New Idea on stopping pirating of games.

#1 The problem with that is, it'd cost a LOT more to have each CD individually serialized as opposed to just having one master that all the copies are made from.

#2 Honestly, it's not really any different than getting the serial number on the jewel case. Consider this: What makes the serial number on the cd different than the serial on a jewel case except the physical location?

The system of binding the serial with the first registered user and password is okay, but if *that* info is bogus(Bill Gates at 123 Main Street, for example), then that makes the whole system irrelevant. If the serial was bound to a piece of hardware, such as how the new Windows does it, it makes it harder, but not much so.

There is always going to be someone out there to create a program to circumvent this, or that buys the product and then gives bogus info and gives it out to friends. As for a better idea than what they're doing now, I have no clue, but these are the issues I can think of with this system, HTH... =)

#3 The best anti-piracy I ever came across was in the days of really intrusive anti-piracy. Back when you had to enter the third word on the fifth paragraph on page 10. Thoese were only annoying to the user as a pirate could just photocopy the manual. One game however had a few hundred numbers and had you type in number aaa, aba, etc. The numbers were in a pale yellow so that you couldn't photocopy them. Of course you could just right down a few hundred numbers. It was MUCH more annoying to the pirate, but still too annoying to the user for my tastes. I think you have to sort of accept that piracy is GOING to happen regardless of what you do. The key is to hinder peoples desire to pirate. Don't make the game over priced for example. It's also key I think to release a balanced demo. A demo that will show the player what the game is like but that isn't so good they won't feel the need to buy the game. Not having any demo at all is just giving the user and excuse to download a pirated copy. On the other hand the freestyle mode in Microsoft Motorcross Madness's demo was so good I never felt the urge to buy the game. A time limit or something would have helped them convert more demo downloads to sales I think. Same thing with NASCAR Revolution. You could only play with a few cars and on a few tracks, but big deal there isn't alot of variance in NASCAR cars and tracks anyway.

#4

Alright, in the history of PC software anti piracy there have been two somewhat effective techniques.

The first is to make the copy protection so complex that nobody will bother to crack it. To do this you usually need a dongle, and some clever programmers. This only works until someone who specializes in cracking programs with dongles wants to crack your program.

The second is to have serial numbers and a single online server. This works great for MMRPGs, and reasonably well for Quake (in theory you have to crack the client AND server, and there may be issues listing servers, and someone running a public cracked server is taking a big risk).

Every other technique is worthless. Or, as in locks on doors, only keeps honest people honest. I suggest you don't make your copy protection annoying, or you'll make honest people warez your stuff because the warez version is LESS annoying than the legitimate version.

#5 I like the method that John brought up(had a Disney Animation program that did that with pictures as well, and it became very hit-and-miss to start it up after I lost the manual, lol). But it worked, and as long as you had the manual you could start it up. The catch? You need that manual.

Of course, you could also have a system where registered users could email and get a manual shipped to them for free *one time* after purchase if they lose it, but that opens the door to people who buy and then want to give it to their friends and need the extra manual.

Maybe what they need is in the form of the electronic "bullets" that cable companies use to disrupt hacked boxes. When this signal goes out over the cable system, the good boxes stay on while the bad ones get hit and don't function. If a company requires a one-time electronic registration with a server in order to run the program for the first time, it could "see" the bad serials and then fire a "bullet" at that app and break it remotely(only the app, not the OS or anything, because that's hacking and against the law). There's issues with that as well... Dammit, there's issues with everything, lol.. =)

#6 Piracy can't be stopped. If you're making a online game simply use a half-life/Quake system (won).. where a server validates your key, and no 2 people with the same key can play online at the same time.
In fact piracy even helps get the sales up.. so I wouldn't bother too much.

#7 What about Palladium, the new secure computing initiative - that will certainly have some effect on piracy...sounds pretty intrusive too.

Some Palladium info here

#8 I WISH my biggest problem was "How do I make all those people stealing my games pay? I wanna make $2million, not a measly $1million!" (C: I don't care at this point. Tsall bout the games to me.

#9 As far as palladium goes, I can safely say I've bought my last x86 cpu. I don't want any part of hardware DRM controlled by MS. Heh, maybe you'll be seeing me on one of those Apple Switch ads. My name is John Garrison and I'm a programmer! :)

#10 That can get annoying like what if oyu wanted to play at a lan place with your account or ata riends house?

#11 The best anti-piracy is to release a well executed game with no bugs that works as advertised and delivers more value than it costs.

There are way to many crappy or buggy games that don't deliver what they promise and that cost way to much money, and no one takes back opened games and refunds on them because they are crap. So piracy proliferates.

#12 Any one remember the the old disk hole thing? I'm not to sure how it worked but it was basicly a hole in the disk(floppy) and if you copyed it was stuffed... It was on katrate <---can't spell old EGA fighting game(my first PC game). But it was annoying because it was on a 5 1/2" disk lol...
WON is a good system... only I have heard of some people who say they brought half-life and can't play due to CD-KEY Gen's. Thats a down side to the system but, that may not be ture, also with the tech line thing for people to get there game back (say after someone did take there cd-key) how hard would that be to setup? and how much?

#13 What about FADE, the anti-piracy technology used on Operation Flashpoint.

Here's the blurb from CodeMasters:

Quote:Codemasters' effective anti-piracy initiatives receive an additional push with the introduction of FADE(tm) a unique PC-based piracy protection system that can degrade gameplay if a counterfeit copy of the game is identified as being played.

Created for the early September launch of the mighty military simulator Operation Flashpoint, one of the most anticipated PC games of the year, Codemasters has equipped Operation Flashpoint with embedded coding that can recognise the difference between counterfeit and real copies of the game's CD.

If a pirate CD is identified, the game automatically disables key gaming features and instigates a number of subtle changes that adversely effect gameplay.

Anyone attempting to play an illegal copy of Operation Flashpoint will begin with a game that looks and plays just like the real thing. However, over a period of time, the game gradually self-modifies and degrades elements of play to a point where the game is no longer playable.

This system of anti-piracy not only puts off the pirates from duplicating the game CD but is also preventative in putting off people who would purchase a pirate copy from doing so. Indeed, no matter what a pirate may say, anyone considering getting an illegal version will not be convinced they'll get the fully-playable game.

The use of FADE(tm) will be displayed during game installation, saying "Original discs don't FADE(tm), in order that players who experience problems will be aware that their CD is potentially an illegal copy.

The FADE(tm) system used in Operation Flashpoint is created using a combination of Codemasters' own technology and commercial products. The game will additionally be protected with secondary copy protection technology and use FADE(tm) as an additional tactic against counterfeiting. The concept of FADE(tm) is adapted from a similar system employed by Codemasters' PlayStation game LMA Manager 2001, which reduced the amount of pirated CDs in circulation and enhanced sales performance.

Comments John Hemingway, Codemasters' Development Director: "We continue to act against the trade of counterfeiting software with new and innovative systems. In addition to protection that attempts to prevent illegal duplication, we are building Operation Flashpoint to include FADE(tm) as a second level deterrent and I am confident we shall see this effort reflected in the additional sales performance of the game."

Codemasters launches the hotly-tipped Operation Flashpoint on PC CD-ROM in early September in North America.

#14 If FADE cane detect a pirated CD, why doesn't it just say "Sorry this CD is pirated you cannot play?". Seems to me like alot of extra coding for no real reason, except to presumable drive the price of the game that much higher.

#15 You can't stop piracy, so why don't you concentrate on making a good game instead?

I'm very serious in this. If all the effort that's being put into anti-piracy code, DRM, whatever would be put to some productive means, we would have killer games instead of the usual 08/15 crap that's coming out all the time.

When I was somewhat into cracking back in C64 times, the average life expectancy of a copy protection was one day. From what I hear, today's kids don't bother with 0-day anymore, the competitiveness between cracking groups has gone to the level of hours and minutes. ("we released half an hour before you did, losers!")

For my game, I rather worry that it might not be pirated, which is a sure sign of it being a loser. Or have you ever seen starcraft clone #27 on a warez site?

#16 Think of the problem from the point of view of a cracker.

You have to debug the code, modify it and test it to see if you have truely removed the protection.

The longer you can extend this cycle the more effort you are making for them. People will *always* crack the game. It's a game the cracker will always win (and it is a game - these people do it for scores in ranking charts and the associated scene kudos) but the objective is to slow them down and reduce the amount of copies overall. Every day a cracker is struggling with softICE is a day your game is kept off the 0-day warez sites and group FTPs and an oppitunity to make more sales.

I think the idea of fade(tm) is to create uncertainty as to if you've actually managed to produce a '100% version' or not. If a group releases a bad version their aforementioned ranking and kudos is reduced.

It's an assult on the culture as well as the technology.

update: after writing that lot I scroll up and see I missed a post that says exactly what I just wrote, only shorter and neater. doh!

#17 Here's an idea.

Write subscription-based games, like the many mmorgs then don't care if someone pirates the client. You may be out a few bucks because you didn't sell the disk in the box, but your game will have picked up one more player, and he'll have to pay a subscription fee to play it.

Just my two cents...

#18 the FADE techonlogy in Operation Flashpoint was bypassed even before the game hit the shelves.

The idea behind the FADE code was that if the game just stops or bitches about putting in a CD or that it is pirated, those decision points are EXTREMELY easy to find and by pass with something like SoftICE or an equivilent debugger.

Since FADE just makes the game progressivly buggy and unplayable thus supposedly making it harder to figure out where and what to remove.

Seems that there are more 13 kids in Russia, China and Europe with infinitely more time and resources than there are on a small startup game development houses.

Think about it, raise the number of programmers on your team by the power of all the 13 years that can't or won't buy games and multiply that times 24 ( the number of hours in the day ) and you can see how any form of "sophisticated" copy protection is more of a waste of time than anything.

There are those that use pirate copies for evaluation, those that use them because they would not have bought them period. That is not not "lost" money if they were never going to spend it to begin with!

That is just my opinion.

#19 Don't bother with copy protection. If it's software it'll be cracked.

Why are people resorting to cracked versions anyway? Think about it seriously?
Developers want more money, publishers want even more money, in the end who suffers?
The poor consumer.

But the big problem is when many publishers want even more money and flood the shelves with excuse the language "crap" and promote it like crazy.
The consumer is stuck between choosing this game or that game. But they want both and can only buy one, one gets bought the other gets pirated.

Would you agree that games in general are aimed at the younger audience?
I dunno about in the U.S. but here in Australia games are $100. I mean WTF? Do publishers think that kids have like wads of $100 bills lying in their pockets or something.

I'm not saying that pirating a game should be encouraged. But if you've never played a pirated game in your life, your possibly a liar or mother Teresa. My motto is buy it if deserves to be bought. If publishers and developers keep throwing out "shiet", then that's exactly what they'll get back.
But in my defence I have played some pirated games but found the games to be so good that I not only bought the game, but also all the sequels.

And you guys using 3d studio max or maya come on you know what i'm talking about $3000 - $15,000 a license come on, you can honestly tell me that you have that kind of money lying around?

Anyway, it not until I decided I wanted to pursue a career in game dev that it became apparent how piracy affect the developers. But most consumers out there couldn't give a rip about the developers. Its the games and only the game that concerns them, so why waste all this money on copy protection and like someone else said rechannel it into making better games or even better more affordable software, so people wouln't need to pirate it.

#20 I think Devon just took the words right out of my mouth :) Everything that is released into the world with any intent of sale, be it full price or shareware, it'll be cracked and spread around the world before you've even had a chance to sell your first copy. Its a sad fact but its one that isn't going to go away unfortunately.

From knowing a few people that used to pirate games when they were at uni, the only thing that made them buy games is if they liked it so much they knew that by paying they'd get rid of the patch & update hassle, or to play it online. Blizzard has done amazingly well against the pirates as although the games were cracked & released onto the internet, real fans who downloaded it had to buy it to be able to play Diablo 2 or Warcraft 3 online on Battlenet. Other games like Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 were the same, you had to buy it to play on good fast servers, I think thats the only way to go really. Make it worthwhile for people to buy it rather than downloading it.

/me goes to rest my typing fingers :)