"OH NOES I am unable to shade polygon normals" Gary's Mod deals out Piracy Punishment

[Family Fry]

This is funny, basically Garry Newman has enabled a crash that pops up when you boot pirate version of Garry's Mod.
Check out the google results

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22Unable+to+shade+polygon+normals%22

Best reply I saw was guy saying "I know how to fix it (link to the gamepage) click on the add to cart button and buy it you pirating mother*****"

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-13-garrys-mod-sets-trap-for-pirates

[charlesr]

Hilarious. The error code supplies the steam account for cross reference.

[25.05.2005]

I like this.

I really hate being made to feel like a criminal when I am a paying customer by having to jump through various hoops just to install or play a game. Other developers/publishers should take note.

[Largo]

Didnt arkham asylum do something similar to this i seem yo recall?

[Daragon]

I like this.

I really hate being made to feel like a criminal when I am a paying customer by having to jump through various hoops just to install or play a game. Other developers/publishers should take note.

Agreed. We really shouldn't be needing always on, permanent internet connection required DRMs to play SINGLE PLAYER GAMES! Take note Ubishaft!

[Flabio]

Not a new idea, it's called 'Dead Dropping', and most games I've worked on have had it.

[Daragon]

Well those games shouldn't have it either - the majority should not suffer for the minority. If some guy I've never heard of can create such an anti pirating measure then so can big development houses!

[Daragon]

Ha Ha Ha, garry

[Flabio]

Erm, thats what I meant. That plenty of games have comedy break things if the game is pirated' checks in them.

Arkham Asylum, for one, does. If your copy is pirated it reduces the amount of time you can glide for, makes certain parts impossible.

[Daragon]

Oh right, I thought you were responding to my comment about always on DRMs like Ubishaft's

My apologies.

[Brodie]

Question - if developers can make it so that certain things don't work when they detect it's a pirated copy, why not just make it so that it simply doesn't work at all?

I'm clearly being enormously naive here, but if they CAN detect it, and CAN implement something based on that, why not just stop them in their tracks?

*awaits answers from far more intelligent people, that he'll never understand*

[Flabio]

If it clearly breaks, then the hacker will know they've not cracked it properly and keep trying.

The idea is for the degrading to be subtle and not noticed immediately, so the hacker says 'oh, hacked it' and moves on to zero-daying something else instead.

Also it needs to be specific enough a breakage that you can spot it really easily when people start posting on your company forum about the bug they have...

[Mayhem]

Exactly. It reminds me of the copy protection for Exile on the C64. It took a long time for someone to properly crack and train that sucker, because the game subtly moves or makes certain items disappear that are vital to completion of the game, but you don't know that until you're a good 20-30 minutes in at least. Hence up until that point, pretty much the only way to play the game in emulation was to load a TAP file.

[Sixty]

This makes me wonder why developers don't include several secret game-breaking things in pirate copies instead of just one.

If they programmed, say, five 'bugs' evenly spread throughout the first half or so of the game, it would take many playthroughs of the pirate version to discover one, determine it's an anti-piracy measure, hack it out, then find the next one, and repeat.

It would be ages before a clean pirate copy was readily available. Maybe you'd even reach a point where hackers would give up? Doubtful, I know. Or has just one deliberate glitch been proven to be all that's needed to make a difference? If I was a dev, I'd be filling my game with loads of cleverly hidden annoying stuff to mess with people who steal it as much as possible.

[Flabio]

There are five different, distinct, 'breakages' in one game I've worked on