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—, telling you how to acquire the code for piloting a spaceship When a player purchases a video game, how does the developer prevent them from simply making an illicit copy of the software and giving it away to a friend? Unlike physical merchandise (such as books), video games exist as electronic data, which is quite easy to make perfect copies of. This has been a concern for game makers even from the start, so throughout the years they've come up with a variety of ways to verify that whoever is playing their game has fronted the proper cash for that privilege. A few examples: • 'Key disc' method: The game prompts the user to insert their authentic installation or game disc, checking for some kind of identifying signature that they've carefully hidden in the disc format itself, in a way that would not (generally) be preserved when the player simply makes an electronic copy of the software code and files. • 'The Dongle': A variant of the 'Key Disc' method mostly found on professional and enterprise level software, although it's starting to see use in consumer games as well (e.g.

Steel Beasts Pro PE and the DJMax Trilogy). Software that uses this method will only run if said dongle (either USB or parallel port) is present, and presents an error message followed by immediately quitting if the dongle is absent. Another variant of this is that the software is tied down to a particular piece of hardware and will not run if the hardware is absent (e.g. Copies of Nero Burning ROM Professional bundled with certain CD writers). • Passphrase method: The game prompts a user to input a word or phrase from a specified page of, trusting that only legal owners have a copy of that. Another form is a 'code wheel': a set of physical cardboard or plastic wheels that have to be dialed to the specified settings (somewhat like a combination lock or a decoder ring) to reveal the answer that the game wants. • Puzzle method: As a more subtle, elaborate version of the above, the player encounters an in-game puzzle that is generally without supplementary clues and information included either in the game's manual or its.

• Activation: The software key is registered and paired with your computer's hardware somehow. On first install, information about your computer is sent back to the developers, and on subsequent installs the information is checked and you're blocked from proceeding if the information doesn't add up. Privacy concerns aside, this method is gaining ground on every single piece of software in the market, from Operating Systems (infamously, Windows' activation) to productivity (much of Adobe's, AutoDesk's and Microsoft's wares use it) to even consumer games (the download version of all of 's titles).

Unfortunately, all of the above methods are beatable (sometimes trivially), slightly intrusive on the end user, and if they malfunction they can even lock a legitimate player out of their own game. Instruction manuals can be photocopied (despite efforts to make this difficult) or just plain lost, physical game discs age and eventually go bad (making perfectly-legal archival/personal backup copies won't help if the game uses a key-disc method), and so on.

Sometimes, a method becomes viewed as so intrusive that the player may simply choose to avoid running the game at all. Or decide 'screw it' and download a cracked, pirate version, thus leading to the exact opposite of what the publisher intended. This has resulted in something of a vicious cycle between game publishers and unlicensed copying ('), where when one copy-protection system is cracked or beaten, the publisher must switch to (or create) another, stronger method, which is itself beaten (sometimes quickly), and so on.

Where does it end? In the early days, the physical game media itself (game cartridges, CD-ROM) was sufficient to ensure that it was a legal copy, on the grounds that the equipment to produce them was difficult (if not impossible) for the general public to obtain. This is no longer the case these days, especially with the Internet where it's fairly easy to find not just downloadable copies (legal or otherwise) of the software itself, but any and all of the pass phrases, manual clues, or the entire solution to a copy-protection puzzle. The Internet itself has brought the latest version of copy protection: Client-server verification, where the player is the 'client' and their legal right to play the game is recorded on a central server database. The server is the central authority on who is (and by extension, is not) allowed to play the game, and can easily verify this with any given client, either during the game's initial installation or first time startup, or sometimes every time the game is run. While this comes naturally to certain genres (i.e. ), it can be a problem for others; for example, even if the game doesn't have any online features, it may still refuse to run without an Internet connection or if the central servers are down.

It also has the issue of possibly leaving legitimate users with an unplayable legal copy if the parent company closes or decides to discontinue support on their end and hasn't planned for anyone else to take over. And again leading to vicious cycles, this can lead to instances where the protection is so restrictive to legitimate users that they might decide to pirate the game even when they intended to buy in the first place just to play a version that bypasses the whole thing.

See also and. • Infogrames' original series has this, and notably ratcheted it up in. Requires two objects from the game to be entered, which is already saying something given the large number of one-use clutter., however, is a bit more complex.

When you enter the first screen, it has a message something along the lines of 'Protection Ace of Hearts over Three of Clubs First Hole'. This can be disregarded, and if one tries to enter the hedge maze without inputting a code with the F keys, the game will say 'YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION' and smite you. It turns out the manual tells what the question is, and the game came with a number of hole-punched playing cards. Only by correctly laying the cards over each other and examining a hole can you figure out the required code to get on with it. • The DOS game features copy-protection in the form of a question whose answer you need to look up on a page in the manual in order to start playing. Not only does it give you the page of the manual and what number word it is, it also gives you the heading of that section of the manual and the first letter of the word. Unfortunately, one of the copy-protection questions uses an answer that ia directly related to the heading and extremely easy to guess: 'On page 19, under the heading Sound, enter the ninth word: (first letter is m)' (unsurprisingly, the answer is 'music').

If you answer the question wrong, it will simply let you try again with a different question as many times as you want, so even if you lost the manual it was easy to just cycle through the questions until you got one you knew or could figure out the answer to (not to mention having the first letter of the words made brute force guesswork much easier). • Interplay games also have this form of copy protection, albeit less forgiving (it only bluntly tells you to look at the manual page and word number, with no other hints, and you only get three tries before it drops you back to the DOS command prompt).

Interplay's DOS port of and are among the offenders. • In: • In the original game, the actual spells you cast use magic words that you have to type in, and are present only in the manual and never given in the game (you will see only the 'thematic' name of the spell in-game, not the magic word used to order your characters to cast it.) This makes playing the game without the manual extremely difficult. Most ports of the games make the spells selectable by menu, eliminating this issue. • Also in the original game, whenever you level up, the Review Board will ask you to name a street in the city. The map that came with the game has the streets misspelled - the Grand Plaza is labeled 'GRAN PLAZ', and Hawk Scabard is labeled 'HAWK SCABBARD'. You have to use the map's spelling to pass; if you don't have the map, you can never get past the first level.

• The third game of the trilogy, Thief Of Fate, has dimension-hopping as a crucial plot point. In order to travel from the main world to one of the seven other dimensions, the player has to not only cast the correct spell (see above), but then input the correct number from a three-layer card stock disc included with the game, similar to the Disney example given in this trope's description. • The PC game, The Crescent Hawks' Inception, has two series of copy protection: one early on in the game, when you have to look up (or memorize) different Battlemech components to continue training at the Academy in your ersatz, and one very near the end, where you have to look up some stuff on a star chart in order to get your father's Phoenix Hawk Land-Air Mech (AKA VF-1J Valkyrie, but that's another trope). Woe betide you if you lost the physical copy of the star chart.

• The games each shipped with a large tome: a copy of that year's World Almanac and Book of Facts, a history book or Fodor's guide, from which information can be requested. Several problems occurred with this: although it was intended to get kids interested in using an almanac, it wouldn't help if the book was lost at school, or if some schools used a newer edition of Fodor's (which meant that none of the hints corresponded to the correct pages, meaning going up in rank was impossible). • came with a map of Ancient Rome, necessary to answer the questions that pop up after running the game ('What is the capital in the province of [name]?' ) • In the first game, there are be two instances in the early parts of the game where you have to look up a in the manual: you are shown a picture of a random one, then given a large set of multiple-choice answers of which two advances are its direct prerequisites. (The in-game justification is that 'A usurper claims you are not the rightful king!' ) If you're wrong, you lose all the military units you had outside of your cities.

Ironically, all the advances are also documented in the in-game 'Civilopedia' (though it is, of course, inaccessible during the challenge), and even if you don't read that, the answers can often be worked out logically anyway. • Shattered Lands has your party accosted at the end of the first dungeon (the ) by the mental projection of a dragon, who wants to know the words on on a page in the manual. Failing will crash you out of the game. You are asked for a piece of information (the in-game justification is that a spy is on the loose, and everyone is being interrogated to prove their innocence) that you have to look up in the game's manual, such as 'What type of structure is this? [picture of a Wind Trap]' (answer: it's a Power Plant). • The old computer games by SSI require the use of the included a thick manual not only to log into the game ('In the manual section on page 45, paragraph 2, line 10 - what is word 6?'

), but also to understand the plot (you have to refer to the journal part). In a by the company for its Anniversary set, they included the spin wheels for some of the games' copy-protection, but forgot to put in the manuals for Gateway and Treasure of the Savage Frontier, rendering those two games unplayable. •, the first game of the series, requires you to answer questions about spells in the known Spellbook part of the manual before leaving the first dungeon. Later on, Bethesda allowed the game to be downloaded for free, and while they did not remove the copy protection, the official download includes all the required information in a text file.

• The Amiga game has you hunting for six keys hidden in the castle, and one is hidden in a dark passage, requiring you to have Elvira cook up 'Glowing Pride' to find it. However, you can't find any recipes inside the game; all of them are in the manual. In other words, you can play most of the game on a pirate version, but to complete it you need the original version. (At least, you did until was invented.) • In, opening the main building door and each of the studio doors requires a keypad code obtained via a code wheel. You need to line up three symbols or words and type in a code visible in the proper box..

• F/A-18 Hornet has you answer a question from its rather large flight manual before starting a mission. • F-19 Stealth Fighter: If you failed to identify the plane (from the manual) that the game shows you, the game forces you to go on a 'training mission' with preset equipment instead of allowing you to choose your mission, plane or ammunition. • Hired Guns for the Amiga. The programmer responsible summed it up best himself: 'One week I came up with a cunning plan.

I figured anyone who cracked the game would take out the manual protection, play the game a bit and leave it at that. ' • In, the copy protection feelie is the map through the obligatory maze. Qualcomm Hs Usb Qdloader 9008 Software here. Considering that the maze is pretty much instantly deadly if you don't do the right things in the right places, this got rather irritating when the map was invariably lost. Also, the comic book includes unguessable clues (such as what actions you have to take while splashing through the maze, and the key to a cipher message). • Several Level 9 games used a method called 'Lenslok'. Using a graphical pattern, a passphrase is rendered unreadable. A color filter provided with the game, similar to those in the Milton Bradley games, can be placed against the screen to render the text legible, but this fails with exceptionally small or large monitors (e.g.

Most monitors produced these days). • The game deserves special mention of its copy protection. Getting anywhere in the game requires you to log into an in-game computer; the necessary information is included with the.

However, while the password is clearly marked, the (and, to complicate matters, is not on the same page as the password). • At first glance, the computer game Master of Orion uses a simple 'What spaceship is this?'

Manual copy protection. However, if the game executable is modified to remove the protection altogether, the game will detect the alteration of its code and become so difficult as to be virtually unplayable! * This is due to the copy protection itself actually setting some key variables that are initialized to such absurd values, not unlike the Slylandro Probe and Starbase that attempts to convince players to go to the Starbase first.

• has always featured copy protection measures: • The NES has some rooms that can't be completed without the game manual, unless you use a bug to skip parts of the game. • uses at certain points in the game, and the Colonel will instruct you to look at the manual for information on how to interpret tap codes. This is a frequency you need to continue, and while brute-forcing it is possible, it's far more annoying than brute-forcing Meryl's frequency in the sequel due to the MSX's criminal slowdown and Snake's insistence on starting every conversation with 'THIS IS SOLID SNAKE. YOUR REPLY, PLEASE.' Even more annoyingly, the version included in (the first release of the game in English) doesn't come with tap codes in the manual. Konami eventually provided a downloadable online manual with the tap code chart in.

The European version of the Subsistence manual also omits the tap code chart, but does tell you the frequency, albeit without any context as to when it's required. • has a character, early in the game, who 'forgets' a vital communication frequency and mentions that 'it's on the back of the CD case,' referring to one of the images on the back of the game's plastic case. Gundam Seed Destiny Ost 3 Rat there. If you rented the game, moving beyond that point was impossible. Better yet, Snake has a CD case in his in-game inventory. Many, many gamers tried to figure out how they were supposed to look at the back of that case.

When they couldn't figure out the solution to the 'puzzle', they turned to. However, this ends up being negated when the player can still receive the frequency by contacting Campbell enough times - even though he still ends up telling you to check the non-existent case, the frequency ends up added to the list either way. The remake The Twin Snakes eliminates this altogether by having the character say that the code is on the back of 'the package', since there's no package item. The only other option for players is to hail every radio frequency in sequential order until they reach the correct one. • It's well worth mentioning that, although these serve as copy protection, it's entirely possible they were also added by to add more fourth wall shenanigans to the series, especially considering how non-chalantly Snake is told to check the back of the CD case. • comes with the spellbook the character uses in the game, which it makes you use to get through the challenges.

• is particularly sneaky, since it lets you play normally until halfway through the adventure, when suddenly a student pops up from nowhere and asks you questions about Japan. The answers can be found in the part of the manual dedicated to Japanese culture and geography. One can even think that the game is somewhat an exploration of a foreign culture, when actually it's.

• includes some copy protection near the very end of the game. Your mission is to detonate a nuclear device at the bottom of an ancient temple that will bury an in debris for a few thousand years. When you can finally arm the device, it asks for a launch code - which can only be found in the manual containing your briefing. Future distributions of the game leave this part out.

But both versions have your fellow squadmates changing part of the launch code because they thought you'd been compromised - if you don't ask them for the new code, you're still screwed! To start the game, at least in older versions, you also have to enter a code found on a randomly given page of the manual. • Der Patrizier ( The Patrician) has a beautiful hand-drawn map of the North Sea and Baltic Sea area surrounded by dozens of town names with corresponding arms. These are in fact the copy protection: You have to enter the name of the town to which the displayed city arms belong. The catch: Not only were color copying machines hard to come by and color facsimiles outrageously expensive back then, but the sheet was simply too big to be copied (larger than DIN A3).

And no, you could not simply look the town or the arms up online, because 'online' didn't exist yet. • A curious bit of copy protection is in Infocom's only romance game:. The feelies in the game consist of facsimiles of the heroine's starting equipment, one of which is a banknote. The note shows the game's villain posing dramatically. But would you believe he's showing the solution to a puzzle? Grab his hat, try to grab the book he's carrying and press on the same part of the globe where he is and presto!

• The original has manual-based copy protection which set several apparent vials of poison over which hover several different letters; a variant of the 'Page/Line/Word' index. Drinking the wrong one three times in a row results in death; drinking the right one causes the door to the next level to open. The second game has you select a symbol from a certain page of the manual between levels. • (or the Diabolical Box in some countries) comes with a train ticket needed to find the location of where the last half of the game takes place. It requires a code to be deciphered and the answer has to be inputted into the game.

The ticket is also shown in the game when it got to that puzzle. The puzzle requires folding it, so it's a bit of a pain to envision how it folds from just the picture and without the physical ticket, but by no means impossible.

• 'A true gentleman' without the physical ticket simply brings up the note drawing thing implemented in this game and carefully draws the top and bottom parts of the numbers in the ticket to figure out the answer, or just grabs a piece of paper, copies the numbers, and folds it. Which, arguably, makes that puzzle even more of a puzzle.

• The original has you identify a railway engine (seen in the manual) at the start of the game. If you choose the wrong name, the game will confiscate all but two of your trains and make you unable to run more normally (though - perhaps due to a bug - clicking at the bottom of the train list actually allows you to view the lost train and buy it back by replacing its engine). • Of course, railfans barely need the handbook because they already know at least some of the locomotives, and after playing the game for a while, they'll get to know the few they don't.

Those who happen to be in possession of Brian Hollingsworth and Arthur Cook's Great Book of Trains have a good chance of knowing all locomotives in the game because they are all picked from this book, livery and all. • The 1988 Microprose game will give you the profile view of a ship and ask you to identify it; all the requisite information is in the manual. Of course, if you're as big enough of a naval geek., Or you could just use Wikipedia nowadays. • came with a four-page code sheet with codes to enter after starting or loading a city. If you don't enter the correct code, the town will be destroyed by permanent disasters.

The sheet was dark red paper with a darker red print; back in those days, it was near-impossible to duplicate it because drawing all the codes by hand was tedious as they were so many (although it didn't stop some people from trying anyway), and the old black-and-white facsimile machines failed at copying dark-red-on-dark-red. Mind you, this was before easy access to scanners and color printers. • took the manual bit a step further: it contains an almanac of planetary facts that is larger than many game boxes, and the player has to look a different one of these up when starting the game. Example Density of Mars (water=1) The number has to be entered exactly as listed, too, making it harder to look up from other sources. (Not to mention that since the game was published.) • uses various methods of feelies throughout the trilogy, including inputting information from included registration forms, or maps that are required for navigation in certain areas.

The most inspired method is in 201, which includes a set of sheet music you need to properly. • An early-90's Spider-Man computer game asks the player several trivia questions before starting. The answers were supposed to be looked up in the manual, but they were also available in any of the Spidey comics of the time. • The original requires players to answer questions with the help of a copy of Professor Zorg's Guide to Alien Etiquette. The answers are located on a code wheel which shipped with the game. This code wheel requires the alignment of three alien words, some of which became actual alien races in the.

Subsequent software releases have disabled this copy protection, but only if played with the CD in the drive. • Star Control II has the Starmap Trivia Quiz.

The answers are located on a physical star map included with the game. • The series: • The original Starflight has a code wheel.

• Starflight II asks you to look up a code on a code wheel every time you leave the starbase. If you enter it wrong you can still play the game, but a few hours in, your starship will be pulled over by the Space Police.

They accuse you of software theft and give you one more chance to enter the right code; failing causes them to blow up your ship. The game also has a fold out star map and a viewer to isolate three-inch sections of the map.

The game will then ask you the number of certain colored stars in the said section once you place the viewer at certain coordinates. • Star Trek 5 included a Klingon dictionary in its manual, which has to be used to advance past certain points. • includes several feelies in the box, one of which happens to be important. About halfway through the game, you are asked a question about a letter which is actually a physical prop included in the box with the game. You are asked to dip it in water in order to find a code to use in the game itself. Nonetheless, it is only a three-digit decimal code; the most bored of NES players could eventually brute-force it even if they didn't know how to look it up.

• The games are particularly prone to this, forcing players to look up the for information from 'Beyond the Portal' before being granted the right to save, leave the starting town, and so on. • Introversion Software's featured a code table printed in glossy black ink on black card, which can generally only be read where the light reflects off the ink. However, this was also turned on its head when the developers later admitted it was designed to be a nostalgic nod to old-school games, and it is admittedly useless as copy protection (seeing as the game was massively profitable anyway). They later posted a PDF containing the entire table, saying it was not intended as a means of copy protection. • In a bit of a twist, the 'copy protection' is designed to protect something else: on the game CD, there is a zip file that is ominously labeled and password protected. The readme provides a cryptic hint as to the password. As it turns out, entering the codes on the copy protection sheet as hexadecimal and then converting to normal provides the password to the zip file (), which is the dev diary for the game.

• In, you are a given a question whose answer is in the manual. If you incorrectly answer three times, the game allows you to play, but with severely crippled gameplay (e.g. You can't go above 80 mph), and after a certain time, it ends with the message 'You are driving a stolen Vette'. • War in Middle-Earth asks you to type in coordinates from the manual with the message: 'The Valar seek to determine your fitness to continue this tale-weaving.

Please enter the map coordinates of (location)'. • II has a small booklet of 'spells' composed of four-letter nonsense words. The player at times has to consult this booklet and enter the third word of a spell. Unfortunately, the booklet was black text on dark red paper, making it difficult even for those with proper eyesight to read.

• came with a code sheet printed in glossy black ink on matte black paper, to prevent photocopying. • The Oxyd has 'magic tokens' start showing up at Level 11, for which you need to purchase a code book. • Done particularly elegantly.

Whenever it's time to go to warp, you're told quite clearly what system you need to go to. However, your navigational map is unlabeled. The manual has a copy of the map, with the labels added this time. • Amusingly, warping to the wrong system gets you attacked by Romulans, Klingons, or pirates — but it's a fair fight.

Players who want to ignore the plot and just keep on having starship battles have been known to intentionally warp wrong. Dongles and keys • Trilogy came with a USB dongle that must be plugged into your computer to run the game. It also contains your profile, which has your usernames, unlocks, etc., so a fortunate side effect is that you can carry your unlocks across multiple machines. On the downside, lose the dongle (or accidentally damage it) and you're screwed. The arcade version of the game, running on PC hardware, also has a security dongle to ensure the game can't be easily bootlegged. • The Parallel port/USB 'key'.

Enterprise class specialist software tends to be the most common type of software to use this, although many arcade cabinets as well as certain home release of games do use it as well. The dongle typically holds the license, ensuring that the software only works on the computers tp which the key is attached. • The most well-known key to date is the Parallel port key that ships with most earlier versions of AutoCAD. •, a traffic-management software that creates road signs, has a dongle attached to ensure the licence is installed on a particular machine. • If you've worked in the IT department of a large manufacturing enterprise, chances are you'll have dealt with a type of key known as the HASP. Many specialist applications ranging from chemical work to asset management use one of these for DRM.

• Some arcade games also required 'Licensing modules', which are a separate ROM board that holds only the decryption key of the game. Many newer games, since they're run on machines based on PC hardware, require a USB dongle to run. And of course, the USB dongle can hold an expiry date instead of the game, adding to the planned obsolescence method mentioned below. • Pro Tools, an audio-editing suite currently used by the majority of the music industry, has gone back to the 'piece of hardware' method. You can pirate the software all you like. But unless you have an 'MBox' plugged into your computer, the program will start to load, put up an error window that says something on the order of 'ha ha ha', and close again. Used versions of the MBox 1 go for something like $200 on the secondary market; MBox 3s are higher.

Oh, and, let's not even start on the 'iLok' dongle. • Starting with Pro Tools 9, Digidesign/Avid allows the usage of third-party audio interfaces (even one's own sound card, perhaps), so copy protection is shifted to the iLok. They'll still recommend their own equipment, of course. • Likewise, certain CD, DVD and Blu-Ray burners ship with special, customized versions of Nero Burning ROM that is locked to hardware. If the drive is swapped out for whatever reason, then the software will cease working. And yes, this means that even if the new drive also comes with Nero Burning ROM, you're still put through the effort of uninstalling the old bundled version and installing the new bundled (and possibly an older version) one.

• Pro PE has protection in the form of a USB key. This key must be plugged in while running the simulation! (And it's not the only example.) •: adding a dongle for software that already requires a hugely expensive piece of hardware to begin with. Proprietary media and other media-based protections • uses slight quirks on the disk designed to disrupt some speakers or cause read errors. The result is that it hangs on some CD players, or caused other players to repeatedly play a given track. • The Commodore 64 had a truly nefarious form of protection instigated by several publishers. It involves placing a deliberate error on a game disk, which, being that it's an error, cannot be reproduced by the copy software.

However, this also caused the head of the system's disk drive to knock repeatedly against a stopper every time it tried to load the program. Over time, this would cause the head to become misaligned and be unable to read anything anymore until the drive was repaired. That's right, a copy protection scheme that caused legitimate customers (and legitimate customers only, as this required pirates to hack the software and eliminate the need to read the error — hardly unlike today's cracks that remove pesky DRM) to experience actual hardware failure.

• And to top it all off, a large amount of software that used this proprietary protection is unusable without the prerequisite hardware installed (ie ), making the protection as redundant as the Pro Tools and Biggest Boon-Dongle in the World examples above. • The Sega Dreamcast used a proprietary disc format called GD-ROM, which is essentially a dual-layer (1.3 GB) version of the CD-ROM format (multiple-layer discs would not become common until DVD); the system could load games off CDs, too, though, and many games could be fit on a standard CD or the game itself compressed to fit. Dreamcast piracy involved first ripping the GD-ROM using special hardware (often the Dreamcast itself via hardware plugged into the modem slot), then some tricky work involving a boot track and multiple burn sessions for the CD-R. Once created, though, that CD-R can be easily copied and used on any Dreamcast.

• It wasn't meant to be able to load games off of CDs, they just screwed up royally while implementing the code for 'multimedia enhanced CDs' in their music CD player firmware. The result: a no-mod-required method of playing copied discs. • Adding to the inanity, the copy protection that was pressed into the official CDs is on the outer edge of the discs. As in, the most heavily touched and, as a result, the most easily damaged part of any optical disc format. So even if you have a legitimate copy, if you play it a lot, you could damage it through no fault of your own and not be able to play it. • Sony has used this on several occassions with their gaming systems: • The first PlayStation reads a tracking pattern pressed onto the lead-in of official CDs, which cannot be reproduced normally. The PlayStation 2 uses a similar system.

They will both refuse to read any disc that doesn't have a valid pattern. This makes it impossible to burn a disc that will pass the protection. However, there are points exposed where people can solder a chip in to override the attempt to read the signature and replace it with a valid one.

People were able to press pirated discs once they figured out how the protection really worked, though, yielding the boot disc. Worse yet, it turned out that by using a single valid Playstation game and some quick swapping of the burned disc any reasonably dexterous person can play burned discs on a completely unmodded console. It takes some practice, but it's not that difficult. The final evolution of this 'swap trick' was the production of kits containing stickers to hold down the 'lid open' sensors (so the console won't try to perform the security test again when the lid is opened to swap the discs), and boot discs that pass the copy protection check, then stop the disc from spinning and wait patiently until the start button is pressed (so the user can swap in another disc at their leisure). Contrary to popular belief, the black coating on original discs is more likely for cosmetic reasons (e.g.

To distinguish them from audio CDs and bootlegs) and has little to do with copy protection; any consumer disc drive can and will read a PS1 game disc perfectly as it would with any media. • For the, Sony used a proprietary media called the UMD for storing games and movies, reasoning that people wouldn't be able to just pop the disc into a PC and copy it, among other forms of protection present on the game. Unfortunately for them, pirates tackled the PSP like they did with the Dreamcast—by writing exploits that attack the firmware and using homebrew software that copies the disc onto a Memory Stick instead of tackling the issue of the physical media, taking advantage of the fact that the PSP can also run games from the Memory Stick. This laid out the precedent of a long war between Sony, homebrewers and pirates.

• Before the PS3s dropped backward compatibility altogether, this bit Sony on the ass - they had a hell of a time trying to read PS2 discs, to the point where most of the last-gen library was bugged out or failed entirely while playing on a PS3. • The CD-ROM itself. When it was introduced in the early-nineties, it was considered by the game industriy to be the be-all-end-all copy protection for one simple reason: It was nigh-impossible to copy. That is, the CD itself was impossible to copy. Furthermore, the installers on the CDs were either written without any 'swap the floppy' mechanism (legitimately as they didn't run off of floppies in the first place), or files were made larger than 1.44MB so that they couldn't fit onto floppies if that wasn't sufficient.

In case someone would use the old MS Backup trick, the game installer took up so much space on the CD that it would have taken dozens of floppies to copy it and ginormous hard drives to transfer it to — CD-ROMs have a higher capacity than most hard drives available (let alone affordable) back then. In those days, games were simply blown out of proportion for copy protection, and no actual copy protection was deemed necessary because whatever hardware would have been able to duplicate a CD-ROM was too expensive to use it for game piracy. • Needless to say, the game industry was caught off-guard when the CD-R was introduced, because it meant pirating games had never been easier. It's fair to mention that early CD-Rs were expensive and the drives cost well over a thousand dollars when they were introduced, but the media itself was still much cheaper than games—meaning that to some, the ability to copy countless games borrowed from friends or the local library/rental place justified the drive's exorbitant price tag.

Also, the prices of both the media and drives dropped over just a few years. • has an unintentional example. Since emulators can't emulate the TV remote interface and IR signals, opening all of the game's treasure chests and saving Princess Darcy become impossible. • This is cited as the main reason Nintendo chose to stick with cartridges until long after their rivals have switched to CDs (and eventually *ahem* switched back with the ). However, showing that pirates are not easily deterred, a company called Bong Enterprises came up with cart copiers and flash carts.

And thus began the war between Nintendo and companies that support piracy, to the point where Nintendo actually tried to get injunctions to ban the devices in the US and took legal action against Bong Enterprises in several countries. This blew up in their face when dozens of companies making similar devices sprung up in Bong's place upon Bong's defeat. • Sony fought a long-standing war against the homebrew scene in the name of copy protection on the. The homebrew scene found an exploit to allow unofficial software, Sony released yet another patch (that they made mandatory in order to play the newest games) to fix it, and the cycle continued for several years.

One particular patch that was designed solely to fix an exploit required a user to load a specific game in order to 'unlock' their PSP, but at the same time succeeded in introducing an exploit that allowed users to unlock their PSPs without any game whatsoever. This got worse once the signing keys to the PSP were discovered, allowing homebrew developers to make their software look like it was officially licensed by Sony. This let homebrew applications run on completely unmodified and is impossible to patch without a new hardware revision that would be incompatible with all existing PSP games. Once this happened, Sony just gave up trying to stop homebrew. • The has a removable hard drive and a variety of memory cards available, meaning there is a potential problem of people copying (paid) downloadable games and giving them for free to their friends.

To remedy this, Microsoft decided that to play something you purchased, you must be signed in online with the purchasing account, or be playing the content on the machine that downloaded it in the first place. The problem with the second option is that Xbox hardware failures are notoriously common, meaning the only way to play your downloaded games from any other console is to be signed in. If you ever lose internet access after owning a replacement console, you're completely screwed out of everything you bought online, although (several years down the line.) they made a website to transfer the licenses to your new console without having to be signed into your gamertag online. • On the subject of the 360, the chief form of copy protection besides watermarking the disc code is the verification process afforded to Microsoft by Xbox Live's client/server model. Detection of circumvention permabans the offender from playing online on that console.

This doesn't stop people from staying off Live and just skipping the standard disc check by modding. • Some games on the original, such as and 2, woll detect if you have a mod-chip (which lets you play imported or copied games) in your system, and then the game will not play and a message to call a place to report the problem would come up on screen. What it boils down to is that people who had mod chips and could pirate the games but didn't couldn't play the games they bought legitimately. It was probably an attempt to get people to abandon their mod chip consoles - guess what they abandoned instead? • The 3.56 firmware update to the attempted to fix an embarrassingly large security hole discovered not two months before the patch's release. How did it fare?

Well, on the first release of the patch, it only succeeded in curbing (briefly) Call of Duty Modern Warfare hacks. It got cracked inside of a day, and that's NOT the worst news., something that you are legally allowed to do. The second release of the patch only fixed the hard drive issue.

• The PC version of has one of these in the form of a deliberate glitch which disables Batman's cape glide ability, rendering the game. A famous incident involved a user on Rocksteady's official message board complaining that he couldn't use the (pirated) game because of the aforementioned 'game bug', to which the developers responded. 'It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code.' • Beginning in late 2012, games by Konami with eAMUSEMENT compatibility, such as Quiz Magical Academy and the franchise, require that the game be connected to Konami's eAMUSEMENT network or else the game will refuse to start, in order to allow only authorized arcades to play the game. This is part of Konami's eAMUSEMENT Participaton program, in which arcades register with Konami and then rent out their machines rather than outright purchasing them; Konami then takes 30% of each player's credit.

Since the games are, this poses a problem to foreign players who want to play. Some overseas fans made a workaround in the form of private servers, but those were soon. • Also, it was found that Konami actually made versions of these games that didn't need a connection to the eAMUSEMENT network that were meant to be sold only in Mainland China, probably because the country's Great Firewall is blocking access to Konami's eAM servers, and to fight off the ripoffs like Magic Cube and eMagic. Needless to say, grey market sales sprung up around these machines instead, never mind that this version is usually censored to meet the Chinese government's tastes. Also, the same idiocy caused to come out of virtually unknown companies in China and Taiwan, which are snapped up by arcades who're hoping that their patrons aren't the wiser. • The launch of was screwed up, plain and simple, when the single-player offline game shipped with SecuROM copy protection that allowed the customer to install the game twice, ever, before they had to contact support.

In its wake came crashing authentication servers, the customer support of the publisher and of its parent company each referring people to the other, said support demanding photos of the CD and the manual, people in smaller countries being asked to phone the same support (i.e. To make international calls in a foreign language), PR representatives assuaging the public by falsely stating that properly uninstal.