VS developers. Piratov: insanity is stronger or the most unusual, tough and funny ways to protect against piracy

Gentlemen Flimers, despite the DRM and other intrigues, are still Swimming We walk under a cheerful Roger. Despite the closure of our torrents, we do not leave the distribution. Despite censorship, we still make srach. Because it is our Internet, these are our distribution. We will not dig out our chests, for the sake of another fed dummy. We will not give the sand to the flashing producers. We are pirates, we owe nothing to anyone and we will be forever in the pirate waters, even if Kraken itself comes to our souls – we will die, but we will not pay.

Black beard (Edward Tich)

In this article, I will tell you about the most interesting ways of developers to force players to pay for games, but I will not affect the newfangled DRM or preservation in the cloud, since everyone knows about it already. It’s better to touch on much more old, little -known, ridiculous and sometimes sophisticated ways of protecting from piracy, for this we will move to different stages of the formation of the gaming industry. And so let’s start.

(There was a Flash player, but since 2020, Flash has not been supported by browsers)

Cosmopirates will not pass … And honest users too

In the yard, the beginning of the 80s. Gamers around the world play Spectrum and Commodore 64. And even then dashing corsars stormed the bastions of the copy. To protect their games, the developers used a special device called Lenslok. It was a set of vertical lenses, the size of a compact cassette for the then audiomatic nibrants. Each copy of the game was his own unique Lenslok.

The “activation” of the game took place by bringing Lenslok to the monitor screen, on which the code was encrypted. This set of lenses refracted the rays of light and the user could see the coveted code, after which it was enough to enter it.

But take your time, we are not looking for a light path. Before the entire above procedure, the user was supposed to calibrate the lenses to the size of his monitor and, of course, it was not the most trivial task. Therefore, honestly bought the buyer had to climb into manuals and mess with this fig for 20-30 minutes, instead of enjoying the game. And this is not to mention the fact that on large diagonals this device did not work at all.

Time passed, and users were already eager to use this Lenslok. Until the new hit of the game industry – Elite has not been released. Yes, the same elite that laid the foundation for cosmosims like a genre.

Eight procedured galaxies, revolutionary gameplay, advanced frame three -dimensional graphics, developed system of economics and artificial intelligence and complete freedom in space. And all this splendor … did not work for five hundred "happy" owners of this game because of Lenslok. They simply did not approach this copy of the game and the players at a bewilderment stared at the screen with an encrypted code, cursed by the developers and all their relatives to the seventh knee.

Night Nightmare Corsara

PC Players prayed and demanded Remedy to release their Boksovsky exclusive Alan Wake 2010 on the “only true” platform. The Finns with the Scandinavian endurance and the Moscow Art Theater pushed the PC version two years later. Joyful players praised such an initiative of developers and on full sail rushed to take on boarding shops torrents. After a long battle, for high speed and installation on hard drives, users were faced with funny greetings from the Finns – our glorious protagonist flaunted a bandage in the eye along the last squeak of pirate fashion.

Urban planning chaos or where is your manual

Simcity’s exit in 2013 was a serious blow to the pirate honor. Constant online and preservation in the cloud successfully withstand artillery shots and boarding, but it is not for them to rejoice for a long time, and your last day will come Bourgeois copyright holder.

Not only restarting the series planted us aground, but in the very first part in 1989, we also faced difficulties. Together with the game, there were 4 blood-red pages with codes, about which the game periodically asked. This color was used, because the then scanners could scan only a black and white image. If the user has incorrectly entered the code several times, then the game fell with natural disasters to a defenseless city and its inhabitants.

Some developers went on and forced to constantly burst between the monitor and the manual in the game. For example, the creators of King’s Quest III proposed to create their spells in the game of formulas from the leadership.

Other developers began to supply copies https://non-uk-casinos.co.uk/review/magic-win/ of their games with special cardboard circles connected together. Rotating the circles, like the opening of the doors in places of power in Skyrim, only without claws, we received the codes necessary for the game. The creators of The Secret of Monkey Island (Rome) quest provided the game with the same circles with a funny inscription: Dial-A-Pirate (Call Pirate).

Our hardcore is everything

A certain popularity among developer sadists was the practice of complicating the pirate versions of games to the impossible level. They could show their imagination in this: either the ball will disappear in footballsim, then the boss will become immortal, then the enemy will be stronger on his head.

The farther in their torture of the pirates, Earthbound developers, published in 1994 for Super Nintendo, went over the pirates. At the beginning of the game, we are warned that we play the pirate version, but the game can be continued. Gamer, not suspecting such meanness from developments, playing at a more difficult level of complexity, reaches the final boss, after which the game flies away and erases all the saves. Cruel, is it not true?

Bought a game, get a fleet of starships in addition

Infocom produced textual adventure with manuals and the so -called “Feelies” – special items from the game. In fact, these were the first collectible publications, but they not only pleased the eye on the shelf, but also served as tips for playing games. For example, in the set to Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiking in the 1984 galaxy) were: Sunglasses, button "Don`t Panic!", The leadership of the Earth and the whole cosmoflot, though microscopic. Here the developers were clearly not deprived of a sense of humor.

Cunning fox

So far, most developers encroach the filibusters from their products with various means, some use these means for artistic techniques. For example, the player Metal Gear Solid will repeatedly encounter the destruction of the fourth wall. At one of these moments, the brave operative will need to contact Maryl Silverg, and for this you will need to find out the frequency of her codec, which is on the box with the game. And then a temporary paradox arises – to find out the frequency, we look at one of the screenshots of the game, where our protagonist is already talking with Maryl, t.e. already knows the frequency of her codec. So sometimes developers can annoy the pirates and please the players with an Eastern.

Piracy against … pirates

Two guys not so long ago organized their Greenheart Games company and released their first game – Game Dev Tycoon. The game turned out to be funny and delaying, the whole point of which is to develop games.

But the developers not only managed to create an interesting game, but also to conduct a small “poll” without our consent. At the same time, they laid out the usual version of the game on their site and pirate on torrents. Distinguishing them only in one, in the torrent version there was … piracy. Creating another game and receiving good marks from intra -game publications, we were waiting for high profit from its sale, but malicious virtual flibs without remorse of its conscience impudently Pi stole.

Of course, dissatisfied users immediately climbed to the official forum with complaints and the requirement to do something to curb virtual pirates. I would like to look at the faces of these developers when they read all these angry comments. But in addition to everything, the game collected statistics on the number of pirate and licensed versions. Statistics for the first day you can see on this

Screams of sirens

The first World Continent World Cup was remembered for the incessant howl of the wool, which the French from Ubisoft did not fail to take advantage of. In the pirate version of the game Michael Jackson: The Experience for the Nintendo DS prefix, instead of Michael Jackson’s music, we were forced to listen to the God -dimensional sounds of the South African instrument.

Despite all of the above, I believe that good games should be paid, and the best protection against piracy is quality content. So even if you downloaded the game and you liked it, then pay someone else’s work, because next time such a game may not be released.

P.S. I ask you not to beat for the design and for my Russian. I will be glad of constructive criticism and your proposals.

P.S.S. I didn’t think that this topic would turn out so big, so excuse me that I took so much your time.

Elite

King’s Quest III: to heir is human

Metal Gear Solid

Simcity

Alan Wake

Game Dev Tycoon

The best comments

Do not steal, do not download from torrents. Go to SG, blogs, and you will be happiness.

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All this, of course, is good and right, but tell me, you yourself are not tired of feeling like cash bags of which cunning undergoters by hook or by crook, try to squeeze as much Bablinsky as possible for the minimum number of man-hours. After all, trailers, demos, presentations and even loud names and talented at first glance teams of developers are not a guarantee that the project, in the end, will be good. And every 2nd pre-order on such loud games as Aliens: Colonial Marines, Call of Duty: Ghosts, X Rebirth (in general, everyone has their own list) will understand what I mean. I’m not talking about 100,500 DCl, $ 9.99 with all sorts of cannons there, thongs of sky blue and foxes for GG and its Sopartis. I personally, after a detailed probing of some "masterpieces", felt at least deceived.

The coastal fraternity loopes (likes) your post;)
There is, by the way, the opinion that the hero of the day is deliberately drained by the Assassin releases a week before the release. And what is characteristic, almost on the release day they fall out a patch that has to download for an hour, because of the Jupleev servaks overloaded at that time.

I don’t feel myself with a money bag:
– In time immemorial, actors loved for their "work",
– Then they began to pay for watching the film,
-Now we do not want to pay for the work of other people, only because we got baked?!

Copies have always been, almost always less high -quality. And in our pirate society, as a result, more people who want to buy a game appear than to look askance at the “greedy to the bones”. And the fact of piracy is a kind of filter for scattering of poor -quality products.

I completely agree with you. It is the opportunity to evaluate the proposed product and is a fundamental factor when making a decision to buy any intellectual property (And now I’m talking not only about games, but also about books, films, music)
Why should I pay for a cat in a bag (raw, funny, unfinished or made through one place the game)?! And again, the controversial situation with DCL and the content cut out of the game, which is sold separately and at very high prices. I do not mind paying money for a quality product, but first I want to make sure that it is of high quality.

Know. Refusal of DRM leads to the trust and demonstration karma of the publisher. More satisfied, more customers. If there were DRM, they would hack the same way. Now they break quite easily everything and protection only spoils life to ordinary people, that’s all.

And here is the answer. No PR, no money. Hence the payback and even more so profit. By the way, any game on a kickstarter that is without DRM is gaining money faster. Are they paying pirates? : 3

As an example:
– We will examine the Pamidorka before buying, pour the cereal and the “impressive” will see their quality.
– We get a new book on the subject of vandalism, the folding of lines, a pleasant design
– Let’s see the reviews on the films, their tie, or at worst the plot, retold in a hurry from the overabundance of feelings, friends ..
And games? With games, it is more difficult in view of their multifaceted and impact on several senses at the same time. Not everyone will understand: why are the “time of time” so important, or what will become with the spiritual world if your parents burning in alive (American Macgi Alice), why do you need WII-MOUT if you came from work. The question remains open.

This is wrong. For example, on Fallout 2 the defense was. Yes, and when these people worked in the Three, they did not disdain protection, but the result was exactly the same.

When people already stop listening to copywriters, and finally realize that those people who do not buy it pirate. There are many reasons. And the protection does not solve anything at all, if it is not total online as in diablo 3. Protection, this is bad, for the final user who, on the other way, paid. And to this, add that there is a certain percentage that they buy after spiral. This also affects the distribution and interest of another group of people, among which there will also be a buyer. And also, we add that piracy is not equal to theft, respectively, to go bankrupt due to this, it is simply not possible. The same thing.

No, well, you need protection. If it is not opened in the first couple of days, then the publisher’s profit may affect this. Another thing is that it is far from the only factor affecting sales and not even the most important. Yes, and you cannot overdo it, otherwise the effect can be strictly reverse.

Example, Tomb Ryder 7 The first reboot of the series, went out without protection, sold with a bang. What was there from the anniversaries long before the release? And not one as much as I remember, excellent sales. Witcher 2 of the second abroad was without protection. The third will be DRM FRI. What do you think will pay off at least? : D