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The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

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Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#91

Post by stcredzero »

steveklabnik wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid point but it dodges the thrust of the post, which is that piracy is pushing the industry in this direction --- this is a mainstream title from a mainstream vendor that is making a clear and visible usability concession to protect the new release window from pirates. Most users probably won't care (remember that we're a disproportionately vocal minority --- or, you are; my job is to make these titles wo…

You're right, many users won't care about the DRM. What they will care about is a game freezing up and crashing. They won't even realize it's from DRM issues. I also wouldn't underestimate the tech chops of gamers. These are the guys who overclock hardware, do case mods... just because they're not hardcore hackers doesn't mean they don't understand or care about these issues.

There's going to be someone with the knowledge and ties to the gaming world who's going to try and win acclaim by applying that knowledge.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#92

Post by stcredzero »

jmackinn wrote: post #83
jcl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hardly a solution. There is no way, short of a massive letter-writing campaign, for a software publisher to look at flagging sales and know that it was due to onerous DRM. More likely, they'd blame it on piracy and go looking for even more restrictive DRM.

And so the cycle would continue until sales fall enough that the company goes under. At the same time, assuming people will stop buying DRM'd products, the companies not using DRM on their games will see their sales rise. This seems like a great solution.

And if it doesn't work that way, would you concede that this model of the world needs to be amended?

(I would prefer that reality works this way. I am a big fan of 2D Boy for one.)

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#93

Post by robryan »

samd wrote: post #45

Here's a solution no one seems to consider: make video games cheaper. $50-$60 is an outrageously high price for a game, especially when most of them are of forgettable quality. The people over at Valve/Steam have been saying the same thing, and they would know, they see the sales numbers; cutting prices for their weekend deals greatly increase sales. If companies brought game prices down to a reasonable level, say $2…

The question is though would they make up the difference on the volume, it really depends on the game. Games with the latest graphics and massive game worlds that take years to make do need to sell at a certain price to turn a decent profit.

Selling everything around $30 would probably mean games would have to make do with smaller development budgets.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#94

Post by stcredzero »

Retric wrote: post #47
ErrantX wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could (probably have) limit that approach too by signing the data (as already suggested) or encrypting it with different keys for sending / receiving.

If you can hack the client binary you can change the keys it uses/expects.

There's ways of making it very difficult to find the keys. tptacek is in the business of doing just that, apparently.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#95

Post by stcredzero »

tptacek wrote: post #51
DarkShikari wrote: post #35

"Probably work"? It was already cracked two weeks before release! From a few days ago on Buzz: Just saw a post on the Steam Forum for Assassin's Creed 2 that the impossible to beat, always online, can't save your game or even play the stupid thing without being connected to the internet DRM for it has already been cracked 2 weeks before its release. sigh Did Ubisoft really expect this to work any better than previous…

That's a good point, and it does refute the post, but there are content protection schemes in major titles that haven't been broken; I imagine you pay more attention to games than I do, and I can't name anything I'm thinking of. (I'm not sure I can name a title that is unplayable cracked because of content protection; I'd broaden my definition to other security objectives besides piracy).

other security objectives besides piracy

How about identifying someone who plays a cracked game, not immediately but a week or so later? There's all sorts of stuff you could do with that to discourage piracy. It would also be more easily hidden in code. Not sure if any of these strategies are really new, or if they've ever really worked.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#96

Post by ericbb »

vaksel wrote: post #70
DarkShikari wrote: post #35

"Probably work"? It was already cracked two weeks before release! From a few days ago on Buzz: Just saw a post on the Steam Forum for Assassin's Creed 2 that the impossible to beat, always online, can't save your game or even play the stupid thing without being connected to the internet DRM for it has already been cracked 2 weeks before its release. sigh Did Ubisoft really expect this to work any better than previous…

precisely, the only people stuff like this hurts are the legit users who pay the money. The hackers will rewrite the whole game if they have to, to make it free. It might take a little longer for them to release it...but can you honestly name a single game that hasn't been cracked?

From the article:

  Edit 2: One quick question for the "Anything can be cracked
  right away." crowd. Where do I get my cracked copy of World
  of Warcraft that can play the real game (not some cobbled
  together emulation server) without paying. Answer: You can't.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#97

Post by marciovm123 »

steveklabnik wrote: post #57
marciovm123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - I don't care at all and would buy this game if it was my style. Am I going to give up on having an internet connection at my place, ever? No. So how would this negatively affect me? A little bit of downtime? We all need bathroom breaks. I understand the resentment at these anti-hacking measures given that this is a hacker community but not all companies choose to make their products in the open-source tradit…

You'd put up with the game crashing and losing your save data when your internet gets a little bit wonky? I have fiber to my house within the city, and my connection still gets flaky at times. And you're right, it is a valid choice. Doesn't mean their choice won't be criticized. This also has nothing to do with open source, and everything to do with treating your paying users like criminals. This pic from the other d…

I think that criticism is just too easy to make, and suggests a lack of empathy for the realities of the gaming marketplace.

Everyone thinks pirates are fun and romantic until it's their stuff that gets robbed.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#98

Post by sdfghbvc »

wmf wrote: post #85
sdfghbvc wrote: post #71

I wonder if they turn off, or downgrade to the point of unusable, the servers the day that Assasin's Creed III is launched? They wouldn't do that would they?

Some game companies have already turned off servers for their older games. It's not a question of whether this will happen but when, especially when the service is provided for free.

For free ?

I paid $80 for a game and they turn it off when they have a more profitable replacement.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#99

Post by akgerber »

danparsonson wrote: post #36
mambodog wrote: post #32

Jeez guys, have none of you ever played a ROM on an emulator? You know how they save and resume? By taking a snapshot of the RAM and restoring it later on. Sure, its not great to have to take a snapshot of the 2gb+ of memory being used at runtime by a modern AAA game, but it wouldn't be hard to work out what is just content (textures, geometry, sound), and what are the variables (player location, progress, etc) and j…

> it wouldn't be hard to work out what is just content (textures, geometry, sound), and what are the variables (player location, progress, etc) and just save/load that As the saying goes - I'd love to see you try it! In order to capture the state of a running application in such a way that it can later be restored, you need, not only the memory contents, but also the processor state. Imagine that the app is in the mi…

Did you ever notice that a process running a single thread of execution can run multiple processes, apparently all at the same time?

Yeah, that. It's called a context switch. It works by "captur[ing] the state of a running application in such a way that it can later be restored". I personally have at least 20 friends who have implemented it, as I would assume most college students at strong CS school would.

Re: The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work

#100

Post by roc »

tptacek wrote: post #49
cabalamat wrote: post #39

The solution to onerous DRM is: just don't buy any product using it. No-one needs to buy Assassin's Creed II; there are plenty of other computer games out there.

That's a valid point but it dodges the thrust of the post, which is that piracy is pushing the industry in this direction --- this is a mainstream title from a mainstream vendor that is making a clear and visible usability concession to protect the new release window from pirates. Most users probably won't care (remember that we're a disproportionately vocal minority --- or, you are; my job is to make these titles wo…

Piracy isn't pushing anyone anywhere.

Publishers have it in their head that piracy equals lost sales. It's this belief, that DRM can recapture those sales, that is pushing them in this direction.

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