Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge • Hacker News Board

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#61

Post by brazzy » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #10

Amazing that GOG was so lazy that they didn't check to ensure their DRM removal was complete, before offering it for sale. Hopefully this will motivate them to do a proper fix.

I would not blame GOG for that if even the official 1996 bundle release made the same mistake. The description in the article sounds like it was never officially confirmed knowledge that the game would become unwinnable if cracked incompletely.

How would you check for something you don't know about? They probably tried the game and when they couldn't win they ascribed it to insufficient skill. Even if they searched for information online, they probably (like OP) found discussions where some people complained about the game being unwinnable and got "you just suck!" replies.

Honestly, it was a dumb thing to do by the original developers.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#62

Post by anal_reactor » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #25

Reason077 wrote: post #20

"The “Razor1911” crack (1991) Finally, we get to the only crack that actually works properly. Congratulations to Razor1911 for being the only ones not fooled by the game’s trickery." No surprise here! I was never all that deep in the Warez scene, but every nerdy kid in the early 1990s knew that Razor 1911 were the most l33t game crackers around. It was kind of a mark of quality on any game. If Razor 1911 released it…

And Razor1911 is still active! Both on the demoscene and on the warez scene.

Nowadays though it's just Empress and everyone else, because Empress is the only one who cares enough to crack Denuvo, but only for selected games, and nothing recently.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#63

Post by hiccuphippo » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

For a modern example I had a bad time trying to play Celeste using the family sharing feature in Steam. The game would slow down the jumping making it impossible to advance. I don't know why it would deem it as an illegal copy, I just deleted it and never tried the game again.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#64

Post by mlinhares » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:44 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #54

The downside of these systems is that the behavior of the cracked game is often simply attributed to the game, contributing to the perception that the game is buggy (or just bad/not fun). While they are somewhat effective at making pirates miserable, I have my doubts on whether they are actually good at driving sales. Keeping pirates from enjoying the game isn't a victory for the developer, generating sales is...

One of the reasons Sony won in most third world countries, there was a lot of piracy for the multiple playstation devices and it was easy to access it. As those generations of gamers grew older and the country's economy improved, they didn't even consider xboxes as all their friends had sony consoles, why would you bother?

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#65

Post by paulryanrogers » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #61

paulryanrogers wrote: post #10

Amazing that GOG was so lazy that they didn't check to ensure their DRM removal was complete, before offering it for sale. Hopefully this will motivate them to do a proper fix.

I would not blame GOG for that if even the official 1996 bundle release made the same mistake. The description in the article sounds like it was never officially confirmed knowledge that the game would become unwinnable if cracked incompletely. How would you check for something you don't know about? They probably tried the game and when they couldn't win they ascribed it to insufficient skill. Even if they searched f…

QA should be playing these games to completion. At least one of the events in the game was completely unwinnable.

Devs then and now use poison pills like this to discourage dishonesty, and I don't fault them for it. It's hard to make a living producing digital content that's easily replicated at almost no cost.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#66

Post by bigstrat2003 » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

Ayesh wrote: post #17

vladms wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides not being a one time activation, it was not a "one key". The game would ask you for "N-th word on the M-th paragraph on P-th page", at each start for example. We are talking about an age where you would not have scanners or mobile phones with cameras.

To the adult me, this sounds tedious and not really worth. But the teen myself, I'm sure I would totally do it even I have to solve some riddle.

Yeah, I did put the time in for X-Wing back in the day. A friend made copies of his disks, and let me borrow the manual so that I could copy the relevant bits down into a notebook. Took a while, but I had lots of time so not a big deal.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#67

Post by paulryanrogers » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:47 PM UTC

g-b-r wrote: post #56

paulryanrogers wrote: post #10

Amazing that GOG was so lazy that they didn't check to ensure their DRM removal was complete, before offering it for sale. Hopefully this will motivate them to do a proper fix.

A lot of people back then didn't realize that there were these secondary checks, I wouldn't blast GOG.

A lot of people back then weren't accepting payment for a faulty product, except the also clueless publishers of the 1996 version.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#68

Post by barbazoo » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

hiccuphippo wrote: post #63

For a modern example I had a bad time trying to play Celeste using the family sharing feature in Steam. The game would slow down the jumping making it impossible to advance. I don't know why it would deem it as an illegal copy, I just deleted it and never tried the game again.

That’s a bummer because it’s a great game with a beautiful story around mental health.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#69

Post by g-b-r » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:51 PM UTC

God I thought I was an idiot, that game seemed so hard!!! I'm so glad to have read this xD

(back then I didn't even know what piracy was, it was just a game that someone gave me)

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#70

Post by poincaredisk » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 2:51 PM UTC

Ayesh wrote: post #17

vladms wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides not being a one time activation, it was not a "one key". The game would ask you for "N-th word on the M-th paragraph on P-th page", at each start for example. We are talking about an age where you would not have scanners or mobile phones with cameras.

To the adult me, this sounds tedious and not really worth. But the teen myself, I'm sure I would totally do it even I have to solve some riddle.

>Not worth it

We live in a completely different world now. Imagine: you just bought a game, that was probably not cheap, and you won't play it because it requires opening a printed booklet you got with installation media and already have next to you? Sounds unlikely, especially since you already went through the trouble of going/driving to a physical store and installing the game (often from multiple cds/floppies, and it often took a long time). And it's not like you had a choice - another game was another drive away, and there were no refunds.

And yeah, we were younger.

Today we live in a world of constant connectivity and instant gratification. It's a better world, but a little nostalgia won't hurt