End of PC Piracy ?

Maximilian

RedXIV wrote: »

I never pretended to be any other way! in fact i shall take it as a compliment!

I had a feeling you would say that

Trode

Branoic wrote: »

What would happen if your machine went tits-up and you needed to get a new one? Would you not be able to play games you had to re-install on the new machine?

No you wouldn't, but to be fair most modern DRM/anti-piracy measures have that result, or are aiming to.

This is no worse than others in that regard, but that doesn't mean it's in any way an acceptable or forgivable position.

User45701

The way to end piracy would be instead off mass producting games have each one slighty different in some way, like when they send out movies/tv shows to screeners/reviews, each one gets a slightly different copy that all look alike but each one would have one slightly altered frame so the studio knows who leaked it.

Games should be the same buying a game or other licenced software should require you register your name and address and each copy should be different that way you know who has leaked/hacked the product and they can be punished. (to really make it hurt it should be the full retail price x by the number of people who downloaded the product)

It would also create empoyment because they would need to hire people to keep track of all these records

Shiminay

...and push the price way up cause they have to pay for the infrastructure to support this and the wages of the employees who do the work...

Balfa

...and then the movie studios and game publishers will be two more groups of people with a Big Database Of Everyone.

No thanks.

Placebo

Require online registration upon installation, to play offline.
everyones got the net, if no net, get game shop to register.

Maximilian

User45701 wrote: »

The way to end piracy would be instead off mass producting games have each one slighty different in some way, like when they send out movies/tv shows to screeners/reviews, each one gets a slightly different copy that all look alike but each one would have one slightly altered frame so the studio knows who leaked it.

Games should be the same buying a game or other licenced software should require you register your name and address and each copy should be different that way you know who has leaked/hacked the product and they can be punished. (to really make it hurt it should be the full retail price x by the number of people who downloaded the product)

It would also create empoyment because they would need to hire people to keep track of all these records

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."

Dinner

Placebo wrote: »

Require online registration upon installation, to play offline.
everyones got the net, if no net, get game shop to register.

You mean like Bioshock with SecuROM which did nothing but piss people off?
Oh, and it was cracked.

And no doubt when Spore and Mass Effect are released their even more ridiculous anti-piracy measures will no doubt be cracked too.

User45701

Kharn wrote: »

...and push the price way up cause they have to pay for the infrastructure to support this and the wages of the employees who do the work...

actually retails have a high margin to cover them for things, the margin they have would in most cases would be able to afford double the staff and thats not including any rebates they get from the game companes for hitting their targets

Peanut

Smellyirishman wrote: »

Personally, I hope it works. I'm doubtful that it will in the long run but piracy is slowing down an industry I love.

I don't know if it's really slowing it down... copyright infringement has always been around in one form or another, you can argue that it's easier now due to the internet and things like that, but the converse of that is that gaming is a much bigger industry now than it was 10-15 years ago.

Smellyirishman

Peanut wrote: »

I don't know if it's really slowing it down...

The PC industry most definitely is and plenty of Dev studios have cited piracy as the reason for it.

Peanut

Well it's an easy scapegoat, I don't find it very convincing though.

You could draw comparisions to the music industry, there are a myriad of reasons why sales may decrease over a given period, and copying may be one of them, but I think its effect is always overstated by publishers, and regardless there will always be a market for good content.

tramoredude

Copy Protection schemes will always be broken, because for every clever developer writing the copy protection there are 100 cleverer nerds hard at work trying to break the protection. There will never be a 100% bullet proof copy protection...

Even expensive audio editing suites like Cubase and ProTools that required a proprietery physical USB stick attached for the software to operate were cracked eventually with a program that could emulate the presence of the USB stick....

The only way to combat piracy, is to implement a worth-while online aspect.... Multiplayer games cannot be cracked as they need to connect to a server to play and dodgy serials are blacklisted (COD4 was an exception here but i dunno how the hell they messed up?! )

Steam is probably the best anti pircay system around at the minute, Steam makes it EASIER to buy the game than it is to pirate it, add great prices and the Steam Community aspect and it rocks...

Maybe stop selling hard copies And have each download specific to the customer so that they have to log in to their own copy of the game...

Or do what 3dBuzz.com do, if you buy video tutorials from them, your Name, Address and CC details are encoded into the video, I have never, EVER seen a 3dBuzz video on a torrent site... So, Buy games online, you download it, it works for 10 days, then your serial number arrives in the post, in order to continue playing, you enter your serial and you are never bothered buy online activation again..... If your serial number ends up online, you get a lawsuit.

/rant

P.s Excuse spelling, this firefox has no spellcheck?!

x in the city

hackers will just get clone copies of this so called chip and work around the code to by pass this.

nowadays hackers are quite a creative bunch and I dont think a 'special' chip would have them worrying too much.

next.......!

BeciMester

tramoredude wrote: »

So, Buy games online, you download it, it works for 10 days, then your serial number arrives in the post, in order to continue playing, you enter your serial and you are never bothered buy online activation again..... If your serial number ends up online, you get a lawsuit.

Back to the publisher having giant databases about people. Also, seeing that nowadays game makers mostly concentrate on pretty visuals/sound and neglect content/gameplay (respect to the rare exception), you'd probably beat the damn game by the time your serial arrives.

Overheal

Because you know, NOBODY would think to emulate the chip. The same way we can emulate a disk drive. Or a Games Console. Can't be done. Nope. Never. Just shoot yourselves.

RoosterIllusion

Jack Sheehan wrote: »

Uncrackable? Blu Ray anyone?

I'd broaden that to: "Uncrackable? Anything copy protection in the last 15 years anyone?"

Overheal

Yep. Even SecuROM has its holes.

Placebo wrote: »

Require online registration upon installation, to play offline.
everyones got the net, if no net, get game shop to register.

Yes, Lets just unplug and haul our 15kg gaming rigs into blanchardstown and hope it doesnt get purse-snatched by some pack of skangers.

Online Registration to play offline was exactly what SecuROM attempted to do, and despite its Cost Effective forecasts, I'm sure its been a collosal failure thanks in no small part to negative press, much less piracy.

Nehaxak

The actual final ASM code once disassembled and using a simple hex editor, will still fall victim to the pass/no pass simplistic crack method, the hardest part is actually finding that (or those) lines of code.
Regardless of encryption et all, it will matter little once the lines of code have been sniffed out.

However, it'll still be much easier in the longrun for a cracker to write an emulator for the chip itself or failing that, someone to send it off to China to be pulled apart and eventually cloned, probably improved and more than likely be cracked and popped on a USB drive then sold online for 20 dollars.

Sherifu

Gotta love the Chinese. And the Russians.

Nick_oliveri

http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

^^ I endorse this article/rant.

the_syco

MooseJam wrote: »

"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem," he continued.

LOL @ bullsh|t. Protools needs an external USB key. It has been cracked. Sure, it took the lads 6 months to do, but that'd be one team. Something like this... a few teams may share code to bypass it.