Although much has been made in recent years about the various methods used by developers to try to stop unauthorized copying, in some cases with disastrous results even for players who purchased a genuine edition, this situation has been a cause for concern. for companies in the industry for quite some time now.
Sadly famous are the systems that require permanent Internet connection or DRM barriers that generally only serve to complicate life for everyone and scare away the player, but the history of video games has also provided us with other methods against the most original copy and, in many cases, tremendously funny. If you have been able to recognize the album that heads this article, surely you will know what I am talking about.
Because after all, problems are always better when you know how to face them with a bit of good humor, don’t you think? To celebrate those bursts of inspiration that some creators have had as a way of trying to stop copying, but without falling into hateful techniques like the ones mentioned above, we are going to collect here the most striking actions that have been seen over the years. years.
Meryl, can I have your number?
Without a doubt, the most likeable cases in this category are those that require player interaction that goes beyond the controller and screen. Such is the case of ‘Metal Gear Solid’a game that dared to break frequently the fourth wall to demand from us new ways of facing the adventure that activate our imagination, like that moment in which we were told that we had to locate the frequency to be able to contact Meryl in the back of the box. Logically, whoever did not have an original copy could find themselves in serious trouble to overcome this point (it must be taken into account that at that time Internet access was not as common as it is today).
the spinning pirates
‘The Secret of Monkey Island’ It wasn’t the only game of the time to use a disc of this type, but without a doubt this Dial-a-Pirate is the most famous and the one we remember with the most affection from those times. The idea was quite simple: in order to start the game, it was necessary to spin the wheel until finding the combination similar to the pirate that appeared on the screen, then entering the year that was requested. No anti-copy method is infallible and this was no exception, as photocopied versions of roulette soon began to circulate that solved the enigma without a problem.
There is no one to pass this game
What can be the ultimate lesson for a player who has decided to copy a title? The creators of ‘Earthbound’ They were clear about it: the game would freeze during the confrontation with the final boss, forcing the user to restart the console only to find the horror that their game had been deleted. The situation is even more bloody if we take into account that the game had been applying a higher number of confrontations during the adventure to make it more tedious, so you can imagine the attacks of anger that the coup could cause.
Something has come out on my face
The ‘Earthbound’ thing was bad milk, okay, but in the end you have to consider that whoever found themselves in such a situation knew what they were exposing themselves to. However, there are times when developers seek to be less aggressive and more subtle with their alterations intended to indicate to the user on duty that they have been caught. Elegant as the protagonist of their game, Remedy decided to put a buccaneer patch on the hero of ‘Alan Wake’ as a constant reminder that perhaps it would not be a bad idea to acquire the original version of this remarkable horror adventure.
The Bat that did not know how to plan
We have another recent case of incidence in the gameplay as a punishment for the copier in the excellent ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’, whose version for PC included a series of limitations such as the impossibility of planning with the cape and various bugs that prevented the development of the adventure from a certain point on. The funniest thing about it came when people started posting messages on the internet asking for help, thinking it was a bug in the game, an obvious demonstration of what it’s like to be caught red-handed.
See if you can figure that out, ok
In a clear example of how an anti-copy system can turn against your legitimate users, here we have the infamous Lenslock. The system, integrated into some computer titles from the 80s such as ‘Elite’, consisted of a piece that had to be placed directly on the screen and whose lens made it possible to decipher a code that was otherwise unreadable. Entering this code was necessary for the game to start, but the problem arose when the calibration of certain monitors (especially if they were very large or very small) prevented the device from working correctly. Come on, a complete nonsense.
I think there’s something wrong with this rifle
Another example of creative punishment for the user who did not want to checkout was introduced by Bohemia Interactive Studio in ‘Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis’. At first everything started normally in the unauthorized copy, but without anything making the player suspect what was happening, the title gradually modified the behavior of the weapons until they became little less than fairground shotguns, also reducing resistance of the player to derisory levels. And if you liked what you had tried so far, you already knew what you had to do to continue.
The importance of a good contact list
In much the same vein as the pirate spinning disk, ‘Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) ‘, the second installment of the lascivious graphic adventure saga, included in its manual the images of a series of women and their respective telephone numbers. When starting the game, the screen showed us one of these fictitious ladies and asked us to enter her number, which allowed us to proceed normally. Soon the existence of a “wild card” number used by the developers was discovered that allowed to bypass the protection system and even activate some tricks.
Take the leap… if you dare
We already know that EA has taken some unpopular measures to deal with the uncontrolled distribution of its titles, but in the case of ‘Mirror’s Edge’ they opted for a friendlier path. If for some reason you decided to try your luck with an unauthorized copy of the game, you would find a Faith afraid to undertake those big jumps that characterize the adventure, slowing down drastically when reaching the edge of buildings. Naturally, getting ahead like this was simply impossible.
to jail for copying
The guys at Lucasfilm Games did not cut a hair when it came to sending a clear message to those players who chose the unauthorized path to get hold of ‘Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders’. The original copies of the title included a series of codes printed on dark paper that were practically illegible when photocopied; If these codes were entered incorrectly several times when requested, the protagonist was arrested and put in a cell whose jailer dedicated himself to giving him a talk about the inappropriateness of his behavior.
There is no clearer message than a giant immortal scorpion
Although if speeches like that of ‘Zak McKracken’ do not work, there is always the option taken by Croteam in ‘Serious Sam 3: BFE’. And there is no louder and clearer message against unauthorized copying than a giant immortal scorpion that moves at breakneck speed across the screen and will not stop until it kills us. That is what one finds in the copied game shortly after starting, so you can imagine that there is not much that can be done to refute their arguments.
the hidden spells
Instruction books have dwindled almost to the point of extinction over the years, but there was a time when games came loaded with extra materials that collectors loved. We have an example of this in the magical ‘Loom’whose Book of Patterns included in the box served to write down the spells that we discovered in the adventure and acted as a protection measure by including patterns that were required on the screen so that the game could continue.
drunk to copy
Do you remember that mission? ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ where Niko ended up drunk as a slut and how frustrating it was having to control the game with the camera shaking like that? Well now imagine what it is to have to suffer the whole adventure like this. That is what Rockstar prepared for users who decided to try their luck with an unauthorized copy of their title. I doubt anyone lasted more than 15 minutes without ending up with a completely upset stomach.
The punishing fairy
To curb unauthorized copying of ‘Spyro: Year of the Dragon’, Insomniac opted for a combination of several cases seen in this article: first, a fairy informs us that we have been hunted, and then warns us that the game will start to crash for this reason. From that point on, a series of forced errors will spoil the experience until it ends up exhausting the user’s patience.
Explain it to the FBI, kid.
In the mid-80s, the computer role-playing saga ‘Alternate Reality’ was one of the first to try modifying the development of the adventure to stop unwanted copies. The first chapter, called ‘The City’, progressively weakened the protagonist of a copied game until it led him to an irremediable death. Its sequel, ‘The Dungeon’, went further and put in front of the hunted player a couple of invincible FBI agents who stopped any advance, even when trying to recover the saved game in a genuine copy afterwards.
Indy’s Big Challenge
The striking resolution code system was common in Lucasfilm works, and we have another good proof of this in ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’. In this case, the only way to decipher them in order to enter them on the screen was through a viewer that, in reality, was nothing more than a piece of red cellophane that allowed only valid information to be discerned. In case of entering the code wrong three times, the game went to a demo.
Some morning napalm and something else
EA did not want to mince words in ‘Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2’, so he directly took the path of blowing up all the structures in the base of the player who had copied the title on his own within thirty seconds of starting the game. Little can be answered to that, right? The problem came when some legitimate users also saw their buildings blown up without knowing the reason for so much hate, but those are the so-called heroes.
In ExtraLife | How the creators of Marvel’s Spider-Man turned Spyro the Dragon into the trolliest anti-copy system on PlayStation
