Software Piracy Discussion

[TarJak]

<Edit By NeonSamurai>
I have decided to allow the discussion to continue for now on this subject, but have stripped it from the poll where these posts came from as I feel the poll is inappropriate (and useless anyhow). Feel free to continue debating the topic as you like but be sure to abide by Subsim policy. If you pirate software or use cracks we do not want to know. Admission of such can result in your being put in the brig or possibly even banned from the site. This also includes links to pirate material etc.
<End Edit>


Well not having any idea about the inclinations of more than a very small sample of Subsimmers that I have either met, or had dealings with, over the last few years, I'd have to say I have no idea as to what percentage are playing with pirated copies of the game.

I can say that at least the ones I've met and discussed the matter with all own legitimate copies so 100% of my sample have legitimate copies. But that would be less than 1% of everyone active here.

[Reece]

I agree with TarJak, and I would say that all of the regulars here would usually buy with a pre order, I always do, SH5 I will not buy because of the DRM/OSP, but if a crack/patch comes out I will use it but again on a legal purchased copy!:yep:

[Rilder]

I have a Legal copy of SH3, SH4 (And U-boat missions)

Thank you very much. :cool:

SH5 is not getting bought though since screw that DRM, I'd rather play a some stupid linear storyline game like "Mass effect" then deal with that.

[martes86]

I don't have official figures, so I can't tell for sure on a global level, but I don't think piracy is high around here. What sensible subsimmer would pirate his sims? It'd be madness knowing how hard is to get decent subsims.
Maybe there's some casuals pirating it, but the important audience, isn't.

[danlisa]

http://w3.bsa.org/globalstudy/

Probably more now thanks to invasive and damaging DRM methods.

Didn't vote as I don't agree with aspersions being cast on this community.

[kiwi_2005]

Own all original copies of SH2,3 4 and pre-ordered collectors edition of SH5.

[Onkel Neal]

I don't know what the percentages here are, but you can bet there are people here who play, yes, even Silent Hunter games without buying. When SH4 came out with its secret bootleg ID system, where illegal copies would have a crew with no eyes and crew chanting mysterious numbers, we had a LOT of people posting about it. :nope:

You want to know the best info about PC games an piracy, here is an article by noted tech author Koroush Ghazi, PC Game Piracy Examined (http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html)

It covers Steam, Starforce, the disparity between PC and console sales, and more. You can learn a lot from it.

[danlisa]

An interesting read....which I shall finish later.:up:

I stopped reading when the author started posting details about pirated PS3 games. It can't happen, It doesn't happen. There is no way run a pirated PS3 game on the console, the author was duped by fake torrents.:haha: Clever boy!

Reading continues.....

[TarJak]

An excellent article Neal which puts forward a reasonably well balanced overview of the situation. One aspect I noticed appeared to be missing and that was the relationship between publishers, wholesalers and retailers.

What is clear though is that consoles will continue to rise in popularity further marginallising the PC simulation market. Unfortunately this will mean the end will come some time for this genre of gaming, unless it is supported.

Economically there is clearly a mismatch between the price large sections of the market will pay (the value placed on the product), and the cost of production. Where this happens, the market must collapse. The speed at which it does is the prime variable.

[TarJak]

An interesting read....which I shall finish later.:up:

I stopped reading when the author started posting details about pirated PS3 games. It can't happen, It doesn't happen. There is no way run a pirated PS3 game on the console, the author was duped by fake torrents.:haha: Clever boy!

Reading continues.....Interestingly the reasons for this are also largelhy economic and related to the current cost of the hardware and not due to any effective copy protection/DRM schemes.

http://www.gamegrep.com/news/5847-reasons_why_piracy_hasnt_hit_the_playstation_3/

[danlisa]

That's certainly a part of it. Who want's to pay out for a BR Read/Write Drive and then contend with up to 100GBs of data in one burn, not to mention the bandwidth usage torrenting this stuff.

However, that's not the real problem. There is no DRM on any PS3 disc. It's built into the console in the form of a 6 level encryption key. The decoder of which is on the disc, encrypted, and can only be read by the first 3 levels of decryption on the console, which in turn then re-encrypts it, through the last 3 levels, to the key set that the disc is expecting.:haha:

This only came to light recently after a patent filed by Sony in 2008 was published. I read it and it fried my mind.

Bottom line is, you can copy & burn any PS3 game but your can never play it as the cyphers will never match. Sony got burned by the PS2 and PSP hacks, they made this console as attractive to the developers as possible.

[Schroeder]

I don't see much sense in this poll. No matter what the result will be it's not representative.

I have bought all Silent Hunter games so far starting from SH1 Commander's edition over SH2 and SH3 up to SH4 and then once again SH4 with the UBM add on. But I won't buy SHV until the DRM BS has been removed (and the modders have had a year or so to finish the game.).

[TarJak]

That's certainly a part of it. Who want's to pay out for a BR Read/Write Drive and then contend with up to 100GBs of data in one burn, not to mention the bandwidth usage torrenting this stuff.

However, that's not the real problem. There is no DRM on any PS3 disc. It's built into the console in the form of a 6 level encryption key. The decoder of which is on the disc, encrypted, and can only be read by the first 3 levels of decryption on the console, which in turn then re-encrypts it, through the last 3 levels, to the key set that the disc is expecting.:haha:

This only came to light recently after a patent filed by Sony in 2008 was published. I read it and it fried my mind.

Bottom line is, you can copy & burn any PS3 game but your can never play it as the cyphers will never match. Sony got burned by the PS2 and PSP hacks, they made this console as attractive to the developers as possible.Cool. Gotta link to something on the patent? Sounds like a cool way of keeping everything kosher.

Until last Xmas I've not had a console in the house only PC's so I've not boned up on any of them. The kids and missus though bugged me to get a Wii so now they have one of those with a bunch of games. Gotta say I'm loving PC games even more after seeing some of the abysmal crap they are passing off over at Nintendo.:o

[Reece]

I'm all for having some sort of hardware chips incorporated into motherboards, that would stop piracy then no other DRM/OSP/starforce etc would be needed, could be used for all games,:yep: as long as it stopped there, just imagine if every bit of software used it windows and all, you'd spend half the day feeding in disks!!:damn:

[danlisa]

Cool. Gotta link to something on the patent? Sounds like a cool way of keeping everything kosher.

Gotta say I'm loving PC games even more after seeing some of the abysmal crap they are passing off over at Nintendo.:o

Ninty is tosh! End of.:) Good and enjoyable games but bad system.

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100037068#ixzz0feEg2cT4

Good luck.:haha: The most understandable section is the Brief Summary.

[danlisa]

I'm all for having some sort of hardware chips incorporated into motherboards, that would stop piracy then no other DRM/OSP/starforce etc would be needed, could be used for all games,:yep:

Yes, that is the best solution BUT it requires EVERY mobo manufacturer, OS designer (ahem, Windows) and games designer to subscribe to the same format and policy. I can NEVER see PC games going this way, the 3 main involved parties will never agree.

First and foremost, who will manage the security keys and implement their alterations, as the only way this system will work is by dynamic encryption key updates and certificate policy changes.

[CaptainHaplo]

I have to agree with the premise that the poll is flawed. What pirate would admit it - even anonomously? With that said, I think the vast majority of regulars are legit owners, and the DRM/OSP debate in the SH5 thread demonstrates it. If those of us incensed by the copy protection were pirates, we wouldn't care, because it will be "cracked". But we do care, because we want to use our cash to support what we believe in. That is why I am disappointed that I will have to wait till SH5 gets unlocked by UBI before I can play it.

As for Neal's comment on SH4 and its piracy "easter egg", I would note that if memory serves, the majority of people who did ask about the "no eyes" thing were not regular, establishd members, but mostly were newer folks who found a site that might have good info on the game. I could be wrong on that, but its what I recall thinking at the time.

[Reece]

As for Neal's comment on SH4 and its piracy "easter egg", I would note that if memory serves, the majority of people who did ask about the "no eyes" thing were not regular, establishd members, but mostly were newer folks who found a site that might have good info on the game. I could be wrong on that, but its what I recall thinking at the time.I had an idea that it was proved that even legit owners were having this problem, I never actually did, I had a problem with SecuRom in that half the time it wouldn't recognize the DVD, after restarting the game and trying again it would work, I think due to the many problems people were having is why UBI decided to drop the disk check!:yep:
@ Danlisa, yes I suppose there would be too many problems, one thing, if you couldn't play a game without the chips installed all manufacturers would install them or people wouldn't buy them.

[NeonSamurai]

As I stuck in the first post I copied to this new thread

I have decided to allow the discussion to continue for now on this subject, but have stripped it from the poll where these posts came from as I feel the poll is inappropriate (and useless anyhow). Feel free to continue debating the topic as you like but be sure to abide by Subsim policy. If you pirate software or use cracks we do not want to know. Admission of such can result in your being put in the brig or possibly even banned from the site. This also includes links to pirate material etc.

[Sailor Steve]

I'm glad it is continued, as I'm also intrigued by Neal's comment on SH4's imbedded anti-piracy. I never had a problem with the eyes, though I do use the 'Eye Patch' mod to stop them from looking at me all the time. I also enjoyed reading some of those threads - "NO! HONEST! I bought my copy fair and square!"

I also never had any of the reported (or 'claimed') problems with StarForce on SH3 or SecureRom on SH4.

Where it's concerned on SH5, I like the idea of having problems show up for pirates, as long as they don't show up for me as well.

[Nisgeis]

I don't know what the percentages here are, but you can bet there are people here who play, yes, even Silent Hunter games without buying. When SH4 came out with its secret bootleg ID system, where illegal copies would have a crew with no eyes and crew chanting mysterious numbers, we had a LOT of people posting about it. :nope:

Actually, that's really annoyed me. I had the crew with no eyes problem and I had a legitimate copy of SH4, I'll post you the receipt from Feb 2007 if you don't believe me :DL. I'll tell you another thing - that particular bit of misinformation caused a lot of GENUINE PURCHASERS to be told to F off and stop being a pirate. Obviously they didn't like that very much, so how many new members did the community lose from that?

OK, now if having no eyes WAS a copy protection system, then what an amazingly stupid bug to let through as well. Or perhaps it was a buggy protection system? Or, perhaps having no eyes at all was the protection system and intermittently not having the eyes was a bug? You can't have a pirate version intermittently can you?

[Dowly]

Didnt UBI say that people with legit copies of SH4 were getting these anti-piracy "features" as well? I know I got them.:roll:

[Nisgeis]

Where it's concerned on SH5, I like the idea of having problems show up for pirates, as long as they don't show up for me as well.

I really do question the wisdom of deliberately introducing crashes into your game, for whatever reason. There have been instances of copy protection systems refusing to install, as the retail version believes it is a pirate copy. Be it down to IP address, or the game language not matching your OS langauge or a hardware conflict with your make and model of DVD drive, it happens to a small minority, but it does happen. If they were to just get random crashes, they'd get annoyed and have no idea where to start getting the game fixed (go away pirate etcetera, tech support refusing to believe it's genuine).

Also, the pirates, who always feel very entitled to everything on a silver platter, will feel they have a right to a perfect game, so if it does start crashing, then they will slate the game. That much should be clear, so doing it will damage your game's sales further. No matter how many calls of 'it does that because it's a pirate copy' there are, it will still do damage. It would be better to say 'This game is a pirate copy. Please buy a retail version' instead of just crashing - far too many games just crash for no reason right out of the 'retail' box and more posts saying it is crashing will be believed as bad programmed. No need to deliberately program in crashes!

[martes86]

Didnt UBI say that people with legit copies of SH4 were getting these anti-piracy "features" as well? I know I got them.:roll:

Maybe at first, though I don't really remember, but it clearly was fixed in later patches.
As for myself, I never got any problems, everything was running fine. :DL

Cheers :rock:

[Nisgeis]

Maybe at first, though I don't really remember, but it clearly was fixed in later patches.

Was there a patch after version 1.5? If not, then it wasn't fixed (for some).

[kiwi_2005]

There are some games out there that pirates can't crack, i remember reading a news article on hackers praising the devs for a game the hackers admitted cannot be cracked - 'Rise and Fall civilizations at war' if I remember right was the game mention. Some other games where when release its due for a patch in a couple of days this gives time for the hackers to crack the release game and upload. But when the patch comes out it will make the game that has been pirated unplayable if they patch it and cause the game is buggy they want to patch it. Yet the there's no working crack for the patch so the hackers will just leave it at version1. The gamers are forever stuck with v1 crappy buggy release until they buy it.

On another note. The eye bug in SH4 does not mean you have a pirate copy if so then my legit copy is pirated? Well lets hope so, so i can sue the largest online software store in New Zealand for thousands!, Even now when i play SH4 i still get the eye bug at random times.

[NeonSamurai]

Ya it certainly does happen that groups that break the game's DRM don't bother to break the patches. It depends on how popular the game is, and how difficult it is to break the DRM.

Any game can be broken, given sufficient time and desire. Starforce went quite a while as mentioned in the article Neal posted (which I don't fully agree with on some points, but won't get into. I will say that the author does have a rather strong bias, in spite of his claims not to, but otherwise he is fairly accurate), but was eventually broken.

To be honest I have issues with both sides of the argument on piracy. I don't like the rampant piracy that is going on (it is stealing no matter how you rationalize it). It especially pisses me off that these idiots then go on to talk to the technical support for the game when they can't get it to work. It should be noted that the vast majority of these pirates seem to be total idiots, browse any of the torrent sites that have comments and you will see what I mean (that and them contacting tech support which is beyond stupid). I especially hate those pirates that can damn well afford to buy games, but don't buy them when they can pirate them just as easily, at the very least buy the good games you pirate and reward those who make those games.

I also have issues with the publishers/devs who release buggy broken games which if we are lucky they may get around to fixing eventually (this is just as criminal, and is stealing too if I end up with a product that doesn't work) but only if enough people buy their junk first (extortion). Who think that just because they spent millions to make a crappy game, we should at least have the decency to buy it. Who throw on draconian DRM that they know will not slow down the pirates (steam, current version of securerom, and all the others that are currently broken) but may well cause issues for the legitimate users. Plus all the other unethical things these companies do.


Both sides are royally screwing up pc gaming, and are making me think I've had just about enough. I figure I have enough games to last me the rest of my life. I just need to have the hardware to play them on for that long. I figure it is inevitable in the end, as I will not switch over to consoles, and am getting sick of getting screwed over by certain companies.

[Thomen]

On another note. The eye bug in SH4 does not mean you have a pirate copy if so then my legit copy is pirated?

Same here. Got SH IV with the U-Boats add on, and my crews do not haves eyes. Or ever had some for that matter.

[Jimbuna]

Never experienced the eye problem neither but I do know two people in my home town who did have this problem despite the fact they had ligit perchases :hmmm: