How Do Pirates Hack a Game ?

[Herman]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

It doesn't really work well, if the crackers are getting their hands on copies of the game before it is released, when the pirate version is available before the retail version is.

I think that it can work well. Let's use the Storm Eagle Studios example. They claim that their server-chained DRM scheme is unbreakable and that may very well be the case since every installation must always call home to SES pretty much every time the customer wants to play.

Now, those games have been out for months/years. So, it is conceivable that the launch-day piracy 'threat' has long passed. Why not take it off and go with a less intrusive protection mechanism like simple ID#s the way Matrix does it? I think that there are plenty of folks who would gladly sit out a launch-day piracy scheme and patiently await the DRM-free version.