Out of curiosity, what types of techniques do people use to prevent piracy?

Techniques that do not work. Period.

At the moment of speaking, there is not a game out there for the PC or PS that isn''t pirated. Ok, commercial games that professionals make, not counting newbie games that people like me make .

Where I live, man, everything is pirated. So that''s how I know.

Yes, he''s right what you want is not a 100% fullproof plan, but some major preventative measures. For example I believe with StarCraft you cannot play against another person unless they are using a different serial number than you and I believe battlenet will watch for multiple instances of the same serial number(s) logging on at the same time.

I''ve just been looking at this myself and have seen many different approaches, some of the best for there price range is serial numbers like the above formentioned scheme. You *can* do much better ways but it costs a lot to develop and costs a lot to implement and ends up putting a damper on sales so it''s not worth it from what I can see. But registration is usually pretty good.

See ya,
Ben

I remember the anti-piracy technique used in Civilization 1. Every now and then a message box would pop up and ask you a question. The answers to the questions were listed in the manual and if you answered wrong Civ would exit. Stupid way, it's so easy to just type the answers into a text file and then spread it on the internet or put it on the floppy disk along with a pirated version of Civilization.

I have yet to see an anti-piracy technique that really prevents piracy in a good way.

Edited by - Muzzafarath on July 31, 2000 5:03:30 PM

Correct me If I''m wrong but Q3A had a nice scheme. Since the game is suposed to be run on the internet, a Serial number is checked on the central servers from ID, so there can be only one instance of the number in play in the world at each time. (A bit like what was mentioned in Starcraft.)

Of course, I did heard that hacked servers that didn''t check with Id''s servers have been developed...

You know, I never wanted to be a programmer...

Alexandre Moura

Another method used to prevent copying, and this one is way out of the league of a game developer, is a hardware key. Big industrial programs that sell for tens of thousands of dollars would use this type of thing. It''s basically like a SecureID token, except it plugs into your machine and the software won''t run without it connected. If I''m not mistaken some versions of 3D Studio Max also had a hardware key...but nothing is 100% secure now is it...

(I think this is correct, but I could be talking outta my ass.)
Another way is to intentionally press the CD with bad sectors. Most CD buring software copies by reading from sector 0 to end, so when it hits a bad sector is stops. But the data takes this into account by jumping the bad sectors.

The StarCraft technique has also been defeated. God knows how they do it, but from what I''ve seen, they seem to hack the game''s .exe file and replace it with their own. Like say the original .exe is 200 kb, in order to run a pirated version of the game, all you need to do is replace the afore mentioned .exe with a "cracked" .exe (which is usually twice as large).

In my opinion, the only feasible way to reduce piracy is to lower the price of games. But then again, this would mean that people make less money and might even run at a loss. *Sigh*. Isn''t there ever an easy solution to life''s problems?

Just to point it out:

A freely available Starcraft server is available, allowing people to (ironically enough) host their own Starcraft games. Oh, and this server DOESN''T check for valid keys...

And as for bad sectors on CDs... There are programs (like Blind Read) that are able to get around that sort of thing.

I remember back in the days of the C=64, when developers would have damaged sectors on their 5 1/4''s. You''ld know when the drive hit''em too, because the poor drive would scream like a banshee! Plus, as an added "benifit", that copy protection would eventually throw the drive out of alignment.

Good luck trying to find an effective copy protection. I''ve yet to hear of any (for a single player experience, that is).


(a very pessimistic) C=64

p.s. check out www.gamecopyworld.com for a good discussion on some of the prevalent copy protection techniques.

I used to work with a guy whose job was to do this stuff. Apparently the bad sectors thing goes back to floppy disk games, they called it ''Flaky bits''.
I dont think its true to say its not worth bothering trying to copy protect, a good scheme will put off 90% of copyists. i know lots of people with copied games, but 90% fo them wouldnt copy them if it was just slightly harder.
What you HAVE to have is something that uniquely identifies a copy of the game. So when your install routine runs, let it generate a random number, and write it to the registry somehwere, or even drop a .txt file in the windows directory. when they register, your app extracts that number as their ID, and you provide them with a serial number thats a XOR of that ID with some unique value.
If they copy the game to a CD and give it to a chum, the regisrty key aint there, so the game wont run. if they give em the install program, the ID changes when it runs, and their reg key is valid.
If someone has to really reinstall a legit copy they can email you for a new key so you can keep track of em.

This aint a foolproof system , so dont bother flaming me with how easy it is to crack. Most people arent programmers,. Most people dont even know CTRL+C is copy for christs sake.
I say use a scheme as good as you can invent, and dont encourage piracy amongst people you know.



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