An end to backup game piracy finally?

[JayPatel]

Pure Genious?.......practical? crackable? who knows?

 

[konichiwa]

Seems impractical for two reasons:

1) The fees they will charge for that will most likely be outrageous because it's a third-party company.
1.5) I would bet that it's not all that easy to just slap that code into a game
And the most problematic...
2) Anything and everything will eventually be cracked by somebody.

 

[Passions]

Human nature always loves challenges. It will be broken.

 

[Killbat]

I didn't see anywhere in there exactly how they're going to detect if a game has been copied. It's pure bull at this point.

 

[DarK SagE]

konichiwa: Most current copy protections are developed by third party co's and then licensed by publishers.

However, i do agree that antying will eventually be cracked.

 

[Windogg]

Yea I remember every generation they have a "end to piracy solution" that ends up being bypassed. First it was those stupid code wheels and red sheets/ When CDs came along, people said that games would be too large to be copied. Then the handle CD burner and high speed data changed that.

Windogg

 

[loogie]

If the playstation had a reset button, I would say "The reset button is there for a reason." But it does not, so I'll just say:

The power button is there for a reason.

 

[Valhalla1]

thats got to be a hoax..

the game finds out its on a pirated cd, then slowly over time degrades the level of play? thats just stupid, if it found out it was on a pirated cd, it should just stop working, not slowly make the game no better than a demo

 

[konichiwa]

Yeah there's been several of these before. Some companies still use simple Overburning...some use other checks like SecuROM and CDilla, and if I recall, Playstation games have several bad sectors at the beginning of the CD which are CRC checked on boot-up. The way people do it is copy them with a 1:1 copier and use a modchip.

 

[DarK SagE]

I dont understand how the hell the thing can alter code tha has already been burned to the cd. That would meen that any changes made would not be permanent and thus useless.

 

[Emulex]

so a scratched cd might render a real game into a demo.. smart move dumba$$es. The tech support of this copy protection will yield more costs, lost revenue, and angry customers.

copy protection has always been a support nightmare.

 

[JayPatel]

i assuming since it has to do with psx it will do it thru saves on the memory card. this wont work on the PC as it can easily be cracked...however for those that dont download their illegal psx games and instead rely on self burning...it will work....for a while at least

 

[dcpsoguy]

This is will eventually be cracked, I can guarentee you. There are some great crackers out there that will eventually do something to break it. I hope they will find a way to protect the games;as far as Im concerned, the more games copied, the less money developers have on making their next game.

 

It will be cracked.
If its a computer code, it will be done.
Now when using online games it may present a different story.
If you logged on to registered server for a particular game.
It could check the parameters for the game installed on your machine.
So it would have more application as the markt moves to a all online enviroment.

 

[JayPatel]

well so far this seems to be console technology...it woudlnt fly on the pc...too easy to download a crack...for consoles...it just might work...

 

[Pretender]

Well, we've determined it cant write the code (which from now on we'll call the evil nullifying code) to the CD. Hence, it must be saving the evil nullifying code changes to the memory card. Unless the game is an RPG or something that requires saving in order to be fun, the ENC could just be bypassed by either not using a mem card or wiping it's data. And for those games which require saving, I'm sure someone can come up with a way to crack it, either in the form of a burnable cd which goes thru the memory card and removes any instances of ENC, some sort of mod-addon between the psx and the memory card itself, filtering out any bad ENCs, or some other similar device.


I wish they'd give up and realize: the general public will buy your games, the true nerds will crack the sh!t outta them. Give up, and cut your losses.

 

[N8Magic]

This is completely, and utterly bogus.

There is no way for them to implement this feature. You have to think, so the program realizes that it is on a burned CD. How does it do this? There has to be some identifying mark, or something on the CD, and all of these marks (subchannels, overburning) CAN be duplicated with the proper software and hardware.

Next, how does this program "degrade performance over time"? So I play a pirated copy of the game, and it remembers that I have played it 32 times? Where does it store this information? Memory Card? Nope. I removed it before I turned the machine on. System memory? Nope. It gets wiped when the machine gets turned off.

They are simply trying to spread misinformation, so that when some soccer hooligan plays his copy of the game and thinks he is getting beaten unfairly, he can moan "Augggh! Friggin shyte copy protection!" and throw his pirated copy in the garbage because he thinks its "degrading".

One more thing...

"preventative in putting off people who would purchase a pirate copy"

Waiiiiiiiiit a second. Who actually PAYS for pirated software. Kind of defeats the point of piracy in the first place huh?

Nice try Codemasters. Don't let the door hit you on the a$$ on the way out.

 

[konichiwa]

It could save it onto the system's internal RAM. The Dreamcast does this with Phantasy Star Online -- the video game actually has a serial number, and when you go online to play it checks your serial number. The first time you put the disc in you have to enter the SN and a Check Key (sorta like CDRWin) and it puts it in the RAM. You can only remove it by wiping the RAM.

 

[N8Magic]

Well then.... I guess we'll have to invent a RAM wiping proggy then, won't we? :Q

 

[piku]

This is what they are most likely doing: The game checks to see if it is a burned copy (how I have no clue - this is the hardest part ). If it is then the game just runs a piece of code where the stats of your team goes down 5 points every minute, or something similar. Then when you turn the PSX off and on again it goes back to normal, but it will just start counting down again.

How they could detect is another issue however. Plus, im sure pirates could just apply a patch to make the CD read that it is always a good copy.

 

[Mule]

<< Even if a pirate cracks this system and makes illegal copies, the people who may use pirate CDs won t trust it to run properly and hopefully buy the full copy of the game at retail. >>



Doubtful

 

[Pretender]

But does the PSX have a persistant, internal RAM that could fit the data?

As for the detecting thing - there are proggies for windows that can detect CD types - manufacturer, physical data about the cd (type of dye used, etc), and other stuff. I'm not sure if the program is compatible with all cd readers, but if it works with the PSX's cd reader, this would probably be how they'd do it.

 

[ForeverSilky]

If console makers want to prevent piracy just do what Nintendo does: create your own size game cd with it's own proprietary compression scheme.

 

[Pretender]

I've figured out how this works now.



This article, in it's entirety, is the scheme itself.
Rumors like this spread somewhat quickly, depending on how much attention it gets. The more people who see that article, the more people they tell, and so on until everyone knows about it.
Then, as people begin to play their PSX games and do badly, they start to think that maybe the copy protection thing might be in their game (rumors never spread accurately over time - hell, if the article said this wasn't going to be put in until 2004, half the people would probably never even find that part out), and they go out and buy the originals.


And, of cource, if they ever do manage to get their actual copy protection algorithm working, that might help also

 

[edblor]

Hey,

Why degrade over time with shyte like your &quot;Teams' performance gets worse and worse&quot;. Why not just ...like...NOT frickin' work

gheesh...what are we stoopid...this is a hoax...and a poor one at that!!

Edblor

P.S. What is it intended to do, make the pirated s/w purchaser (in and of itseld a joke) pay for purchasing pirated s/w? Yeah..right!!!