Copyright Catches Crooks

[Stringent]

Wow interesting read!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8256405.stm

[kalniel]

This has been going on for years.. clever PR by Eidos to make a thing of it. We didn't get the same coverage for TDU though

[Stringent]

I just found it funny. lol

Batman is an brilliant game, worth the £40 I paid for it for my PS3.

I hadn't heard of another publisher doing something like this!

[GheeTsar]

Well this story made me laugh anyway:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8256405.stm

Video games developer Eidos have come up with a novel way of catching users playing pirated copies of their game.

Players using illegal copies of Batman: Arkham Asylum have found that essential control functions in the game have been disabled, rendering it unplayable.

One user complained on the Eidos forum that there was a bug in the code, only to be told by the administrator that they had "a bug in your moral code".

The PC version of the stealth action adventure goes on sale later this week.

Players attempting to use the glide function within the game will find it disabled in pirated versions, resulting in the Batman character coming to an untimely end.

The protection system came to light when a user complained on the Eidos support forum saying:

"When I...jump from one platform to another, Batman tries to open his wings again and again instead of gliding."

An Eidos community manager replied, saying the user had encountered "a hook" in the copy protection system, designed 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," he added.

While Eidos did not want to spell out the mechanics of the copyright protection system, they did say that it was in place to deter hackers, although the fact the game is not yet on sale made this particular case of piracy somewhat obvious.

[kalniel]

You're not the only one:

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-gaming...es-crooks.html

[GheeTsar]

You're not the only one:

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-gaming...es-crooks.html

D'oh!

[funke_munke]

It's been done before. Didn't one of the Elder Scrolls games use a similar thing? I forget. But anyway... It is quite funny but a quick bit of scouting suggests that it has since been cracked anyway!

[Saracen]

Wow interesting read!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8256405.stm

Now that is copy protection I can thoroughly support and appreciate .... provided it doesn't involve the usual activation process via online servers, etc.

If they've found a way to make copy protection work without causing a level of inconvenience to me, as a legit buyer, that I'm not prepared to put up with, then I might even go back to buying games.

Of course, I don't yet know what their method of activating legit users is. If it still relies on the availability of activation servers to install (or reinstall) then I'm still boycotting.

[badass]

I love this. Pirating software is one thing, but wasting support time for something you haven't even paid for is completely taking the mick.

[oolon]

Games often have shallow hooks and deep ones, not all triggered the same way, crackers will take out the shallow hooks as they are easy to spot and release the software. However other ones produces tagged saved games which trigger a deeper hooks, so someone getting illegal versions of the program would have to start all again! X2 had a hook that lost you money each gate you went through.

[Rob_B]

Didn't Operation Flashpoint have this? Controls got gradually worse as you played on & shots went madly off target, I only know as my (legit) copy started doing it for some random reason one day.

[Lowe]

Didn't Operation Flashpoint have this? Controls got gradually worse as you played on & shots went madly off target, I only know as my (legit) copy started doing it for some random reason one day.

Yup, all of Bohemia's games have that - it's called FADE.

[Behemoth]

Now that is copy protection I can thoroughly support and appreciate .... provided it doesn't involve the usual activation process via online servers, etc.

If they've found a way to make copy protection work without causing a level of inconvenience to me, as a legit buyer, that I'm not prepared to put up with, then I might even go back to buying games.

Of course, I don't yet know what their method of activating legit users is. If it still relies on the availability of activation servers to install (or reinstall) then I'm still boycotting.

I agree with you there, I had to bin my copy of NFS Under Cover the other day because according to EA I'd installed and activated it too many times. When I phoned up to see if there was anything they could do, and even when I e-mailed them they gave me a flat no saying I had to buy a new copy !!!

Ok it's not that great a game anyway, but I payed money for it only to throw it in the bin because I've re-installed the game a few too many times.

It does make me wonder if they have done the same thing with Need For Speed Shift, if they have I shan't be buying it, which is a pitty because I was looking forward to that this week.

[Saracen]

I agree with you there, I had to bin my copy of NFS Under Cover the other day because according to EA I'd installed and activated it too many times. When I phoned up to see if there was anything they could do, and even when I e-mailed them they gave me a flat no saying I had to buy a new copy !!!

Ok it's not that great a game anyway, but I payed money for it only to throw it in the bin because I've re-installed the game a few too many times.

It does make me wonder if they have done the same thing with Need For Speed Shift, if they have I shan't be buying it, which is a pitty because I was looking forward to that this week.

That's one of my objections.

I'm regularly rebuilding some machines. It might be to accommodate new hardware, or it might be to test something, or it might be to flush the garbage out of Windows and the registry.

If I buy a game, I expect to be able to re-install it when I do that. Some games I go back to after a gap even of years, just because I fancy a go. It might only be on the machine for a week or two.

But ... I bought it, paid good money for it and I expect, as a legit user, to be able to install it on MY machine whenever I damn well want, without having to go cap in hand for permission. And the same applies to activation servers and restricted activations. I might have to put up with that for an OS, and maybe even for a very small number of essential apps, but I emphatically don't have to, and won't, for a game.

So unless I'm convinced a game won't muck me about like that, then these days, I won't buy it .... and in recent years, that means I just don't buy PC games, because I can't be bothered to work out which use intrusive DRM and which don't. If enough people did this, companies would stop using such DRM .... but unfortunately, I'm not expecting enough people to do it to hurt.

Which leads me to the conclusion that my PC gaming days, at least with new games, are over .... and that's why this sort of copy protection delights me if it isn't accompanied by intrusive DRM and install restrictions as well.

I'll be delighted if they've come up with a 100% effective way of stopping piracy, provided it means I can install and use legit games without jumping through DRM hoops, because I just won't. And if that means no more new games for me, well it's a shame (after nearly 30 years of buying computer games, the first ones being Apple II games in the late '70s), but so be it.

[oolon]

If I buy a game, I expect to be able to re-install it when I do that. Some games I go back to after a gap even of years, just because I fancy a go. It might only be on the machine for a week or two.

One of the things I like about egosoft (the makers of the X series of games), after a while they supply a no-cd patch for registered users. So you can keep on using them even if the copy protection system has problems with newer machines.

[Behemoth]

That's one of my objections.

I'm regularly rebuilding some machines. It might be to accommodate new hardware, or it might be to test something, or it might be to flush the garbage out of Windows and the registry.

If I buy a game, I expect to be able to re-install it when I do that. Some games I go back to after a gap even of years, just because I fancy a go. It might only be on the machine for a week or two.

But ... I bought it, paid good money for it and I expect, as a legit user, to be able to install it on MY machine whenever I damn well want, without having to go cap in hand for permission. And the same applies to activation servers and restricted activations. I might have to put up with that for an OS, and maybe even for a very small number of essential apps, but I emphatically don't have to, and won't, for a game.

So unless I'm convinced a game won't muck me about like that, then these days, I won't buy it .... and in recent years, that means I just don't buy PC games, because I can't be bothered to work out which use intrusive DRM and which don't. If enough people did this, companies would stop using such DRM .... but unfortunately, I'm not expecting enough people to do it to hurt.

Which leads me to the conclusion that my PC gaming days, at least with new games, are over .... and that's why this sort of copy protection delights me if it isn't accompanied by intrusive DRM and install restrictions as well.

I'll be delighted if they've come up with a 100% effective way of stopping piracy, provided it means I can install and use legit games without jumping through DRM hoops, because I just won't. And if that means no more new games for me, well it's a shame (after nearly 30 years of buying computer games, the first ones being Apple II games in the late '70s), but so be it.

I've been buying PC games since I was 12, and I'm talking about the DOS days when the only kind of copy protection was having to enter a word from the manual. I remember the original Xwing game would ask for a phrase of words that coresponded with the symbols it asked for.

I'll admit, it was a pain, BUT it wasn't intrusive. These days its all about screw the PC gamer over, which I think is why many people are saying hold on, this doesn't happen in Console land and so off they go to xbox and PS3.

Yes I agree there is still DRM there to some extent, BUT they're games don't have to be activated online first before playing to see if it was a legit purchase or not, so why do us PC gamers have to suffer when console gamers don't ?

It's because I don't have any space for a decent size TV in my room with a 360 I'd have ditched the PC and would have a laptop and the 360. the other problem with the 360 for me is, I HATE the controllers for FPS games, it's not natural and a right pain in the rear for games like COD4 and TF2 etc so I stick with my PC where I buy all my games (unlike I used to years ago when I was out of work but thats another story and not condoned here) and have to suffer the hardships of DRM and I think to myself, what on this earth did I do to have to go through this ?

Another prime example is GTA IV, you install it, well it installs the 'RockStar Social Club' first, which in my opnion is a complete waste of hard drive space, then when thats in and the game content installed it then goes and checks for a valid key, and then checks to see if the game has been installed before or after release date. Then just to rub salt into the wounds you have to sign up for games for windows live if you want to save your games

This is also another game for me that I can't play on controllers, I know thats my problem but just feel that us PC gamers are made out to be the villans when piracy on other formats is just as bad.