SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - Earthbound kicks game pirates in the balls

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Aug 06 2009 12:37 pm

http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/antipiracy/

Apparently Earthbound had a particularly nasty protection against people copying their games. If it detected a pirated copy, it would spawn a whole ton more random encounters.

And if you got through that somehow, it had another surprise for you. Halfway through the final boss, it would delete ALL YOUR SAVES, then lock the game up.

Copy protection enforcement by dickishness. I love it.

Anyone else know of any techniques like this used against pirates? I know that the NES Bucky O'Hare had a check for an illegal copy that would make everything a one-hit kill if it failed (to try it, enter the password HARD!)

Posted: Aug 06 2009 01:13 pm

There was something like this with one of square's DS games, or maybe GBA, right?

Posted: Aug 06 2009 02:55 pm

Hehehehehehe. Mean, but I can't really say its undeserved. Better than treating paying customers like thieves by making them jump through a ton of registration/authentication hoops that BY DEFINITION no pirate will ever have to deal with. This way, its the pirates that are punished, and not the honest gamers. Well done.

How does this work, exactly though? Does this mean its not playable as a ROM, or what? Because I thought people had been playing ROMs of it for a long time now.

2011 SNES Champ Joined: Dec 04 2006 Posts: 1929

Spyro 3 did something like that. Gems disappeared at random, when you tried to change worlds it would take you to the first world half the time,
and the game resets when against the final boss, erasing your progress (I'm not sure if it affected all save files.

As a warning, one of the fairies tell you your game is pirated and might cause the game to play incorrectly.

As for ROMs, I think they work because you're not copying them on a CD, or cartridge...though I have no idea how cartridges can be pirated.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Aug 06 2009 03:55 pm

The code looks for extra entries that aren't present on the original, but are on a copy (the copying device makes them).

I'm guessing emulators somehow work around the issue, but honestly, I was wondering this myself.

Posted: Aug 06 2009 04:14 pm

That video made me laugh my ass off. XD

Yet another reason to not play games on an emulator for me. . .

Posted: Aug 06 2009 06:26 pm

I think next to every game nowadays at least has an opening check or two, these type of things are why hackers do the pirating/testing. Never underestimate the power of nerds behind computers. >_>

Posted: Aug 10 2009 07:20 pm

That's awesome. I've read about that somewhere before, and I always wondered if there were other games that prevented piracy by dickheadedness.

However, I can't say I'm against the idea. I now own tons of classic gaming, but I'm hardpressed to buy another legitimate copy of Earthbound (my original lost years ago) when even on Amazon the cheapest you can find it is goddamn 80 bucks.

Posted: Aug 10 2009 07:36 pm

IIRC, the American prototype of Earthbound Zero had some sort of copy protection on it that would RENDER THE CARTRIDGE UNUSABLE if it detected that it had been compromised.

Posted: Aug 11 2009 06:20 am

Yeah, but Demiforce figured it out and by altering a single byte they cracked the game.

Oh, and also: Konami's Boktai series... The games for the GBA have a light detector on the cartridge. If you're playing in broad daylight, then your guns are awesome and powerful and the game's fucking easy. If you're playing it without any light whatsoever, you're fucked.

I don't know if that counts...

Also, I remember some games on the GBA letting you play for a while before declaring that "this game cannot be played on this hardware." I think DragonBall something did that.

I also heard a rumour that there was some game on the ZX Spectrum that had awesome copy protection. If it detected a counterfeit copy, it initiated a Killer Poke - basically, it could make your tape drive start spinning and stopping so rapidly, it would eventually catch fire and blow up... Or do other nasty shit to your hardware.

Good times, keep rolling, dance to escape now.

Posted: Aug 11 2009 03:48 pm

Nekkoru wrote:

Oh, and also: Konami's Boktai series... The games for the GBA have a light detector on the cartridge. If you're playing in broad daylight, then your guns are awesome and powerful and the game's fucking easy. If you're playing it without any light whatsoever, you're fucked unless you use a black light..

Fixed.

Posted: Aug 11 2009 04:01 pm

Nekkoru wrote:

Oh, and also: Konami's Boktai series... The games for the GBA have a light detector on the cartridge. If you're playing in broad daylight, then your guns are awesome and powerful and the game's fucking easy. If you're playing it without any light whatsoever, you're fucked.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but how is this copy protection? I think I'm not picturing this right... Confused

Joined: Aug 10 2009 Location: GA USA Posts: 12

I know a lot of new PC games are adding unique anti-piracy code to their games. My favorite is where you controls slowly get sluggish and eventually lose control of your hero. This happens over several levels so you get hook in the game but can't play it any more until you buy it.

Posted: Aug 11 2009 05:45 pm

Haddox wrote:

IIRC, the American prototype of Earthbound Zero had some sort of copy protection on it that would RENDER THE CARTRIDGE UNUSABLE if it detected that it had been compromised.

That sounds better than getting all the way to Giygas and only THEN finding out the rom is faulty! I'm glad I own a copy of this game for the SNES.

Also, I thought the title of this thread was supposed to be a variant of saying "Earthbound kicks ass" until I started reading the thread itself. Nintendo is awesome for doing this IMO.

Posted: Aug 11 2009 06:17 pm

SoldierHawk wrote:

Nekkoru wrote:

Oh, and also: Konami's Boktai series... The games for the GBA have a light detector on the cartridge. If you're playing in broad daylight, then your guns are awesome and powerful and the game's fucking easy. If you're playing it without any light whatsoever, you're fucked.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but how is this copy protection? I think I'm not picturing this right... Confused

Try playing the game on a GBA flash cartridge. Or an emulator.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Aug 11 2009 07:25 pm

Nekkoru wrote:

SoldierHawk wrote:

Nekkoru wrote:

Oh, and also: Konami's Boktai series... The games for the GBA have a light detector on the cartridge. If you're playing in broad daylight, then your guns are awesome and powerful and the game's fucking easy. If you're playing it without any light whatsoever, you're fucked.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but how is this copy protection? I think I'm not picturing this right... Confused

Try playing the game on a GBA flash cartridge. Or an emulator.

The intent of that really wasn't to keep people from copying the game.

It does work, though.

Posted: Aug 11 2009 07:30 pm

Nekkoru wrote:

Good times, keep rolling, dance to escape now.

I see what you did there. Very Happy

Posted: Aug 11 2009 08:42 pm

Ad420 wrote:

I know a lot of new PC games are adding unique anti-piracy code to their games. My favorite is where you controls slowly get sluggish and eventually lose control of your hero. This happens over several levels so you get hook in the game but can't play it any more until you buy it.

ArmA II, the recent war sim for the PC uses that particular method of copy protection. I saw it in action in a couple of Youtube videos and it looks pretty awesome, your aim gets worse and worse until you can't hit anything you try to shoot at, the AI more or less stops working or starts doing ridiculous things, the screen gets blurred as if your character were drunk, etc.

Definitely one of the best copy protections I have seen.

Title: Titlating Joined: Dec 17 2007 Posts: 5042

UsaSatsui wrote:

Nekkoru wrote:

SoldierHawk wrote:

Nekkoru wrote:

Oh, and also: Konami's Boktai series... The games for the GBA have a light detector on the cartridge. If you're playing in broad daylight, then your guns are awesome and powerful and the game's fucking easy. If you're playing it without any light whatsoever, you're fucked.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but how is this copy protection? I think I'm not picturing this right... Confused

Try playing the game on a GBA flash cartridge. Or an emulator.

The intent of that really wasn't to keep people from copying the game.

It does work, though.

I think I've seen it, or a game similar, cracked with a different version of the rom that always reads as it being sunny

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Aug 11 2009 10:58 pm

I remember King's Quest V would have copy protection points. At those points, you were supposed to "use the wand" to cast a spell (use the codebook to enter the password). Fail, and you either died or made the game unwinnable.

I also remember the PC version of Maniac Mansion had the security door...

Zak McCrackin (sp?) had an interesting one where you had to enter a password as a "visa" when you left the country. If you didn't, you got put in software pirate jail and the jailer had some very stern words for you.

Posted: Aug 12 2009 02:34 am

Ah, those codebooks icluded with games, how do we loathe thee.

StarTropics?

Posted: Aug 12 2009 10:13 am

The M Blaze wrote:

Ad420 wrote:

I know a lot of new PC games are adding unique anti-piracy code to their games. My favorite is where you controls slowly get sluggish and eventually lose control of your hero. This happens over several levels so you get hook in the game but can't play it any more until you buy it.

ArmA II, the recent war sim for the PC uses that particular method of copy protection. I saw it in action in a couple of Youtube videos and it looks pretty awesome, your aim gets worse and worse until you can't hit anything you try to shoot at, the AI more or less stops working or starts doing ridiculous things, the screen gets blurred as if your character were drunk, etc.

Definitely one of the best copy protections I have seen.

It's an evolution of the FADE system they developed for Operation Flashpoint, in that game your aim became worse and worse, until you couldn't hit anything. And, then after so many times loading the game, you eventually just became a bird and can only fly around and watch stuff happen.

GTA IV PC has a simular protection, where if you are playing a pirated copy, or a badly cracked copy, Nico would be perma-drunk.

GTA IV Copy Protection in action:

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Aug 12 2009 11:44 am

Quote:

StarTropics?

That was either a clever gimmick to make the game interesting, or a nice "Fuck You" to Blockbuster.

Joined: Aug 10 2009 Location: GA USA Posts: 12

Knyte wrote:

It's an evolution of the FADE system they developed for Operation Flashpoint,

Thanks I could not remember the name of that game for the life of me.

Posted: Aug 12 2009 02:58 pm

I want a game that has copy protection that not only breaks the system your using, but then goes into your room and shits on your bed.