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Pirating 'The Talos Principle' Will Trap You in an Elevator

It seems that the first person to stumble in to Croteam's anti-piracy measures for their latest game The Talos Principle has surfaced today, as complaints of getting stuck and not being able to progress have come in. If you pirate the game you'll get trapped in an elevator during one of the game's key progression points and not be able to continue. You'll just be stuck. In an elevator. With nowhere to go.



hFnLyIl.jpg


To be honest, it should have been obvious with this easter egg QR code being placed near the elevator...

 
Not as good as Croteam's Serious Sam 3 having an unkillable scorpion monster that followed you around forever if you pirated the game
 

Tizoc

Member
Nice one heh.

Also Talos Principle is a great puzzle game, macgamestore apparently has it for 25% off, but someone in the BST thread can offer it for cheap too.
 

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
One of these tricks will backfire when people think there really is a bug with the game and don't buy it at all
 
If you pirate EarthBound, the game will crash before the final battle, and when you restart, your save file will be deleted.
 
I'm starting to think of what else they could have done for The Talos Principle now. Unjammable mines or maybe even a puzzle that is just impossible to solve.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
doesn't game developer tycoon (if that's the right title) essentially ensure you go bankrupt due to piracy every single time if you have a dodgy copy? I always liked that one.
 

Savitar

Member
I love stuff like this in games.

I know people often claim it tends to hit legit paying people....but I tend to cast some suspicion on those people.
 

epmode

Member
I guess I'll take the opportunity to say that this game is REALLY GOOD. Tough but fair puzzles that make you feel like a genius when solved, lots of content, an interesting philosophical story, etc. The ending's great too.
 

Nightbird

Member
One of these tricks will backfire when people think there really is a bug with the game and don't buy it at all

Nah, Devs often admit openly that it was an anti-piracy-thing. And it's good that they keep it that way.

Punishing Hackers by making the Game unplayble is always a sweet thing to see
 
Why would you even post that on the Steam message board with your open account that obviously does not have the game in your library. Either way, I love things like this.
 

Saty

Member
Do Croteam's antic ever get bypassed by the pirates? I don't remember so which makes it odd why not all games have this kind of stuff.
 

cameron

Member
Hahaha.

Reminds me of the Batman: Arkham Asylum glitch for pirates. Shitheel cried about it on the official Eidos forums.

Hi!
I've got a problem when it's time to use Batman's glide in the game. When I hold <Space> , like it's said to jump from one platform to another, Batman tries to open his wings again and again instead of gliding. So he fels down in a poisoning gas. If somebody could tel me, what should I do there.

The problem you have encountered is a hook in the copy protection, to catch out people who try and download cracked versions of the game for free.

It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code.

http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=95030
 

Tagyhag

Member
doesn't game developer tycoon (if that's the right title) essentially ensure you go bankrupt due to piracy every single time if you have a dodgy copy? I always liked that one.

Yep, and there's some deliciously ironic comments about it.

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One of these tricks will backfire when people think there really is a bug with the game and don't buy it at all

I'm trying to remember the developer, but someone talked about this happening a couple years ago -- they implemented an anti-piracy mode that basically made the game seem much buggier than it normally was, which meant the game was widely reported as being super buggy. If you're gonna do this kind of thing, you want to make it really, really obvious.

I still don't understand how these things work. Have they discovered the perfect DRM where false positives aren't possible?

No, and implementing these things can be really unwise for that exact reason if legit customers are affected, but most of the time people who do these cutesy anti-piracy modes do so in a way that avoids false positives by being pretty conservative in the estimation of what's a "pirated" copy, and therefore mostly getting false negatives instead.
 
I still don't understand how these things work. Have they discovered the perfect DRM where false positives aren't possible?

Yeah this. I love hearing about stories like this, but never understood how they worked. How does the game know if your version is pirated? Is there a way to undo those changes? If not, how come every game doesn't implement them? If so, what is the point of even putting them in the game in the first place?
 
I'm trying to remember the developer, but someone talked about this happening a couple years ago -- they implemented an anti-piracy mode that basically made the game seem much buggier than it normally was, which meant the game was widely reported as being super buggy. If you're gonna do this kind of thing, you want to make it really, really obvious.

Iron Lore (makers of Titans Quest) made it so the pirated copies would be more buggy and often crash. This led to a lot of pirates blaming the game and not the cracks. In the end Iron Lore claimed it was word of mouth that their game was buggy that caused low sales and the studios closure.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
It's referencing SKIDROW, a well known cracking group for pirated games.

I know that. But is the text in that image what it really says? Amusing, but I figured it was something like "buy the game to get a functional copy" or something. Something subtle but a nod to the fact you pirated the game so you should expect something like this to happen.
 
I know that. But is the text in that image what it really says? Amusing, but I figured it was something like "buy the game to get a functional copy" or something. Something subtle but a nod to the fact you pirated the game so you should expect something like this to happen.

Ah, sorry. Well that QR code shows up whether you've pirated the game or not, but I'm not sure what the "took the words right out of my mouth." is a reference to. I guess it could be in relation to one of the game's characters Elohim, as you'll never hear him speak again if you're trapped in an elevator, hahaha.
 
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