This might prove of interest to some people. It also has the mod's blessing.
Despite having been released for a month now Alone in the Dark PC is still uncracked. This isn't entirely down to the protection being super-sophisticated (although it is far more complex than most protections) but to a number of factors. Aitd uses the same protection as Mass Effect and Bioshock, where you have to log into a server to authenticate your CD key.
The scene groups who make the cracks for all these games have been in decline for a while now. The main focus is getting as many clean cracks as possible, with a nuked release seen as a major hit to their "rep". This is why they would much rather crack some no-name puzzle game that uses simple protection than a major release with something more advanced. The scene groups are also rife with infighting and spats between each other.
Contrary to popular belief the "challenge" doesn't really enter into it when it come to mainstream piracy. These groups have been cracking the same copy protections with the same methods for a while now, and just the simple fact that a protection being new even if it's not any more advanced is enough to throw them. These guys do it solely for the egostroking of being at the top of a piracy group and having thousands of people read their name when they download a crack.
This isn't due to a lack of demand despite Aitd's poor reviews. as I said the groups crack any and every game, including thousands of cheap shovelware games that you will never have heard of and don't even warrant a listing on most gaming media sites. Previously cracked games with this protection still had major problems that rendered the game practically useless, which is why groups are shying away from this one because they don't want to tarnish their reps by releasing a bad crack.
a lot of sites that archive game cracks do so under the cover of saying you should only crack a game you own in order to make it more convenient by not having to use the disc, etc. they will not host cracks that have CD-key elements as that's only for people who don't own a legitimate copy, which means there is a lack of support for groups that try and crack games with this protection.
Also there's a fake rumour going round that the scene groups all agreed to "spare" Atari from their incredible influence by not cracking it due to the company going belly up. Aside from the obvious reasons this is false such as them cracking plenty of indie games that were devs' sole means of income, Aitd being on 5 different platforms so PC doesn't matter so much, etc, the scene groups would no way be able to all agree on the same thing. Like I said, they're always at each other's throats.
This is the longest a major release has gone without a crack (Splinter Cell 2 doesn't count). A combination of the copy protection's complexity and the scene groups lacking the skill to crack something completely from scratch seems to be responsible. So it would appear the Bioshock DRM everyone was complaining about is here to stay :-/
Despite having been released for a month now Alone in the Dark PC is still uncracked. This isn't entirely down to the protection being super-sophisticated (although it is far more complex than most protections) but to a number of factors. Aitd uses the same protection as Mass Effect and Bioshock, where you have to log into a server to authenticate your CD key.
The scene groups who make the cracks for all these games have been in decline for a while now. The main focus is getting as many clean cracks as possible, with a nuked release seen as a major hit to their "rep". This is why they would much rather crack some no-name puzzle game that uses simple protection than a major release with something more advanced. The scene groups are also rife with infighting and spats between each other.
Contrary to popular belief the "challenge" doesn't really enter into it when it come to mainstream piracy. These groups have been cracking the same copy protections with the same methods for a while now, and just the simple fact that a protection being new even if it's not any more advanced is enough to throw them. These guys do it solely for the egostroking of being at the top of a piracy group and having thousands of people read their name when they download a crack.
This isn't due to a lack of demand despite Aitd's poor reviews. as I said the groups crack any and every game, including thousands of cheap shovelware games that you will never have heard of and don't even warrant a listing on most gaming media sites. Previously cracked games with this protection still had major problems that rendered the game practically useless, which is why groups are shying away from this one because they don't want to tarnish their reps by releasing a bad crack.
a lot of sites that archive game cracks do so under the cover of saying you should only crack a game you own in order to make it more convenient by not having to use the disc, etc. they will not host cracks that have CD-key elements as that's only for people who don't own a legitimate copy, which means there is a lack of support for groups that try and crack games with this protection.
Also there's a fake rumour going round that the scene groups all agreed to "spare" Atari from their incredible influence by not cracking it due to the company going belly up. Aside from the obvious reasons this is false such as them cracking plenty of indie games that were devs' sole means of income, Aitd being on 5 different platforms so PC doesn't matter so much, etc, the scene groups would no way be able to all agree on the same thing. Like I said, they're always at each other's throats.
This is the longest a major release has gone without a crack (Splinter Cell 2 doesn't count). A combination of the copy protection's complexity and the scene groups lacking the skill to crack something completely from scratch seems to be responsible. So it would appear the Bioshock DRM everyone was complaining about is here to stay :-/