Video Game Thread 2.0

[Witchyjoshy]

However, if you do pirate on those grounds, and said game becomes available after you've played it, then you should still buy yourself a copy as belated compensation for using their product (unless of course you'd have to do something as ridiculous as buy a Wii U just to purchase said game).

*raises hand as someone who'd actually have to buy a Wii U to purchase Earthbound*

That being said I'll probably just delete the ROM anyways (assuming I have it since I don't remember), since I don't play the game anymore and it's available legally now.

Mother 3 is a different case since it's a Japanese-only game that wasn't released here because the GBA was nearing the end of its lifespan.

As is Star Fox 2 because that game wasn't released anywhere and we only have it because someone leaked it in the first place.

[starseeker]

I believe Mother 3 got a fan translation a year or 2 back.

[syaoranvee]

Speaking of piracy, a story broke today about a game called Game Dev Tycoon.  Basically the creators, pre-empting the game's eventual appearance on file-sharing sites, uploaded their own cracked copy of the full game. But within the code lay a few extra lines.  Making the game all but impossible due to having piracy rampant in later eras of the game. 

Leading to various hillarious messages on their site such as this one:



Although with the added exposure due to this story they will probably get better sales, however before this story broke the amount of the game pirated was 3104 of 3318.  The remaining games being the ones actually bought.

Can read more about it here

[Distind]

Some part of me honestly believes the entire game was designed and built purely to pull that joke on the pirates.

But yeah, welcome to why non-business programming is typically a hobby. People don't pay for shit if they don't have to.

[Dakota Bob]

My favorite method of copy protection was in Arkham Asylum. if your copy was cracked Batman wouldn't be able to glide, just crash headfirst into the ground.

[chitoryu12]

I wonder if there's actually been a reliable study on the damage piracy has done to the gaming industry.

[Saturn500]

More games need to do that kind of stuff.

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By the way, I would really like all of you to upvote the fuck out of this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=140267269

Because, seriously, there are so few shmups on Steam! (And frankly, Nyu Media is gonna need all the help they can get. I mean, seriously, damnit!)

[RavynousHunter]

The fuck, Ultima Online is still around.

And very alive, as well.  Both on the official EA servers, and the veritable standing army of freeshards available.  For those who wanna know, I play on UOGamers: Demise.  100% free, almost up-to-date with the EA servers and their content...it is missing a few things from Stygian Abyss and upwards, but there's still a LOT of shit.

If ya don't mind olde tyme graphics and like games with a hell of a lot of freedom, look no further than Ultima Online.  However, to all prospective newbies, two warnings: stay out of Felucca, as you can be player-killed anywhere outside the reach of the town guards in that world, and avoid Ilshenar until you've got really good kit, stats, and skills.  I'm talking Master level (90-99%) skills, at minimum.  Ilshenar not only has a LOT of hostile mage-type mobs, but its the only world with Paragon critters, which are an order of magnitude stronger (and faster) than their normal counterparts.  A Paragon zombie might be a laughingstock, but a Paragon dragon?  Lemme put it like this, about 18 months ago, I had a mage character that could rip apart regular dragons with hordes of angry magic bees with casual ease, and she had a hard time killing Paragon dragons.

[Witchyjoshy]

I absolutely love it when developers add in little quirks, acknowledgments, and walls whenever a game can tell it's been pirated or the player is cheating.

[Art Vandelay]

I remember Spirit Tracks had an amusing method of copy protection. That is, if you played a pirated copy, the controls for the train simply wouldn't appear.

[ThunderWulf]

I believe it was Mother 3 that did this, but the game would crash as you're starting the fight against the final boss and when you restarted the game all your saves were wiped.

[syaoranvee]

I believe it was Mother 3 that did this, but the game would crash as you're starting the fight against the final boss and when you restarted the game all your saves were wiped.

It was actually Earthbound, Cracked did a list on this subject about 2 years ago.

Another example I know of is how Spyro: Year of the Dragon made pirates rip their hair out for months with all it's anti-cracking traps.  Here's a 3 page article on it

[Askold]

At least one game in the Wing commander series let you play the first mission in the "pirated" version but then your wingman comments "Son you've gone to the darkside." and shoots you.

And there was some other flying game where the autopilot button would instead trigger the eject seat in the pirated version.

[chitoryu12]

I think all of the interesting anti-cracking features that screw with pirated copies of the game are infinitely more effective than DRM in preventing piracy.

Well, until they accidentally activate on legit copies. Or the pirates figure out how to get past it all.

[Yaezakura]

I think all of the interesting anti-cracking features that screw with pirated copies of the game are infinitely more effective than DRM in preventing piracy.

Well, until they accidentally activate on legit copies. Or the pirates figure out how to get past it all.

Sadly, they almost always eventually figure out how to get around it. Some people put so much effort into pirating software, you'd think the skills they need could easily qualify them for a job that would give enough income to comfortably purchase games. I remember that Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen had a little message in them for pirates at one point. If the game detected it was being emulated, at one point an NPC would say something like like "By the way, if you like the game, buy it or die." But you'd now be hard-pressed to find a GBA emulator that would give the message. You'd have to find an ancient early version of one from before the days when they reached perfect emulation.