Hackproof Arcade

[Dartful Dodger]

Personally I'm more interested in this game
that needs protection.
Give us a taste.

You'll be able to play it in the next release of MAME.

[ark_ader]

The only way that you are going to make any money today is to create a shareware version of the game.

One level play and the rest on subscription.  Forget about encryption, dongles, authentication servers - its all a waste of money.

Besides what if the game is crap?  All that money for a lost cause?

Think how ID started with Doom.

The only other solution is to make a free game - get yourself noticed and gradually enter the market with your wares priced at $5 each. Make it cheap enough and the pirates will leave it alone.

I thought you could make a dongle that was hack proof.  When the offender tried to open the dongle - a mechanism would break the chip. Rendering it useless.  BTW arcade game in a cabinet is dead money.

[Gatt]

The only way that you are going to make any money today is to create a shareware version of the game.

One level play and the rest on subscription.  Forget about encryption, dongles, authentication servers - its all a waste of money.

Besides what if the game is crap?  All that money for a lost cause?

Think how ID started with Doom.

The only other solution is to make a free game - get yourself noticed and gradually enter the market with your wares priced at $5 each. Make it cheap enough and the pirates will leave it alone.

I thought you could make a dongle that was hack proof.  When the offender tried to open the dongle - a mechanism would break the chip. Rendering it useless.  BTW arcade game in a cabinet is dead money.

A hardware dongle won't stop anything,  first,  the data's not stored on a chip,  it's on the hard drive.  Killing the chip is only usefull in preventing emulation of the xPU's,  but in this case,  they're known.  They're standard x86 CPU's and perhaps standard GPU's.  You'd have to kill the drive.  You could,  of course,  encrypt it,  but that only slows things down,  no guarantee it won't be cracked.  There's ways to kill the drive,  but they're dangerous.  A big magnet might do it,  but it might also shorten the components lifespan over time even in it's safe position,  and there's no guarantee it'd do it's job before the drive could be extracted.  A Solid-state with suicide battery would work,  except as soon as it loses power it's dead even if accidentally.  A Thermite reaction could do it,  but there's no guarantee you aren't going to start a major fire.

As far as pirates go,  having been reading anything touching on the subject for years now,  I'm convinced there's nothing that will prevent rampant piracy.  Pirates seem to use alot of excuses,  "I just want to try before I buy", "I wouldn't pay for it anyways", or "They charge too much for it and I won't pay", or "The (RIAA/MPAA/ISDA) are EVIL and don't deserve money!".

But it's all obviously false.  The sales figures vs piracy figures show people aren't buying after trying,  no one's going to waste time downloading and useing something they don't actually like,  and it doesn't matter where it's priced,  the piracy rates again show people still won't pay.  Simply put,  if people can get it for free,  most people will take it for free.

It's really important to remember,  Pirates have primary motivations,  they're not going to tell you "I want all my X for free",  they're going to give some excuse that demonizes someone and "Forced" them to resort to piracy.

Honestly,  hit up anandtech one day when they post a piracy article,  and just read through the responses with an open mind.  People's motivations become readily apparent,  you'll see all those excuses,  but you won't see any data to support their arguements,  just those excuses in vacuum.

[Haze]

The only way that you are going to make any money today is to create a shareware version of the game.

One level play and the rest on subscription.  Forget about encryption, dongles, authentication servers - its all a waste of money.

Besides what if the game is crap?  All that money for a lost cause?

Think how ID started with Doom.

The only other solution is to make a free game - get yourself noticed and gradually enter the market with your wares priced at $5 each. Make it cheap enough and the pirates will leave it alone.

I thought you could make a dongle that was hack proof.  When the offender tried to open the dongle - a mechanism would break the chip. Rendering it useless.  BTW arcade game in a cabinet is dead money.

A hardware dongle won't stop anything,  first,  the data's not stored on a chip,  it's on the hard drive.  Killing the chip is only usefull in preventing emulation of the xPU's,  but in this case,  they're known.  They're standard x86 CPU's and perhaps standard GPU's.  You'd have to kill the drive.  You could,  of course,  encrypt it,  but that only slows things down,  no guarantee it won't be cracked.  There's ways to kill the drive,  but they're dangerous.  A big magnet might do it,  but it might also shorten the components lifespan over time even in it's safe position,  and there's no guarantee it'd do it's job before the drive could be extracted.  A Solid-state with suicide battery would work,  except as soon as it loses power it's dead even if accidentally.  A Thermite reaction could do it,  but there's no guarantee you aren't going to start a major fire.

As far as pirates go,  having been reading anything touching on the subject for years now,  I'm convinced there's nothing that will prevent rampant piracy.  Pirates seem to use alot of excuses,  "I just want to try before I buy", "I wouldn't pay for it anyways", or "They charge too much for it and I won't pay", or "The (RIAA/MPAA/ISDA) are EVIL and don't deserve money!".

But it's all obviously false.  The sales figures vs piracy figures show people aren't buying after trying,  no one's going to waste time downloading and useing something they don't actually like,  and it doesn't matter where it's priced,  the piracy rates again show people still won't pay.  Simply put,  if people can get it for free,  most people will take it for free.

It's really important to remember,  Pirates have primary motivations,  they're not going to tell you "I want all my X for free",  they're going to give some excuse that demonizes someone and "Forced" them to resort to piracy.

Honestly,  hit up anandtech one day when they post a piracy article,  and just read through the responses with an open mind.  People's motivations become readily apparent,  you'll see all those excuses,  but you won't see any data to support their arguements,  just those excuses in vacuum.

and the problem is, with all the 'solutions' they're turning people who weren't pirates into pirates, which was my point.

I can't honestly say I'm pro-pirate, I might work on emulation software, but I've made my views on the subject quite clear many times.

When I feel that by being a legitimate customer I'm being screwed over more than if I just pirate the game, and being forced to jump through hoops, install a trucload of junk on my PC just for a game to work etc. then I stop seeing any point in being a legitimate customer, and in the end simply don't play the games (which is now the case 95% of the time), or my only experience to them is through pirated versions.

Up until last week I was a big supporter of Sony for the openness of their console.  I was enjoying the whole otheros thing, playing with the Cell in my own time and buying lots of new games.  Now, with the latest update, they've decided to punish me for being a legitimate customer, and take away half of my enjoyment of the system?  That really pissed me off, so I've simply boxed up the lot of it.  I can't update my system without losing one of the reasons I bought it, and if I don't update my system, I can't access the latest patches, or play the newest games.  Thanks for treating your legitimate customers well Sony!  My only option in order to keep playing the latest games, and still enjoy messing about with the system is to hope it gets cracked and pirate the games (because no doubt legit games will fail to function on a cracked box without trying to uncrack it)  Needless to say, that isn't my preferred option I'd rather keep using it as I have been for the past 6 months but Sony just took that option away.

Same with PC games, the copy protection schemes on the new ones are getting in the way of my normal use.  I reflashed the bios on my PC, which had the side-effect of resetting the system clock.  I didn't notice at first, tried to fire up a game, and it started complaining that the license information was invalid.  It continued to do so after I corrected the clock again.  Only option, buy it again, or find a cracked version.  I'll leave it up to you to guess which I did.  Likewise, the whole install limits on boxed games, or any system where I can't install the game on an offline machine and expect it to work are simply out of the question.  A few of years back I ended up having to completely reinstall windows because some drivers a game installed basically meant I couldn't access my CD drive anymore without getting a BSOD.. and there was no documented uninstall procedure.  

I've drawn a line, and most companies seem to have now crossed it.  I am perfectly prepared, and willing to pay for games, and I always have done.  It was a pleasure buying games on systems like the early PC / Amiga (anybody remember all the cool stuff that came with Wing Commander etc.?)  but these days it's just a hassle and in trying to be a legitimate customer I'm encountering more problems and it's worth.

Interpret this how you want, I'm not making excuses, I'm simply stating that the experience of being a legitimate customer is now so bad (thanks to ignorant companies, and 'anti-piracy measures') that it no longer feels worthwhile.  I fully understand how important sales are to the games industry, I've worked in it, however, it's no excuse at all to treat your customers like dirt, which is what is happening.  My message to the industry is simple, if you want to tackle pirates, tackle them directly, just stop making life so hard for me I no longer feel I can buy your products.  When the pirated product is better, more complete and more usable, and contains less junk than the one on the shelves you're doing something wrong, very wrong and there are many games I simply haven't bought, or even played lately because of that.

[planetjay]

ANYTHING you can do can be undone. But feel free to waste your time and money. 

Consider this: Christopher Tarnovsky hacks Infineon's 'unhackable' chip

BRING IT!

[Space Fractal]

its you do to much DRM on a product, you just download it instead to avoid these limits. A Pirate prodcut without limits is allways better than a original product with drm limits. Some companies is going to far and have not learnt the EA scandal around Spore (that DRM used here just got more pirated as it should) and as well Ubisoft stupid new DRM.

A perfect example to do a creat DRM is something like Batman Arkham Asylum does (which have a excellent integrate of Serurom, where EA failed on Spore):
- If the game detect a pirate version, you can simply not complete the game and hence much harder to crack.

Its THAT way a DRM should work!

[Thenasty]

it's probably all over the internet ready for downloads. The pirates already got it off his HD and crack it to be shared  

[Gatt]

The only way that you are going to make any money today is to create a shareware version of the game.

One level play and the rest on subscription.  Forget about encryption, dongles, authentication servers - its all a waste of money.

Besides what if the game is crap?  All that money for a lost cause?

Think how ID started with Doom.

The only other solution is to make a free game - get yourself noticed and gradually enter the market with your wares priced at $5 each. Make it cheap enough and the pirates will leave it alone.

I thought you could make a dongle that was hack proof.  When the offender tried to open the dongle - a mechanism would break the chip. Rendering it useless.  BTW arcade game in a cabinet is dead money.

A hardware dongle won't stop anything,  first,  the data's not stored on a chip,  it's on the hard drive.  Killing the chip is only usefull in preventing emulation of the xPU's,  but in this case,  they're known.  They're standard x86 CPU's and perhaps standard GPU's.  You'd have to kill the drive.  You could,  of course,  encrypt it,  but that only slows things down,  no guarantee it won't be cracked.  There's ways to kill the drive,  but they're dangerous.  A big magnet might do it,  but it might also shorten the components lifespan over time even in it's safe position,  and there's no guarantee it'd do it's job before the drive could be extracted.  A Solid-state with suicide battery would work,  except as soon as it loses power it's dead even if accidentally.  A Thermite reaction could do it,  but there's no guarantee you aren't going to start a major fire.

As far as pirates go,  having been reading anything touching on the subject for years now,  I'm convinced there's nothing that will prevent rampant piracy.  Pirates seem to use alot of excuses,  "I just want to try before I buy", "I wouldn't pay for it anyways", or "They charge too much for it and I won't pay", or "The (RIAA/MPAA/ISDA) are EVIL and don't deserve money!".

But it's all obviously false.  The sales figures vs piracy figures show people aren't buying after trying,  no one's going to waste time downloading and useing something they don't actually like,  and it doesn't matter where it's priced,  the piracy rates again show people still won't pay.  Simply put,  if people can get it for free,  most people will take it for free.

It's really important to remember,  Pirates have primary motivations,  they're not going to tell you "I want all my X for free",  they're going to give some excuse that demonizes someone and "Forced" them to resort to piracy.

Honestly,  hit up anandtech one day when they post a piracy article,  and just read through the responses with an open mind.  People's motivations become readily apparent,  you'll see all those excuses,  but you won't see any data to support their arguements,  just those excuses in vacuum.

and the problem is, with all the 'solutions' they're turning people who weren't pirates into pirates, which was my point.

I can't honestly say I'm pro-pirate, I might work on emulation software, but I've made my views on the subject quite clear many times.

When I feel that by being a legitimate customer I'm being screwed over more than if I just pirate the game, and being forced to jump through hoops, install a trucload of junk on my PC just for a game to work etc. then I stop seeing any point in being a legitimate customer, and in the end simply don't play the games (which is now the case 95% of the time), or my only experience to them is through pirated versions.

I'm not argueing with you there Haze,  I'd be an idiot to try given the debacle that has occured with Ubisoft these past couple weeks.  My point was,  the whole "If you sell it cheaper people won't pirate it" arguement is based on the fallacy that people pirate because of price,  people pirate because they're going to pirate in most cases.  Spore,  Settlers,  those are clear examples of where the DRM forced legitimate customers to pirate.

You also give another good example,  Starforce,  I lost a DVD drive to starforce,  there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.

Interpret this how you want, I'm not making excuses, I'm simply stating that the experience of being a legitimate customer is now so bad (thanks to ignorant companies, and 'anti-piracy measures') that it no longer feels worthwhile.  I fully understand how important sales are to the games industry, I've worked in it, however, it's no excuse at all to treat your customers like dirt, which is what is happening.  My message to the industry is simple, if you want to tackle pirates, tackle them directly, just stop making life so hard for me I no longer feel I can buy your products.  When the pirated product is better, more complete and more usable, and contains less junk than the one on the shelves you're doing something wrong, very wrong and there are many games I simply haven't bought, or even played lately because of that.

I know you'd be against piracy under normal circumstances,  you're a programmer,  you're the faceless victim of normal piracy.  Emulation,  IMO,  isn't the same,  as it has different goals than piracy.  I mean honestly,  how hypocritical would I be if I myself didn't differentiate between the two,  especially since I plan to make some ancillary attempts at contributing to the BYOAC community.

What I meant was the non-DRM related arguements. 

A perfect example to do a creat DRM is something like Batman Arkham Asylum does (which have a excellent integrate of Serurom, where EA failed on Spore):
- If the game detect a pirate version, you can simply not complete the game and hence much harder to crack.

Its THAT way a DRM should work!

That's actually been tried,  in a number of ways,  it backfires sadly.  Titan quest is the posterboy,  had hidden anti-piracy checks which triggered crashes,  which caused people to label them bugs.  There's no viable solution to the problem except literally forcing P2P to police itself and cut piracy on current retail products.  The X-box 360 and PS3 events recently just show piracy's starting to become mainstream and threatening even the previously immune console market.

[DJ_Izumi]

You also give another good example,  Starforce,  I lost a DVD drive to starforce,  there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.

I'm like 99.9999999% certian that your optical drive wasn't affected by Starforce and any failure it experienced was purely coincidental...

[Gatt]

You also give another good example,  Starforce,  I lost a DVD drive to starforce,  there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.

I'm like 99.9999999% certian that your optical drive wasn't affected by Starforce and any failure it experienced was purely coincidental...

I've read the stuff on it,  I know the official position's are that Starforce doesn't cause hardware failure.  I'm just having a hard time with it.  Starforce did something to my computer,  and it caused very reproducible problems,  ultimately my drive failed,  and the replacement displayed the exact same problems until I finally pulled Starforce out.

[Haze]

You also give another good example,  Starforce,  I lost a DVD drive to starforce,  there's definitely a reason to circumvent the DRM there.

I'm like 99.9999999% certian that your optical drive wasn't affected by Starforce and any failure it experienced was purely coincidental...

I've read the stuff on it,  I know the official position's are that Starforce doesn't cause hardware failure.  I'm just having a hard time with it.  Starforce did something to my computer,  and it caused very reproducible problems,  ultimately my drive failed,  and the replacement displayed the exact same problems until I finally pulled Starforce out.

Well in my case it was causing BSOD errors, and I've read other accounts where it keeps dropping the CD drives down into lower speed PIO mode rather than DMA.  Doing this will increase the stress on the drive (and CPU) because they're designed to read (and DMA) large amounts of data, not read block by block, and reseek between blocks etc.

I guess this might be why some people say it breaks their hardware (although when in PIO mode, it will appear 'broken' anyway because it will be so slow, and unreliable, and hog+stall the CPU on every access)  I can also see how it could reduce the overall life of the hardware.  So while StarForce might not have had 'nuke CDrom drive code' some of the behavior (in combination with various IDE drivers) was definitely buggy and it could potentially make it appear so, and quite possibly reduce the life of the drives, just as anything which can cause excessive stress on drives.  I suspect this affected legitimate customers more than people pirating the games because the very nature of these copy protection systems is that they contain 'bad' areas, which could end up forcing drives into PIO mode etc.  I've also seen faulty IDE drivers which will force everythnig on that channel into PIO mode if one drive drops down, which again could make the problem seem much worse.  It was probably a combination of multiple factors, induced by StarForce.

(the same can happen with bad HDDs and certain driver combinations.. too many errors and it will drop back to PIO mode, sometimes the only way to restore it is to reinstall the device in Windows and reboot.)

I've tried to explain that in simple terms, so excuse me if some of it isn't quite 100% accurate on a technical level ;-)

Either way, my problem with it was that it BSOD'd windows on random CD accesses, and in the end I had to reinstall the entire OS.  I doubt the game will even install anymore as I'm on a 64-bit system, another negative side of these driver-based protection systems; I bet the cracked version works fine tho.