Drunken Monkey
Author Level
rockpapershotgun said:
[video=youtube;e91q5BtlxK0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91q5BtlxK0&feature=player_embedded[/video]
Croteam's take on DRM
- Thread starter Drunken Monkey
- Start date
[video=youtube;e91q5BtlxK0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91q5BtlxK0&feature=player_embedded[/video]
DeadEyeDuk
Superhero Level Poster
That's awesome 
Love people that play pirate/illegal games getting shafted!
Sure, they could have developed a way to stop people actually playing the illegal copy, but when you can come up with something like this, its just so much sweeter
Love people that play pirate/illegal games getting shafted!Sure, they could have developed a way to stop people actually playing the illegal copy, but when you can come up with something like this, its just so much sweeter
Tracker
Enthusiast
not the first time this has been done before either, a company did this with one of their MMO game releases a few months ago upon discovering alot of people had gotten ahold of games a month or more before they were supposed to (Mostly from mom & Pop stores breaking retail dates).
not as bad as pirating but still causes an imbalance where people are playing getting further ahead than they should do without the challenges associated with the presence of other players, so as a punishment, the company released hordes of over-powered monsters all acrost the game world until release date.
and if i recall, Red Alert 3 had a similar bug in the pirated version, where players would find their entire base explodes on the 6th level.
Fun and imaginative, but ultimately ways are found around it all.. the sad fact is so many people nowadays feel entitled to these things and that it's ok to just take what they want.
not as bad as pirating but still causes an imbalance where people are playing getting further ahead than they should do without the challenges associated with the presence of other players, so as a punishment, the company released hordes of over-powered monsters all acrost the game world until release date.
and if i recall, Red Alert 3 had a similar bug in the pirated version, where players would find their entire base explodes on the 6th level.
Fun and imaginative, but ultimately ways are found around it all.. the sad fact is so many people nowadays feel entitled to these things and that it's ok to just take what they want.
SrgColman
Enthusiast
From Software did this a few months ago with Dark Souls. They noticed people logging in before the game had officially launched, they sent out Max Level enemies with Max Stats to hunt the players down, couldn't survive one hit from them and thus halted all progress until the game went live lol
DanteWilhelm
Bright Spark
same with Sims 2
you couldn't build walls!
you couldn't build walls!
Kalisnoir
Super Star
Coming from someone who pirated The Sims 2 (I did buy it after) I can also say that they must of cracked that as well.
Dayve
Well-known member
In a Lord of the Rings RTS game a while back they had something kind of like this that ruins your gameplay. Every 15 minutes or so a check is performed to see if you're running an illegal version and if you are all your buildings and units are instantly destroyed and killed and you get the "GAME OVER" and have to restart, only for it to happen again.
It was bypassed in that game, it will be bypassed in this game and it will be bypassed in any and every other game. Not even the threat of huge fines or prison can deter people from doing it, and the most sophisticated of DRM is bound to be broken wide open within, at most, a week of release. It's human nature and not confined to the PC. Console games are sold and bought once they've been used. GAME and other shops buy them used and sell them on for less than 1/4 the price you'd have to pay if it was new. That's a form of piracy. I remember back when I played consoles in the PS1 days I got it chipped by an unsavoury fellow who lived down the road and bought games off him for £2.50 each. Does that still go on? I bet it does. It's just human nature - they need to stop trying to put an end to it and think outside the box because there is no end.
It was bypassed in that game, it will be bypassed in this game and it will be bypassed in any and every other game. Not even the threat of huge fines or prison can deter people from doing it, and the most sophisticated of DRM is bound to be broken wide open within, at most, a week of release. It's human nature and not confined to the PC. Console games are sold and bought once they've been used. GAME and other shops buy them used and sell them on for less than 1/4 the price you'd have to pay if it was new. That's a form of piracy. I remember back when I played consoles in the PS1 days I got it chipped by an unsavoury fellow who lived down the road and bought games off him for £2.50 each. Does that still go on? I bet it does. It's just human nature - they need to stop trying to put an end to it and think outside the box because there is no end.
Kalisnoir
Super Star
I had an idea with Steam. OnLive uses streaming technology and therefor them games can't be pirated (as in off their server, obviously the games get pirated by retail and other downloaded versions). So what if all games use DRM in the .exe files, but stream the .exe because its only small, it would require everyone to use a service like Steam, but personally I love Steam anyway. I know there are ways to edit packets sent between you and servers, but that's easily stopped now days.
Just my idea anyway, not sure if there's anymore implications behind it.
Just my idea anyway, not sure if there's anymore implications behind it.
Tracker
Enthusiast
Kalisnoir, alot of that style of DRM is broken all too easily, editing system settings to block packets to authentication sites, cracked .exe's, it's all doable at the end of the day, keys to software are far easier to make than the locks they open, and all the while you're creating more grief for people who do pay and do things properly.
I myself being one of those people, i never pirate games, often buying multiple copies (console version x2 if it's got multiplayer to play with little brother, and a PC version..etc), the closest i get to that is occasionally downloading an MP3 file from youtube when i hear a music track i like, and after a week or two i'll either delete it off or buy the album (and i've discovered so many different genres and styles of music i wouldn't have normally.. but is that piracy? In the harshest terms, yes, but at the same time it's no different to me just cycling the song over via youtube on my phone anyway, and 99% of the time i'll buy the album, case in point, saw a flash with a track to it - Ellon Tiella by Ruoska, found it on youtube, after a week of listening to it and associated tracks i've bought a couple of their albums).
again, it comes down to what counts for piracy these days? Trialling isn't always justifiable, in my case again, this is a mp3 freely available on the web, and i justify by purchasing afterwards, but in the case of downloading a full game when demos and such are so readily available nowadays too?
Dayve, buying and selling used console games has been about since the dawn of time, it's the only way you used to be able to justify paying £30 for a new Playstation game, you could sell it on after 6 months and recoup a little of the outlay, nowadays when we're throwing upwards of £40 for a basic game ( and don't get started with ltd editions etc), to not be able to recoup some of that by trading it in is ridiculous.
*points the finger at EA here* these guys featured in a similarly themed article a year or so back, whereby they were trying to sue 2nd hand video game stores for selling games with "DLC included" on the box whereas second hand console games won't have it ( being a one time use code usually used by the first owner), it's all entirely about grabbing as much money back from direct sales and DLC sales as they can, hence the huge increase in "day-1 copies" including "free" dlc at the start and charged for with 2nd hand copies (mass effect 2 was my first experience with this, but lots of games do it, dead island, battlefield 2 BC / 3). IMO games that are worth keeping have no trouble with generating first hand sales.. you don't trade in games you enjoy and play regularly.
Just about the only fool-proof method is to have a game thats' multiplayer oriented (like COD or Battlefield), have a good, solid multiplayer / online aspect to it that makes people want to buy the game, and stick to the old CD key system, one game, one code for one account, unlimited installs, yes people could abuse this offline for campaign, but if the main pull point is multiplayer and online features, then people will buy the game, and keep it, problem solved.
I myself being one of those people, i never pirate games, often buying multiple copies (console version x2 if it's got multiplayer to play with little brother, and a PC version..etc), the closest i get to that is occasionally downloading an MP3 file from youtube when i hear a music track i like, and after a week or two i'll either delete it off or buy the album (and i've discovered so many different genres and styles of music i wouldn't have normally.. but is that piracy? In the harshest terms, yes, but at the same time it's no different to me just cycling the song over via youtube on my phone anyway, and 99% of the time i'll buy the album, case in point, saw a flash with a track to it - Ellon Tiella by Ruoska, found it on youtube, after a week of listening to it and associated tracks i've bought a couple of their albums).
again, it comes down to what counts for piracy these days? Trialling isn't always justifiable, in my case again, this is a mp3 freely available on the web, and i justify by purchasing afterwards, but in the case of downloading a full game when demos and such are so readily available nowadays too?
Dayve, buying and selling used console games has been about since the dawn of time, it's the only way you used to be able to justify paying £30 for a new Playstation game, you could sell it on after 6 months and recoup a little of the outlay, nowadays when we're throwing upwards of £40 for a basic game ( and don't get started with ltd editions etc), to not be able to recoup some of that by trading it in is ridiculous.
*points the finger at EA here* these guys featured in a similarly themed article a year or so back, whereby they were trying to sue 2nd hand video game stores for selling games with "DLC included" on the box whereas second hand console games won't have it ( being a one time use code usually used by the first owner), it's all entirely about grabbing as much money back from direct sales and DLC sales as they can, hence the huge increase in "day-1 copies" including "free" dlc at the start and charged for with 2nd hand copies (mass effect 2 was my first experience with this, but lots of games do it, dead island, battlefield 2 BC / 3). IMO games that are worth keeping have no trouble with generating first hand sales.. you don't trade in games you enjoy and play regularly.
Just about the only fool-proof method is to have a game thats' multiplayer oriented (like COD or Battlefield), have a good, solid multiplayer / online aspect to it that makes people want to buy the game, and stick to the old CD key system, one game, one code for one account, unlimited installs, yes people could abuse this offline for campaign, but if the main pull point is multiplayer and online features, then people will buy the game, and keep it, problem solved.
Kalisnoir
Super Star
Yeah, but good luck with breaking the DRM by blocking online authentication when you need to stream the .exe file, as in, the .exe is NOT stored on your computer.
Tracker
Enthusiast
In order to run, the whole exe will need to be on the computer, unless you somehow streamed segments of the .exe at a time and never assemble the thing completely, then it'll be on the computer, someone just needs to see where it is and grab it, and the moment one person does that, then its worldwide, not to mention that you're also forcing people to constantly be connected to the internet to play, causing physical issues with those that can't (playing on a laptop? have to be plugged in.. low bandwidth? poor performance / non starter.. Run out on a metered internet or have a technical hiccup? you can't play anymore) and causing inconvinience / aggrevation even for those that can.
bare in mind that it's not just external, there must be inside-work on cracking and such too, how else do you explain games, (especially the bigger ones boasting more DRM, like Spore for example) being cracked and available on the internet before it ever got to Retail release?
if it's offline it can be cracked, if it's only the single check then they're free past that first gate, and simply forcing users to go through online authentication purely for the purposes of anti piracy will fall flat on its face, unfortunately the only sure-fire solution is to constantly authenticate through an official server, to do that, you need to have a way to entice the user to want to be online and go through official channels, things like spores feature to share creations with each other, online social interactions and bonuses and good, in depth multiplayer options are the best ways to do this, but at the end of the day it all falls upon the user, if people were as willing to download/crack a program as they were to swipe it off a shelf in a supermarket then the problem would be nowhere near as bad.
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