my copies and requested others to purchase also, rather than just burn copies for them (though I made
backup copies for myself.) But Loki went out of business. I was under the impression that it was
because too many linux users were pirating their games, but maybe it was just that the linux market
was too small.
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there simply aren't enough linux users willing to buy software YET, and even if they are being paid money to port the games to linux (e by publishers), they aren't going to pay enough to grow a business properly.
For a game developer to truly become successful in the current industry, developers absolutely NEED to create their own IP. Look at any of
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I think it was the difficulty of having a small market to begin with, and not getting enough of different releases out to keep people buying the stuff. They were probably understaffed and not getting enough porting contracts.
I mean, I bought Quake III Arena, SMAC and Myth II (the latest after their bankruptcy though)... that from the whole lineup of Loki, not exactly a whole lot. (Plus Q3A was an iD game - they would have got a Linux version out with or without Loki's help, anyway.) I mean, when I bought
NWN 1 right now has it right (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:NWN 1 right now has it right (Score:4, Interesting)
That's actually a model more and more companies are using, partially because of the move towards downloadable games instead of retail boxes for convenience on both sides with less distribution overhead. You get a lot more impulse buys that way as well.
Also, with episodic gaming and subscription models, someone losing their CD means less money for you. I know that back in the day, one of my NWN disks got scratched beyond repair, a new expansion came out, my PW upgraded to the new expansion... if I had my NWN install I would've bought the expansion, but as it was I just let it go and moved on.
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Game companies have to answer to the suits at the publishers whose first, second, and third concerns are how the fast the game will recoup them money with very little thought to the long haul, and likely no thought to user's systems. So, if a game publisher can get a release out that doesn't install some Dr
The pirates I know (Score:1)
rofl (Score:2, Funny)
Windows X64 (Score:2, Interesting)
The greatest barrier to piracy is not DRM (Score:2)