What´s the point of the new copy protection?

[mivayan]

Archonsod said:
Unlikely. Pretty much every mainstream game since 2000 has incorporated similar protection, and this hasn't really happened yet.

Most mainstream games have intentional bugs if the program thinks you're a pirate? I find that hard to believe.

Depends on why it's being triggered. If your checking against a list of known suspect keys, then those people with legitimate keys who are being flagged have either had their key stolen or else have made it available to the public (breaching their EULA).

Couldn't at least a few legitimate users have their cd key be identical to a widespread one created by a key-generator?

I know with other companies employing similar protection they're usually happy to issue a new key or similar if you can prove ownership.

Yeah, support can probably solve such cases. But I dont want everyone to email support everytime a patch introduces an odd bug.

[Kamamura]

Turin - I am an example of a person who was persuaded to buy by this 3.06 copy protection. I don't care much about the money, but international payments here are a hassle, if you don't want to open a big hole into your account (credit card - I don't trust them). But 3.06 was such a hassle that I persuaded my friend to order it for me. So, this scheme might be considered to be somewhat successful, because it's defense in depth, and no cracker will bother to look for all the checks inside the code.

[Gandalf Parker]

The discussion needs to stay more on whether or not the copy protection should announce itself rather than act in a way that could be considered a bug by someone.

Discussion of whether or not copy protection is effective will close this thread.

[Velusion]

Kamamura said:
Turin - I am an example of a person who was persuaded to buy by this 3.06 copy protection. I don't care much about the money, but international payments here are a hassle, if you don't want to open a big hole into your account (credit card - I don't trust them). But 3.06 was such a hassle that I persuaded my friend to order it for me. So, this scheme might be considered to be somewhat successful, because it's defense in depth, and no cracker will bother to look for all the checks inside the code.

So are you saying you wouldn't have bought the game if - instead of crashing - it stopped working and told you that "you are using a bad cd-key"?

[Sombre]

To be honest the error message (by not specifying what the problem was) had me convinced that this was simply a buggy game with dodgy patches. Crash causing error messages in foreign languages generally have that effect on me.

However I looked it up on the 'net and found out what was up. I then patiently waited for my copy of dom3 to arrive (I live in a pretty out of the way corner of the earth) and afterwards it was all good. An error message saying 'bad cd key' would have caused me less of a headache and I think bugging a game is a godawful form of copy protection. Galactic Civilisations II had a good system (patches/support clearly marked as only for legit users)

Slightly edited with permission of the poster

[Gandalf Parker]

So someone that grabbed a bad key off the net might be led to think its a bad game and not join us here? heehee.
Somehow thats not bothering me.

[Archonsod]

mivayan said:
Most mainstream games have intentional bugs if the program thinks you're a pirate? I find that hard to believe.

They're not intentional bugs. Many developers treat it as a kind of Easter Egg. To take Vietcong for example, if the protection triggered it reduced the hitboxes to a single pixel, gradually enlarged characters heads over time and other strangeness like low gravity grenades. I've actually seen cases where tech support has been asked how the protection can be triggered because players want to see the game in that mode.
I guess it depends on the developer - plenty probably see it as an 'officially sanctioned' method of goofing about with the code.

Couldn't at least a few legitimate users have their cd key be identical to a widespread one created by a key-generator?

The small number of false positives I was talking about. Most keygens wouldn't come up with an actual key though (they're designed to trick the checking method rather than duplicate the keys themselves).
The problem there though is telling them the key entered is fake - they have the manual in front of them, your likely to confuse the matter. In that case, you'd need the user to get in touch so you could identify the problem - instead most would likely attempt to return or exchange the game thinking the key was broken.

Yeah, support can probably solve such cases. But I dont want everyone to email support everytime a patch introduces an odd bug.

Happens whether there's a bug or not : You can see the difference on these forums though - if it's an actual bug, everyone can replicate it and people tend to wait for official word from the developer (it becomes a case of the bug becoming "known"). In the case of the copy protection, you find only a couple of people with the problem and others stating that it's working fine for them, which would hopefully encourage those with the problem to contact support.
At the end of the day, I suppose the logic is that pirates aren't going to pay for the game, so why bother marketing to them? Rather than using the protection as a method to enforce a shareware licence (ie encourage people to buy the full game) it's used simply to prevent illegitimate users from playing the game. Yes, it might lead them to think the game is unplayably buggy, but since you're not counting them as part of your potential market in the first place, you don't really care.

[Gandalf Parker]

Cant hold it against the developers for having some fun with the only people they can pick on. I know I would if I ever programmed something Id charge for.

[lch]

Is it confirmed to be a game protection thing?

If I'd be a developer, I'd have a random event for pirates to be attacked by... pirates. Ghost Ship Armada random for pirates. Or that a pirates' units are slowly transformed into pirates which all have lost an eye, a hand and a leg...

[Nick_K]

Pirates /are/ potential customers though. Music pirates in particular tend to also spend more money on music than most people, according to some news article I read a few years back (probably bbc, I forget). I've met a few people who pirate games, or who borrow them from friends (essentially the same thing) and they were hardcore gamers who also bought more games than I do.

I recall reading an article about how copy protection that allows some play of the game could be viewed as essentially turning it into a type of demo. The aim is to stop the pirate from playing the full game, while still allowing them to 'get hooked' and thus decide to buy the full version.

The damaging effect of piracy on sales can be reduced if a product has high perceived quality, as some pirates will decide to buy the game if they are impressed and others may buy future versions. Furthermore, people who go to the effort of pirating games are less likely to be casual gamers. Such an individual will play lots of games; as these are an important part of their life they'll also be something they'll talk about with their friends, many of whom may not be pirates. A pirate who loves the game could generate several sales by word of mouth.

So, it will help sales if even pirates view the game as high-quality. The sales may be less than if there was no piracy, but as piracy cannot really be stopped, Illwinter might as well try to reduce their losses from it.

That said, I'm still not convinced that this is genuinely copy protection: I'd have thought the game simply wouldn't work.