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[Magitex]

While not a game itself, a few years ago Gamemaker permanently destroyed the game resources of legitimate users due to false-positives, effectively wiping hours upon hours of work.

Whoever thought of this must have been a genius; nothing could ever go wrong destroying user data!
I can't imagine the frustration of working on something for hundreds of hours and it all going down the toilet because the developer thought it might make a few more bucks by ruining their work, not ideal in any situation. Even If it had affected a pirate user, it certainly wouldn't breed any positive response from it.

 

[petran79]

Because SecuROM is a piece of shit.

Also even legit costumers would download cd-rom and dvd-rom cracks for convenience

 

[Starwolf_UK]

Given how games have legitimately got you stuck in Elevators due to bugs like in Mass Effect and Metroid Prime (though this is more the game crashing on you) it is a good way to smoke people out.

That's quite amazing. So if for example I tried to play it on an emulator would these checks kick in? (For the record I'm not actually going to, my backlog is huge enough as it is. Just genuinely curious).

In the case of Earthbound the main check was the save file size and the emulator emulates the proper size here.

In the case of Mother/Earthbound Zero the dumped ROM was initially modified to work with Nesticle (a popular NES emulator back in the day when it was dumped, not particularly accurate leading to a legacy of hacking games to make the emulator work*) to avoid it crashing at the start. This then triggered the anti-piracy due to checksum failing**.
*-Super Mario Bros has a similar problem due to misunderstanding what empty NES RAM looks like. This means there are some ROM dumps which when played using modern NES emulators will start you on World 0.
**-My favorite checksum related anti piracy is what Konami did for some NES games. If you remove or modify the Konami logo the games went to into bullshit hard mode, the Mother 3 fan translation does a similar thing if you try to remove the splash screen (text rendering completely fails).

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

So this thread has been tweeted by the publisher Devolver Digital and picked up by IGN Africa apparently, and Russian users are still making new threads about it on the Steam forums, asking for help for elevators not working. Original and translated image:

 

[Messofanego]

So this thread has been tweeted by the publisher Devolver Digital and picked up by IGN Africa apparently, and Russian users are still making new threads about it on the Steam forums, asking for help for elevators not working. Original and translated image:

Russians aren't quitters! Fix the pirated game or else!

 

[Brianâ˜]

Still the best:

it's fake. No game code has this line.

 

[NEO0MJ]

While not a game itself, a few years ago Gamemaker permanently destroyed the game resources of legitimate users due to false-positives, effectively wiping hours upon hours of work.

Another example of ant-pirate measures hurting legit customers was in Spyro 3 for the PSX. If your disc was scratched/damaged enough the game would think you're using a copy and implement the anti-pirate measures, making controlling Spyro impossible.

 

[Randam]

If you pirate EarthBound, the game will crash before the final battle, and when you restart, your save file will be deleted.

You mean if you play a rom?

 

[KojiKnight]

Piracy is the unauthorized use or reproduction of software. Distributing the software yourself, even if on a site called the pirate bay, is authorizing use and reproduction, so does not count as piracy.

Your point? A developer is free to release their product in any way they chose. In this case, their game isn't being freely distributed, but the modified "For Users of a Website Known To Be Full of Pirates" version. It's an exclusive!

Look at it however you like, the point would still be the same.

You mean if you play a rom?

That would be considered piracy yes, but it applied itself mostly to flash carts.

 

[immortal-joe]

As charlequin said, I feel it's really, really risky to put these quirks in your game and not make it obvious that this is not an accidental error / bug.

In the example posted on the OP, I feel it would be better for a message to appear on the elevator doors after it stops, informing the player of what is going on. The message would say something like "Enjoying the game? Great! How about buying it?" Not only would that help drive the point home and not risk a misunderstanding, but it would also hit harder at a point where the player is more susceptible.

The Game Tycoon example is an even bigger missed opportunity given how ingenious it is. It would have been amazing if the devs let you experience having your game pirated a few times then have a popup appears that says "Doesn't feel great to have your games pirated, does it?"

 

[Yoshi]

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

Two questions:
1. Has someone beat the game with the unkillable scorpion monster unlocked?
2. Can you get the scorpiion in a legitimate copy, too? I mean, per choice,

 

[alexandros]

It is so nice to see those poor thiefs unmasking themselves. Pure joy.

Yup. It's the best part of these anti-piracy measures.

 

[Yoshi]

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.

How do you get false positives? If you were to implement such a measure, wouldn't it basically boil down to checking if some files were altered?

 

[Messofanego]

As charlequin said, I feel it's really, really risky to put these quirks in your game and not make it obvious that this is not an accidental error / bug.

In the example posted on the OP, I feel it would be better for a message to appear on the elevator doors after it stops, informing the player of what is going on. The message would say something like "Enjoying the game? Great! How about buying it?" Not only would that help drive the point home and not risk a misunderstanding, but it would also hit harder at a point where the player is more susceptible.

The Game Tycoon example is an even bigger missed opportunity given how ingenious it is. It would have been amazing if the devs let you experience having your game pirated a few times then have a popup appears that says "Doesn't feel great to have your games pirated, does it?"

A message like this would be great:

"If you pirated this game, step no further."

*goes forward and steps into trap*

"You pirates are all the same, no patience. Could have just waited for a sale to fit your budget. Could've just ignored it if you weren't going to pay anyway. But nooooo had to pirate it. Good night and good luck."

 

[Saintguine]

Two questions:
1. Has someone beat the game with the unkillable scorpion monster unlocked?
2. Can you get the scorpiion in a legitimate copy, too? I mean, per choice,

To answer the second question.

 

[Basileus777]

A lot of this stuff is detailed in that Spyro: Year of the Dragon Gamasutra article earlier in the thread, but the idea is to delay the completion of a full crack of the game. Most of a game's sales are in the first weeks or months after release, so the longer a fully cracked version stays off the internet, the less impact piracy can have.

If a game fails to boot, the crackers know their job isn't done, and they'll keep trying to crack the game. If the game boots up and seems to work fine for a while, maybe they'll think they've got it finished and stop working until these later errors come in.

It also lets these early cracked copies serve as demos without giving away the entire product. Maybe some pirates that run into these measures will wind up converting so they can get the rest of the game.

It sounds really ineffective. Pirates probably just wait for the next crack. All of these measures are amusing to read about, but I doubt they do much good.

 

[M°°nblade]

As charlequin said, I feel it's really, really risky to put these quirks in your game and not make it obvious that this is not an accidental error / bug.

In the example posted on the OP, I feel it would be better for a message to appear on the elevator doors after it stops, informing the player of what is going on. The message would say something like "Enjoying the game? Great! How about buying it?" Not only would that help drive the point home and not risk a misunderstanding, but it would also hit harder at a point where the player is more susceptible.

No, the misunderstanding is the best part because this truly punishes the pirate by wasting his time.

Can you image a pirate shooting and jumping around in the elevator, trying every corner and every button to trigger the door to open, reloading his save game a coupe of times, then rebooting his PC, trying again and finally posting it on the boards to publicly expose himself as a pirate?

 

[Basileus777]

No, the misunderstanding is the best part because this truly punishes the pirate by wasting his time.

Can you image a pirate shooting and jumping around in the elevator, trying every corner and every button to trigger the door to open, reloading his save game a coupe of times, then rebooting his PC, trying again and finally posting it on the boards to publicly expose himself as a pirate?

And then they download the latest crack and still get the full game for free.

 

[CadetMahoney]

Pirates once again get more content than the average user, especially since pirates will find a way to circumvent this.

legit

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

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

It blows my mind that people lack this level of self-awareness. Shouldn't the irony be flat out punching you in the temple before you click submit on these kinds of messages?

 

[Yoshi]

To answer the second question.

So the answer is no ? They should have added an option via cheat code, released after the measure became known.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

It sounds really ineffective. Pirates probably just wait for the next crack. All of these measures are amusing to read about, but I doubt they do much good.

They posted their description and reasoning on Gamasutra, and that's the point: since its a kids game, and it's during the holidays, the goal was just to delay the crack as long as they can.

When you ship a product with no way to update, the best you can do is to place as many traps to delay the Pirates out as long as they can. You cannot fully stop a pirate who has your final product from reverse engineering it.

 

[M°°nblade]

And then they download the latest crack and still get the full game for free.

Everything can be circumvented, that doesn't mean making a pirate's life harder is useless as it dissuades them.

The point is that it's more fun to let the pirates search and slowly find out what the problem is instead of prompting a message 'We know you're using a pirated copy, so now please find or wait for a crack as well'.

 

[Raphael]

I love it when devs do that.
Still remember when A FRIEND WHO IS NOT ME pirated....I think it was the Settlers 2 and my I mean his Quarry produced pigs instead of iron.

Settlers 3 and it was genious, as it was decently far in.

 

[AndyMoogle]

Could SNES games even fit on a floppy?

You could have a game on more than one floppy. You had to start with loading the ROM into the RAM of the copier.

 

[Hasney]

Wholey shit!! I played this game at a friend's house when I was a kid and I really liked it. I never knew what it was called and I've thought about it every now and then for the past almost 20 years and wondered what game it was. Now I know what it was!! Thank you! Now if only I could somehow get my hands on it.

Well don't pirate it or you'll get that screen!!

 

[Soph]

Wholey shit!! I played this game at a friend's house when I was a kid and I really liked it. I never knew what it was called and I've thought about it every now and then for the past almost 20 years and wondered what game it was. Now I know what it was!! Thank you! Now if only I could somehow get my hands on it.

I heard it's available on quite a few emu and torrent sites... oh... wait ^_^.

I love these things the devs put in to prevent pirating of their games, it's far better than Uplay, or Origin always online DRM that was really popular a year or two ago, people with bad internet connections had a hard time to keep playing back then.

I don't support people on this forum using personal attacks on pirates though, they are people as well. Some of them don't even know it's wrong to pirate, while others don't have the same amount of access to games they want to play, since they are only available in other countries. Then some people just don't live in a country where it's feasable to buy different games for full prices, in Serbia for example prices of games are highly bloated, and they gain way less money for a full time job each month.

Don't these people deserve to play these games as well? Don't they deserve the same amount of fun you get out of these games? Not everyone is lucky to be born in a first world country, it wasn't even their choice. I've been an avid pirate myself, mostly for movies and music, and mostly due to acces issues. I had the luck to be born in a first world country though, so most of the media I wanted to consume I could buy. Other's just aren't this lucky, so stop the ridiculous demeaning and insulting behavior.. It's not very well thought out.

 

[CouchMaster]

I think it was Far Cry 4? I didn't read in to it, but I think I remember it having some graphical error.

The only problem was they did it by releasing a day one patch for 'legit' customers, so when people got the game early (but didn't pirate), it still happened.

FC4 pirated version had no FoV slider, it was added in the day 1 patch. Once people realized this they stopped asking about where is the FoV slider lol

 

[Steel]

My favorite anti-piracy method is still the gun that shoots chickens from Crysis.

Wait, what? That sounds awesome.

 

[NickWright]

Hahah, it's great to see such original ways to punish piracy. My favorite anti-piracy measure until now was that Michael Jackson dance game that changed all songs to vuvuzelas. Glorious.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-jarvulRFEM

 

[Xpliskin]

Amazing. I wonder how long these last.

 

[immortal-joe]

No, the misunderstanding is the best part because this truly punishes the pirate by wasting his time.

Can you image a pirate shooting and jumping around in the elevator, trying every corner and every button to trigger the door to open, reloading his save game a coupe of times, then rebooting his PC, trying again and finally posting it on the boards to publicly expose himself as a pirate?

The problem is if he never reaches that stage, and just walks away thinking he just played a broken game. I get the humor in all of this, I really do, but I think sending the right message clearly should be the priority.

 

[KojiKnight]

A message like this would be great:

"If you pirated this game, step no further."

*goes forward and steps into trap*

"You pirates are all the same, no patience. Could have just waited for a sale to fit your budget. Could've just ignored it if you weren't going to pay anyway. But nooooo had to pirate it. Good night and good luck."

Part of the reason there is no message is because the sooner pirates figure out that a game isn't buggy, but laced with anti-piracy the sooner a true counter measure is found. The sooner a counter measure is out, the more potential damage is done to sales since games are most often pirated the first few days/weeks of release.

And lets not kid ourselves, the public shaming is a big part of this as well...

 

[Messofanego]

Part of the reason there is no message is because the sooner pirates figure out that a game isn't buggy, but laced with anti-piracy the sooner a true counter measure is found. The sooner a counter measure is out, the more potential damage is done to sales since games are most often pirated the first few days/weeks of release.

And lets not kid ourselves, the public shaming is a big part of this as well...

That's a good point!

 

[OnPoint]

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

So long as the dev responds quickly it shouldn't be a problem. Unless you mean the people pirating it won't buy it? But then I don't think they were going to anyway.

 

[M°°nblade]

The problem is if he never reaches that stage, and just walks away thinking he just played a broken game. I get the humor in all of this, I really do, but I think sending the right message clearly should be the priority.

Yes, that's possible but it's not like a consumer was lost here since he never bought the game in the first place. It's also more likely that the pirate thinks his cracked version is broken rather than the game suffering from bugs.

And whatever 'I found a bug' message he'll try to bring to the boards will be received by laughter instead of a negative perception about the game.

 

[MadClacker]

Wholey shit!! I played this game at a friend's house when I was a kid and I really liked it. I never knew what it was called and I've thought about it every now and then for the past almost 20 years and wondered what game it was. Now I know what it was!! Thank you! Now if only I could somehow get my hands on it.

It was a great game! the overworld map screen had some 70's porn music. In fact, the soundtrack in general was pretty good. There wants to be a Puggsy remake/sequel. For the record, you CAN bypass the DRM, allowing you to play the full game on an emulator (providing you own the original cartridge of course!) but only one emulator allows the option to do so.

 

[stan423321]

Not sure if anyone is familiar with the puzzle platformer game 'Puggsy' from Travellers Tales back in 1993. I had it for the MegaDrive. Pretty great game! Anyway, playing it on an emulator will work fine for the first few levels, then you're greeted with this:

Amazing, considering the year it was released. Not quite sure how this would have been triggered back in the day. Either way, cool!

Yeah, it's mentioned in a manual of one Genny emulator. It basically does the same thing Earthbound does, except slightly simpler. A genuine cartridge of Puggsy has no save chip, emulators and copiers put one in by default. So they checked if the save chip works, and if it does, then it's an imperfect copy. You can simply disable it in most emulators right now.

 

[kiguel182]

The game dev tycoon anti-piracy measure it's still the best.

It's probably the only one that makes pirates suffer and think about the effects of piracy. It's really well executed.

It's amazing how people posting about it didn't realize what was happening. It's hilarious to read those posts.

 

[The Lamonster]

This is hilarious. Don't pirate games.

 

[Eternal Gamer]

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

This is my favorite, the sweet irony of seeing pirates asking for DRM.

 

[Ultratech]

\
That's quite amazing. So if for example I tried to play it on an emulator would these checks kick in? (For the record I'm not actually going to, my backlog is huge enough as it is. Just genuinely curious).

Most SNES emulators these days are able to emulate an actual SNES system pretty well (as well as most other emulators save a rare few), so if you do run into Anti-Piracy stuff, it's usually because you got a bad ROM.
(On top of which, many ROMs are modified to bypass said checks.)

A fair number of DS games had all sorts of fun Anti-Piracy checks (as piracy was quite rampant), such as Dragon Quest V and Chrono Trigger.
The Pokemon games usually had some where you wouldn't gain EXP or let you progress through certain events.
Soma Bringer had one where it would detect save data size/type when you boot the game and block progress if it wasn't right.
SMT: Strange Journey had a few where the game would freeze/lock up if its checks failed at certain points. (Not to mentioned distorted graphics/music.)

 

[fluffydelusions]

This is hilarious

 

[Brannon]

...


...


...I want an immortal scorpion mode in Dark Souls.

It doesn't even have to shoot bullets; just chase you and clip you with its claws and poison/toxic you with its stinger. This is never going to happen and I have saddened myself for even bringing it up.

 

[JSoup]

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.

Titan Quest.
Edit: Should have kept reading, others called it before me.