Be Excellent To Each Other

So, imagine you are a new startup, about to release your first game onto the world. What do you do? Do you invest in building DRM into it? Do you use serial codes? Do you release and hope nobody pirates it?

Or, if your game is a game about building games, do you build a version of it that means the game will always end badly due to simulated software piracy in the game itself, then release that as a cracked version to the world and see what happens

http://www.greenheartgames.com.nyud.net ... of-piracy/

Pah, new topics people, new topics. We won't run out of new topic credits anytime soon

I like what they've done. will it make a difference? I think not, but then, I don't tend to pirate games.

Is there really no way to stop people cracking a game? or is it just that its difficult and time consuming or something?

You make a closed platform that is always online. Like Xbox, iOS..

Or SimCi... no, wait.

well I kind of meant stuff that's not that.

Neither of those is always online and piracy exists for both of them.

As mentioned elsewhere, I think it's a lovely idea, but a bit rich coming from a blatant rip-off of Game Dev Story.

Was it Operation Flashpoint that made the game impossible for pirates?

I remember getting booted out of the original Unreal at a specific on a pirated copy. Years later, I bought it on budget.

THE SYSTEM WORKS!

Yes, I must have played that fucker for about an hour before I gave up. As soon as I spawned I'd move forwards a few feet and then get one shot killed by some invisible enemy.

I wonder what the rationalisation behind those schemes would be. Surely you wouldn't want potential buyers to think your game is shit?

If they pirated it, would they be buying it?

Also, it's pretty funny.

Of course if they did this with SimCity, they'd release the pirate version to retail and vice versa, then claim it was always a planned gameplay aspect and I'd have wasted £78m on an unplayable game.

I like to think that at least some piracy is about testing the game before buying. Even if not, rumours about shittiness spread, just like rumours would spread if the game is amazing. I just think piracy could at least be exploited to show the world how great your game is.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but it seems more like an excellent marketing strategy.

Would we have ever heard of the game without it?

My favourite story like this - which wasn't the developers own doing, but still - is with Deus Ex.

When it originally came out, one of the cracking groups ripped the game and made it available for download. The done thing back then was to strip out repeated assets, soundtracks etc. and things to make the download smaller, rather than just putting up a full ISO.

I think they accidentally removed one of the models or textures for a boat that appeared at the end of the first level and was the trigger for moving past the first level, so pirates literally couldn't go further than the docks.

Interestingly, people who loved the "real" Operation Flashpoint (like me) also got the pirate copy and treated it as 'hard mode'. Getting to the final level on a pirated copy proved you were fucking awesome at the game.