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Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

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Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#11

Post by gintoddic »

jonny_eh wrote: post #6
robbiet480 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game shown here, Midnight Club II, required the CD to be in the drive to play it. With the advent of Steam and companies releasing older games on Steam, they needed a way to bypass that check. Bypassing a CD (commonly called No-CD) was a very common crack/DRM bypass back in the day. Rockstar didn't want to bring up old source code and find someone who understood it enough to remove the check, so instead they just…

Razor1911 was the cracking group in this particular case.

understated context here

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#12

Post by itsnotlupus »

demarq wrote: post #10
Reubend wrote: post #2

Could we get some more context than this tweet (which doesn't really explain what's going on)?

Cracking was a 90s term for pirating software

Cracking is about removing anti-features, typically copy protections. It pairs well with pirating, but neither one strictly requires the other.

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#14

Post by threeio »

ezconnect wrote: post #8
justsomehnguy wrote: post #3

https://nitter.unixfox.eu/__silent_/status/16983459248402968... Who could have thought what a company with billions of revenue would use the cracks from RAZOR1911 for IP they are selling to the end users? Shocking!

Does RAZOR1911 have a legal way to have a share of revenue since they are using his hard work?

Razor1911 is a cracking group from the mid 80s on... but it would be fantastic wouldn't it? :)

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#15

Post by capableweb »

Why is this hex dump being used as a verification rather than just showing the two (supposedly the same) hashes of the entire executable themselves? Should be a quick 20 minute job for whoever call themselves "journalists" today.

I suppose it's possible for that particular string to get into the binary by some other means. Maybe failed anti-circumvention that checks for known strings in its own directory or something similar?

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#16

Post by capableweb »

h2odragon wrote: post #5

could the NoCD crack author do a DMCA takedown on these games now? Would it even need to be the author issuing such a request?

You need to either be or represent the copyright holder. I'm 99% sure most warez groups have no interest in exposing themselves to any legal systems when it comes to what they do.

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#17

Post by jstarfish »

> This explains the myth of the retail MC2 crashing on Vista - the game is most likely innocent, as the demo works great out of the box. IT WAS AGAIN THE CRACK breaking it.

Myth? Innocent? That game was totally unplayable when it first came out (for 98/ME?) so I doubt Razor made anything worse. I'd get most of the way through any race before the game randomly crashed.

It would be funnier if it weren't so absurd, since I'd have to go through finding the opponent in the world, chasing them to the starting line and doing the race itself each time.

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#18

Post by ineedasername »

It's actually kind of like a bizarro version of open source: someone or some group may be the initiator of a project but some of the community that grows around the project also contribute back to it, making it a symbiotic relationship. Just, in the bizarro version, there's an even more complex ecosystem filled with people who get to play a game where they hunt down some of the members of this community and make angry faces at them and sometimes put them in jail.

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#19

Post by Zetobal »

capableweb wrote: post #15

Why is this hex dump being used as a verification rather than just showing the two (supposedly the same) hashes of the entire executable themselves? Should be a quick 20 minute job for whoever call themselves "journalists" today. I suppose it's possible for that particular string to get into the binary by some other means. Maybe failed anti-circumvention that checks for known strings in its own directory or something…

I don't know why I have to write this comment but not every twitter user is a journalist...

Re: Rockstar is selling cracked game copies on Steam

#20

Post by Zetobal »

threeio wrote: post #14
ezconnect wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does RAZOR1911 have a legal way to have a share of revenue since they are using his hard work?

Razor1911 is a cracking group from the mid 80s on... but it would be fantastic wouldn't it? :)

They disbanded some years ago :*(
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