Gone Ashore: Piracy

Showing posts with label Piracy. Show all posts

It's a bad day to be a PC gamer. A development build of Crysis 2 has been leaked to the torrent sites, two months before release and what's worse is that it's completable. Plenty of thieves are out there downloading and playing it as I write this and it makes me angry. This behavior is the scarecrow in our yard deterring the very growth we hope for. Yes it's made of straw, yes it looks scarier than it is but it does a great job nonetheless. Never mind that there is one is every yard, consoles and handhelds alike, ours is bigger and meaner-looking so we lose the most.

The dev copy not only has the complete campaign but also the master key for authentication online. This bodes badly for Crytek but they could use it to their advantage by changing and flagging the master key to shut down pirates. Two months gives them either a chance to change the gold master or at least a zero-day patch that's required before authentication.

All is not lost though, reading the myriad of posts across the many websites and forums reporting on the issue I see a glimmer of hope. Many posters are vehemently opposed to the spread of the leak and voice their support to purchase the game instead of downloading it now. Posts go on to point out that this is the reason PC loses franchises and releases to the console market and that acts like this is what gives PC users a bad name.

If any good can be gleaned from this debacle, it's that the game seems to run fantastic on a Crysis spec'd computer so those worried about performance have something to measure against. Also it seems that the DX9 version is the only one included and requires an x64 operating system. It's not hard to imagine that Crysis 2 will look insanely better in DX11 with full shaders engaged.

Hopefully this won't spell the end of another franchise to the console market, the thought of having to jump and wave my hands around like a lunatic to engage my nanosuit in Crysis 3 make me even angrier.

I spotted Darkness Within 2 over at Gamers Gate on sale. Point and clicks are hit and miss with me but DW2 is WASD free-roaming and reminded me of Amnesia: The Dark Descent with it's creepy atmosphere, coupled with a few of the best H.P. Lovecraft games available and adding in a hint of Condemned: Criminal Origins. All well and good so far until I hit the DRM: SecuRom line and the train almost derails.

I don't like limited installs for a game I own, it's ridiculous, barbaric and only serves to stop sleepless nights for game publishers. In Gamers Gates defense, they state that any install limit can be reset with an email to them, which is great, but I've never tested this and have to take them at their word. Also, plenty of games on GG have no DRM and I laud them for it but Darkness Within 2 is not such an animal. Ok, I say to myself, I'll just patch and look for a protection crack so I don't have to worry about the whole damned thing.

Say what you want about using cracks, I use them to bypass headaches, not protection. Having to locate and then put disks into a drive or limiting the number of times I can install and play something I paid for is simply unacceptable. Many gamers publicly loathed Assassin's Creed 2 and it's dreaded online DRM scheme - they were perfectly fine for me. I'm always online and my game was never interrupted by a loss of connection. Your experience may vary.

So I buy and as the game is downloading I check out the usual places for those industry destroying game cracks that only thieves use. It seems there isn't one available, stranger still is the line Protection: None. The retail is protection free but the digital copy isn't? How is that fair? While I continue to research this annoyance my game finishes downloading, I install and search on. Still no information on the SecuRom protection or a crack for it. The installation finishes and I start the 1.02g patch.

Darkness Within 2 cannot be found.

Huh? Ok, maybe the game has to be run so a registry entry can be triggered. I execute the game and SecuRom pops up for me to enter my code, I do so and continue to the game. Everything works fine, the game loads up and I am one install closer to having to send that email. I start and play for a bit, saving my preferences and progress in case the patch looks for that as well. Quitting, I run the patch a second time.

Same issue.

Ok, off to the website, obviously there must be another patch or at least a forum post concerning the GG edition. The patch not only fixes some game stopping bugs but adds anti-aliasing and additional resolutions, so it's really a must overall. I go through all of the suggestions but the patch will still not apply. I uninstall, re-download and reinstall the game running it again afterwards and very likely remove another install in the process. Since there is no way for me to know how many I have left, I just assume it's gone.

Again, same issue.

Time for a return to the roots; Pull out that old black book and dial the ex for a quick romp. In short, download a copy semi-illegally. Only semi as I own the game, legally, and who am I to say that everyone else in the peer list isn't suffering the same headache. I bought the damn thing, I want to play it and I paid for the right to do so. After the torrent completes downloading, I disconnect - seeding is good form but screw the lousy pirates!

I install and run the game once, there is indeed no protection of any kind and I contemplate just keeping this one. Morals gets the better of me and I continue with the plan. I quit out and start the patch up - everything completes successfully. I run the game once again and there is still no protection of any kind, pluses across the board. I copy the install to another location, uninstall and then reinstall the GG version and do a quick file compare. A few large files but mostly small files are different, the patch is actually pretty minimal and my idea for a solution can forge ahead.

Using a freeware version of the Clickteam Patchmaker, I create a patch for the Gamers Gate edition that is twofold: It updates the version I paid for and removes the copy protection using legitimate files. Is it legal? I don't know, some lawyer will say yes and another will say no and it will ultimately fall on who pays them more. I feel that the product I purchased was not supported by the company who made it due to the packaging I chose to buy it in, regardless of the fact that it was their choice to package it thusly.

While there may be a working patch in the future, my workaround, legal or otherwise, was the only real solution available to me at the time and I begrudgingly have to thank pirates for providing me with the resources. It's ridiculous to think I had to break the law in order to fix a legally purchased product that wouldn't have been broken had I stole it in the first place.

Oh, and, good game!

*UPDATE* The patch has been re-issued through the forums and now works with the Gamers Gate edition, so long as you copy it into the game folder first. What's even better is that the patch removes the SecuRom protection, just patch before you run and your install limits are gone.

*UPDATE 2* The forums have completely disappeared and I have been unable to find a valid link for the update. Here instead is my created patch that will update the Gamers Gate version of DW2.

Why would I shed light on a way to pirate PS3 games when this blog is intended to be anti-piracy you ask? Simply to prove a point; piracy is available to all platforms so lets start collecting and acknowledging statistics from all sources instead of just the PC. Companies shun the PC and point to piracy as the cause, silently stating that there is no piracy on consoles, bzzzt! Incorrect.

This idea in turn propagates and influences other companies to due the same, ignoring the fact that it is demonstrably false. The 360 has had a firmware hack for years now yet no one wants to point that out publicly for trepidation of the FUD that it would generate. Here we have the last fallen domino in the console piracy war and can now consider the footing equal.

So lets take that collective ignorance and selective acknowledgement of facts and find something legitimate to point at in defense of the lack of support so it can be overcome already.

UBISoft is happy with their new DRM scheme despite the mass of hatred that consumers have heaped on. The always-online method that UBI has employed was attacked in retaliation for their decision and brought down for a few days before being restored. The legal owners were given in-game items in compensation for the down time while UBI plugged the holes and touted that the DRM wouldn't be cracked anytime soon.

A short time later an emulator was released for Assassin's Creed 2 which allowed offline play but not without hiccups, some manual maintenance was required to continue playing. UBI continued praising it's DRM and the emulator was passed off as not a genuine crack. Well, that time is over.

SkidRow has cracked, that's cracked, the DRM completely and requires a single file replacement for complete offline play. To protect their hard work, the file was wrapped in Solid Shield to obfuscate decompilation by rival groups and of course UBI themselves. Smart considering that the next patch would likely address the holes SkidRow utilized.

Much of this could have been avoided if UBI had just handled the Press better. If the DRM scheme had been touted as a new online community with benefits and bonuses for legitimate players while loosening up on the always-online issue, UBI would probably have slipped by with little trouble. Just look at Bioware and their hidden DRM scheme; Mass Effect 2 and Dragon's Age both need a steady, online connection to get the most out of the game but nobody is complaining there. The difference is presentation and a less restrictive interruption handler coupled with player benefits like achievements and an online journal of your progress.

UBI promised to remove the DRM if the servers were ever to be shut down permanently which is really an empty promise. To hear their stance on DRM and PC gaming, the only way that would happen is bankruptcy. Once chapter 11 is filed and the programmers are given the boot, who will be left with the knowledge to apply the deactivation and what would be the driving force to even bother?

You may or may not have heard of the three strikes law that the MPAA and other wannabe law enforcement agencies have pushed in the past. This law would allow you as an internet consumer to be accused, that's accused - not convicted, of downloading illegal, copyright-infringing files only three times before your internet would be disconnect permanently. After which your name would be added to a do-not-provide-for list which would prevent you from ever getting the internet again.

Really, I'm not making that up.

This bill was voted against and dismissed, however it has returned on the heels of another act in the process of being passed. This one is an anti-counterfeiting bill and the powers that be have not only covertly tagged it on but tried to disavow it's existence within said bill so no one would know it's there.

Yes I'm Canadian, you could say it doesn't affect me but it will. You can read a summation of what is known over on CNET's MollyRants page.

Ars Technica has an interesting post on the losses due to piracy and the numbers used to game them for the public. Other than the obvious argument that many companies take; that every pirated copy would equal a sale, it goes on to point out that the loss estimates made by the FBI and the CPB were not based on any tangibly corroborative facts or numbers.

Don't delude yourself, piracy is a problem and does in-fact impact the industry. Just not to the extent that companies tout about in press releases. While we wouldn't have DRM if it wasn't a problem, we also would likely be paying $99 a game with no sales - ever. Piracy is an instrument of honest business; if you have no consequences, what's to stop you from stepping over the boundaries?

These claims are made by the U.S Government Accountability Office so we are not talking some random, never-heard-of agency making them. Ironically enough, this investigation was prompted by the PRO-IP act, a bill meant to protect the Intellectual Property of big business from said pirates.

Poetic Justice is the sweetest kind.

A new update from M$ for Windows 7 is set to disable activation workarounds that cracked copies have been using. Amazingly enough, the description of said update tells you:

This update to Windows Activation Technologies detects activation exploits and tampering to key Windows system files. These exploits try to bypass regular Windows activation and are sometimes included within counterfeit copies of Windows.

Oddly enough, just yesterday I noticed my settings for autoupdate were set to automatic despite my setting them to manual long ago, coincidence? Either way, this is the update I had expected in my shady pirated XP past and examined details extensively before I downloaded. Had my compulsion to do this left me after going legit, I would have missed this information and the feeling of vindication for all those years of checking.

Microsoft has cracked down on an estimated 600,000 users, perhaps as high as 1,000,000 for piracy. The official statement is modding their console, but lets not kid ourselves here; the only reason to mod a console is piracy. You can spew garbage about region locking all you want, it's an american company and there wasn't any Japanese brawler you had to have here. You modded your console so you could play pirated discs, period.

To further differentiate meaning here, the people who mod their Xbox's to add lights, color, a new DVD Drive or fans for required additional cooling are not the ones getting kicked. It's people who have firmware hacked their DVD drives so copied discs can play. What's even funnier is these morons are flooding Microsoft with calls on their banned consoles You were dumb enough to log on to Xbox Live with a modded console, that's darwin - suck it up princess.

Piracy on a 360 is easier than piracy on a PC, you don't have to contend with activation, virus infected EXE's, protection updates disguised as patches or waiting for cracks. One firmware hack and you can play any 360 game you can find on the net, now that's convenience.

Microsoft isn't done yet and plans to add additional bans soon and to be clear on what that means, the consoles themselves are being pulled from the network and not the accounts. If you log on to your account from a legit console then your account is intact, it's the ID within the console that can no longer access Live and the console itself continues to function otherwise.

Does this ban coincide with the release of Modern Warfare 2? I would place my money on yes, and these million or so pirates are now even more enticed to go out and purchase another console so they can get back to the online fragging in what will surely be 2009's game of the year. Now what's 600,000 x $200?

RedLynx, developer of Trials PC admitted to serving a Torrent of a gimped version of their game in order to entice would-be customers to buy the full experience. The gimped version lacked the Leaderboards that the company believes is the heart of the game, I would have thought it was the game itself but what do I know.

Steam has just released an update to Twin Sector, a new Portal-type Physx game published by Head Up Games that fixes some crash issues. I would be excited about this except that the game hasn't been released yet. In fact, it's two months away to release. Even better is that the website (though in German) states the release date as Sept 17, 2009. I can BitTorrent this game today, in English and complete. I could have done so a week ago, coinciding with the above release date and after playing the demo, I sure as hell want to.

I can only assume that either Steam is needlessly holding back an American release or the delay is publisher enforced, either way it won't help sales. If StarCraft II were to debut in Korea two months ahead of a US release, what do you think would happen? Arbitrary time gates only exceed in promoting piracy and disenchants gamers by fostering an image of elitist snobbery. Also in the cards is the ability to dissuade game companies from using overseas publishing by appearing to be a criminally apathetic marketer or simply not localizing and publishing overseas at all.

As of the morning the Pirate Bay is offline as Swedish authorities threatened TPB's bandwidth provider with hefty fines unless they complied. The Pirate Party leader went on to chastise the courts for their actions but ultimately it happened anyway - Like always, freedom of speech is subject to the dollars backing it.

The problem here was not piracy, but pissing on the wrong cornflakes. You just don't moon and flip off the mafia and expect to walk away. Instead of sticking out your tongue and waggling your fingers, you should have buttoned down and used the facts. Legally and with precedent shown that torrent files are not themselves copyright infringement and proven that any search engine can provide the same service that you were. Waiting until you were brought to court is too late, the pawns are already in place and you're guilty until proven innocent. Money buys everything, just ask OJ.

Now a precedent can be set, and by the wrong people through a courtroom of marionettes that could encompass any program or service and provide a foothold for future ramrodding of whatever liberal whim they desire. We can only hope that an appeal to a higher court will be heard, and by minds of impartial moral character.

While TPB has a doppelganger, has managed to secure a new server and expect to have the site back up by tomorrow morning, it's obviously only temporary. The bad guys aren't going to just throw their hands into the air and quit, they have plenty of colleagues with deep pockets and a zest for revenge on salty, soggy cornflakes.

Abandonware is, let us say, a grey area in the realm of piracy. Once retail games, they now languish in a purgatory of "you never said I couldn't" where until someone says no, you go ahead and do it anyway. Unrecognizable knickknacks that Publishers long dead and buried leave behind to children that don't understand or care about the heritage or stories behind them.

This is where abandonware sites come in.

A kind of Software GoodWill where nobody charges, you just take what interests you and enjoy the history contained within. The items are old, need to be handled with care and will require some maintenance and mending in order to become what they once were. Sure, those of us who lived through the era that these gems belong to value their significance in history more then those who missed the opportunity, but don't deprive yourself by dismissing them as old junk.

An understanding of on what shoulders the things we enjoy today are standing, betters our appreciation for that which we hold dear.

As I leafed through what many consider antiquity, I noticed each page lovingly contained the birth date, artist and sponsor as well as a short description of it's meaning as well as it's commendations. What surprised me most was just how short a time ago these were considered new and innovative - Ten years seems a trifle for the change that has transpired. Just compare DaggerFall screen shots with those of Oblivion, that's only ten years.

Whether it is 10, 20 or 100 years, the one thing that transcends everything is gameplay. The Nintendo Wii has proven that graphics aren't everything and has continued to do so every year since it's release. What you can find in older games is gameplay, good gameplay, gameplay that hasn't changed that much in those 10 years. Does Tetris play better on a Xbox 360 than it did on a GameBoy? No, and Tetris will still play the same on a direct neural input device that splices directly into your brain. Graphics are nice and in many cases the reason we buy what we play, but gameplay will always be king.

"Enough of this excessive soliloquy" you say, "your colorful metaphors are a molestation of my otherwise jovial predilection". "Give me the goods already!"

Ok.

Here are completely legitimate downloads of free or released as free games. There are no abandonware titles here, and all will work on the latest of systems.

onEscapee is a platformer similar to Out of This World or FlashBack.
Elder Scrolls: Arena and DaggerFall are the progenitors to Oblivion and have been released by Bethesda for free. The two links I have provided lead to downloads that have been preconfigured to run in DosBox by the folks at OldgamesSK.
CaveStory, which is soon available on the Wii, is a Metroid type platformer of surprising depth and charm. It requires an English patch which can also be downloaded on the linked page.
Finally, two adventure games of complete contrast: Infinity String, a LucasArts style adventure and Fate By Numbers, a full motion video adventure requiring an entire DVD to be downloaded.

For more legitimate commercial games released as freeware, try the WIKI Page, for more Free Games like the ones listed try TIGSource. History aficionados may enjoy an interview with Sarinee Achavanuntakul, creator of the Abandonware site Home of The Underdogs.

Why oh why does it have to be so hard to be an honest customer? Bionic Commando was released Tuesday and had it been a console game, I probably could have bought it the moment the store opened. Since it's a PC release though it gets to the warehouse Tuesday, shipped on Wednesday, received on Thursday, looked at on Friday and Saturday you'll be able to pre-order it for Sunday.

I could have downloaded this game over a week ago for the love of torrents, hell I'd probably have beaten the game by now. Seriously! What's the freaking hold-up, do you not want my money? Is it such a long journey to that small cubby-hole in the back corner next to the copies of Barbie Horse Avenger, Shiny Marble-Tac-Toe and Junk and Crap Click 2009? Peel your pork-loins away from the God of War slap fight and earn that minimum wage, chump!

Update: Apparently the game has been cancelled as a retail release (at least in North America) and the only way to purchase it other than importing will be on Steam. Ok, guess I'm the asshole then.

Second Update: Never ever listen to a minimum wager who hasn't seen their own feet since age ten, Bionic Commando is in North America and can be purchased in stores. On a plus side, buying Bionic Commando and Bionic Commando Rearmed on Steam was less money than the retail copy.

The one and only Neowin reports that Windows 7 RTM has been cracked with an OEM master key. This crack is the same basic thing that was done for Vista and it must be embarrassing for M$ to have fallen into the same hole. Given how little the software giant has been able to combat the Vista crack, it looks grim for their chances against a similar attack.

The bigger problem here is simply cost; $100+ for a piece of software that 90% of computer users will install or have pre-installed on every new machine is a little rich. Subsidizing through "upgrade" paths is hamstringed by the need for a previous OS to be installed and running on the target computer before 7 can even be installed. A family pack is planned according to rumor, but their is no telling what the savings will be or the requirements involved.

I wish I could say I won't be utilizing this crack, but I may be lying.

Although I am trying to hammer straight the crooked path I have walked, I still utilize practices looked upon as questionable by some and outright violation by others. For instance, I use unprotected content for any game that forces me to either insert the DVD into the drive or hands me limited activations that are either irrevocable, or paltry in number. I bought the game, I'll play it how I want to: with the least amount of hassle and without your damn permission.

Another illicit practice I employ is downloading games, "But that's piracy!" you say, "All this talk of reform is utter rubbish!" Not exactly. There are titles that are arbitrarily held back in some countries while being released in others. There are also games that have no demo or the demo is not a true representation of the game. Lastly, there's the simple "Will I like it?" factor. If I buy what I play and delete what I don't, is it really theft?

Ok, that argument is slightly maligned by the fact that I'm not exactly pure in this regard.

There are games that are indecently overpriced; enjoyable but not the firecrackers-from-the-fanny, high-priced harlots they claim to be. I will check for sales and buy if the price is fair, but some titles just never seem to drop. CoD4 is still the same $50 it was when it was relased two years ago! Velvet Assassin debuted at $60, is still $60, is worth maybe $20 and only if you are a masochist.

So, suffice to say my halo is tarnished and only slightly skewed by horns. Have I found a better application for my errant ways or am I just returning to old habits?

Having argued with several 3rd rate captains of various retail ships over the existence of Guitar Hero World Tour on the PC - I am at a loss. First there was a GH4 SLI profile contained within the 186 revision nVidia drivers, and the peanut gallery shouted Nay! Next there was several announcements from GDC 2009 and still the unwashed, food court-dwelling counter-jockeys of Dorktardia waived my statements from behind their stained and worn copies of GameInformer. Now a Crack and Pirate Release is available and still I am neither able to purloin a copy legally, nor find a single local retailer willing to admit it's existence. What's a recovering Pirate to do?

Gone Ashore

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