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"Copy Protection"

Many years ago I was the proud owner of an Atari ST, which although utterly useless by today’s high standards, its games had the playability and originality which many modern efforts are sorely lacking. Unfortunately, it came to a sorry end, as did the equally great Amiga, by the ever-present hand of piracy. This was then even more common than it is today, since copying floppy disks is so easy, and ultimately led to the collapse of the games market for these machines.

Just yesterday, I was given the opportunity to get my hands on pirate copies of some of the best Playstation 2 games around at a price that compared to a Happy Meal at McDonald's. I refused. I do not want to add to the problems piracy creates in the games market.

There is a lesson to be learned here- that the future of gaming is grim unless more action is taken against piracy. In the past games developers came up with many ingenious ideas, the most common of which was some form of detailed pattern or code printed on dark paper and supplied with the game manual- the original Settlers comes to mind here in earlier days and most modern PC games now use this code method on the back of games cases. This code is entered like a password to get the game to load and can only be registered once. Another solution was a cardboard disc with a pattern of holes which, when rotated as directed by the game, revealed a pattern of symbols which had to be entered. This method was not as widely used, but it worked all the same. More recently we have had disc shape changes with the release of the GameCube so that games cannot be copied onto normal Compact Discs.

These devices are very difficult to reproduce, and very effective, but came too late to save the systems of the past. Many of the developers responsible for these measures are still around today (Codemasters and Core to name but two). I think it is time that anti-piracy measures were more effective on all systems today, especially easy targets such as the Playstation consoles. Unless something is done fast, prices will continue to increase and many gamers will end up priced out of the games market.

Something like that could be a really powerful tool against pirates if they could implement it in games

I went to a sunday morning market not so long ago. It was really big, and about 40% of the stalls there were all selling pirate games and music CD's.

I really dont think anyone knows truely how big this is.

They have tried a new method with music cds. Where by there are random breaks in data which basically makes any copies imperfect and terrible to listen too. These breaks are somehow readable by your common or garden CD player but not your cd-rom, ROM being the reason why. This obviously is unworkable with the PS2 and other systems at the moment, but may be there for future consoles to take benefit from.

Yeah, it will take quite a while for the process but hopefully one day we'll see a significant decrease in the number of pirate copies floating around.

I am sure there are ways that SOny are working on. But it will take some time to think up of a great idea, test it and then implement it on the black market

Triple_H wrote:

> what do you think should be done in order to reduce the number of
> pirate games on the market.


I think new methods of producing anti-piracy software should be researched and developed. There's got to be something that works and is financially feasible surely?

Oh ye, I heard that games cost a bit more than here in Blighty. Anyway what do you think should be done in order to reduce the number of pirate games on the market. Ok the police are beginning to raid the car boot sales and confiscate the offending material but surely there is a better way out of this situation

I live in Dublin Triple-H

Trish wrote:
> As you probably guessed from my post, I think prices are becoming
> extortionate these days. I have to pay around 63-70 Euro to get my
> hands on a game. It's ridiculous.

May I ask where you reside?

As the law stands I believe you get the chance to buy the "licence" before the do you, if you are found possessing copyed games/music etc. This applies to the people who buy the dodgy game in the first place. More often than not the actual pirates bang these games out one by one by demand. So are these people ever going to get caught?? Really there is no need for your friendly pirate from number 19 Smith street to even exist. All you need is broadband one of the numerous hacking groups to release ISOs to the net public, so, the problem will always exist. Games will never be cheap enough for everyone to afford, so the problem will always exist. I sound cynical i know, but this has been a topic of conversation for me since 1980 when i had my first outing to Rumbelows to buy my first box of microprocessor goodness, and nowt has changed.

Ok, so whats more likely - the software houses dropping prices first or the end of piracy ? bit of a stalemate :(