Mass Effect and Spore PC piracy efforts

[Zeus]

Continuous revalidation: a big-ass pain but I GUESS it could work

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167711

Of course, I wonder how long it will take someone to hack that code....

[Imakeholesinu]

Continuous revalidation: a big-ass pain but I GUESS it could work

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167711

Of course, I wonder how long it will take someone to hack that code....

Sooner than you think probably. Since Pirates will work with legitimate buyers to disable this DRM infection.

[kali o.]

Usual case of punishing the legit buyers and not the pirates. You can bet it'll be cracked...

Or a purely hypothetical note, if that protection actually worked, you'd have to wonder which way the scales will tip financially...

a) Sales gained from otherwise would-be pirates

vs.

b) Sales lost from consumers who lack dedicated internet or put off by the requirement, errors/bugs caused by this new protection scheme (including authentication server issues) and consumer/critic backlash and word of mouth.

It'll be interesting.

[SineSwiper]

I could crack that myself easily.

keysite.blah.com 127.0.0.1

There. Now run a web server on my local PC.

[Shellie]

Im sure its that easy....

[Zeus]

Now we can see the desire to shift from PCs to consoles now that consoles have nearly caught up technologically

[SineSwiper]

And now BioWare backs down...

[Zeus]

These companies really need to understand that with an open format like a PC, piracy is just gonna be something they have to live with. At least until M$ finds a way to make the Games for Winblows platform a closed system

[Imakeholesinu]

These companies really need to understand that with an open format like a PC, piracy is just gonna be something they have to live with. At least until M$ finds a way to make the Games for Winblows platform a closed system

...which should be easier to do now that they developed the X-Box. They know how to do it, they just need to get the people behind it to actually pull it off.

[Don]

Short of emulated servers, MMORPG has proved that a server-based validation system is usually pretty effective at thwarting piracy.

Of course, just like there are hacked servers for most MMORPG out there, I expect one to show up here too if it's got popular enough to warrant doing so.

[SineSwiper]

Multiplayer games have a pretty good handle on piracy.

[Tessian]

Multiplayer games have a pretty good handle on piracy.

But that's because you HAVE to connect to something to play which is the perfect opportunity for validation. The issue arises in single player games where there's no need or reason for the game to connect to something else. What they tried to do here was make single player games validate like multiplayer games do and obviously no one's happy with that.

Consoles have the same problem-- technically you could mod the crap out of your Xbox and play all sorts of pirated games on it... the only catch is you have to Keep it offline. Microsoft doesn't care because not many people will bother to go to that link, and most of their games shine in multiplayer. A PC can be built to get around those issues to a degree, like Don mentions you could build and use a clone multiplayer environment instead.

There's no easy answer to protecting from piracy... I think the best solution so far has been what companies like Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilization II) do-- not a damn thing. Make it worth the person's while TO get validated or receive updates, but don't bother with things like Securom to hurt your actual customers.

[SineSwiper]

The topic of copy protection had been pretty moot and a non-issue for a better part of the 90's and 2000's. Gone are the days that you have to look at a manual for information, the concept of "phantom sectors", etc. Only recently have they renewed the quest for anti-piracy methods, and the results are again the same: People hate them, and it just a nuisance to legitimate buyers. (See how hard DRM failed?)

[Kupek]

DRM failed? I think you're jumping the gun.

[Zeus]

I have to go with Kupek on this one, Sine. Sure the DRM stuff using the DMCA in its original form is dead and they VERY wisely took the insane stuff that was planned out of Shitsa (no even allowing copied stuff on the comp? C'mon....), but they're still trying to incorporate the ideas in a more user-friendly way. This thing with Bioshock was a testing ground, kinda like the Sony copy-protected CDs back in the day that ruined cheap CD players (and could be bypassed with a magic marker ;-).

These companies will never rest 'til they find something and if M$ ever gets Games for Windows to mimic the 360 platform, you might see more stringent copy protected stuff there. I can easily see them with real-time authentication with unique, registered codes that require to be connected to the internet the very first time you install a norm.