The History of DRM & Copy Protection in Computer Games
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- Опубліковано 25 жов 2012
- An overview of copy protection and DRM schemes used in computer gaming, covering the most notable and interesting methods from the late 70's on up through today!
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One of the funniest ones is "Game Dev Tycoon". The developers themselves released a cracked version in the pirate scene. But if you played it, you would at some point get a message saying that your sales are going down due to pirates downloading your games illegally. And this of course made your company eventually go bankrupt. People of course got fooled and started asking in the forums why their 10/10 rated games wouldn't make any profit if all copies were pirated. Quite ironic.
AAAAND you get an achievement for buying the game
That's actually sort of awesome.
How very meta.
What does meta mean in gaming? I hear all the MOBA players saying it. Like "brah, thats just the meta-game".... "u wot m8?".
Thanks you made it much clearer than Wikipedia did!
Ah Yeah... Sim City... people bought the game on it's release day, but they could not play because the servers got flooded. But what happens the next day? Someone released a crack that bypasses the permanent online requirement and let you play any copy of it. The people that bought the game were still fighting to get into the game while the people that did not pay for the game was enjoying the game. One of these times when DRM can backfire at you and make your loyal customers very unhappy while being completely useless against piracy.
I remember that vividly. I bought Sim City on day one, couldn't play it with even the slightest bit of reliability for literally a week, and had my progress lost by the server at least once for no reason at all. A complete and total cluster fuck.
Or Diablo 3. People attacked me because I dared saying before release that D3 will be abandoned and you will not be able to play, let alone the shitty real money auction house will ruin the game... And now, I'm laughing because I did not buy that piece of junk, and waste about 25k forints, which is a LOT here.
DRM is anti-consumer
EA have just been horrible in general. Not caring about the customers, having the worst customer service, trying to make money with microtransactions, constant FIFA and Madden releases despite no overhauls, purposely releasing unfinished games hoping to sell DLC later, and rushing buggy games to market hoping to rely on patches later on. There is no reason to be loyal as they do not care, as long as they get money.
They've basically killed off Maxis, at least for Sim City, probably never will be another under that name, because they got their money now they can burn the franchise. They didn't give the customer what they wanted, and now Cities Skylines has filled the void of an actual city builder, not some 1 acre tile that you need to be online to build on.
Its why I swore off EA ever since. SimCity was my game franchise and they destroyed it.
It's always great when DRM makes you, the actual customer, have a bad time while somebody with a pirated copy has no issues at all.
There's an amazing side mission in the witcher 3 where the main character helps an old wizard who bought a castle second hand but then found out the original owner put protective magic on the house to stop anyone else from using the house, this magic had a clever name with an acronym that spelled DRM. The game was just making fun of the really militant drm that is used these days. Like the drm featured in any ea game.
The worst part on DRM is that, historically speaking, as time goes by these games only get more and more unplayable.
And it gives consumers headaches more than it repels piratism.
Man back on this video in 2024 after The Crew got shut down... Screw DRM and Ubisoft more specifically
@@guguy00 Capitalism is at a point now where you don't own any copies of media anymore, and even if you did everything is "a service", which is just another form of DRM, meaning they can and will shut down and make everything unavailable on a whim eventually. It's not even a matter of "If" it's a matter of "when".
Corporations should be illegal.
Gabe Newel even said "The way to beat pirates to make your service beter than the pirates."
and yet Steam fails miserably at that
@@jimmychongo3149, how so?
@@VioletGiraffe People still praite shit
@@VioletGiraffe The drm has its flaws. For example there was an outage not too long ago where offline mode wasn't even listed as an option, meaning you couldn't play any of your games that utilize steam drm.
StarBot That’s inevitable, some people will always want something for free no matter what. In terms of the average consumer, Steam offers stupidly good deals while improving the client to ensure it’s not the most annoying thing in the world. That definitely works for most people.
Here's my DRM horror story: I had bought SPORE and installed it on my computer, but was unable to play it because I had to do homework. My brother ended up playing it first, and it bound to his EA account. I was stuck with a broken game that did not let me upload or download things from online servers, which was a huge feature of SPORE. I played the game a little, but basically quit after a while because I was reminded of it every time I played. Oh! and here's the kicker, I contacted EA, and they said I couldn't' do anything about the fact that I legitimately bought it and it bound to my brother's account. To this day, I am apprehensive to buy ANYTHING made by EA.
EA=Evil Assholes!
They're evil because they were told a story they probably see 1000 times a day from people trying to get free games? EA is evil, yes.. But no company would give a free copy away because 'Oops I made a mistake'
@@johncastille8849 That much is understandable. But they're "evil" because of their retarded design decisions and policies (which span way beyond DRMs). The DRM the OP is talking about is a trap so obvious anyone with 2 brain cells would turn down the prospect of applying it to a serious product.
@@johncastille8849 Any company which tries to screw their customers with policies like that is a bunch of assholes, plain and simple. On the upside: since they almost exclusively produce crap these days they are also remarkably easy to boycott.
You might wanna stay far from EA, but not because of slipshod DRM... Nowadays they’re more interested in getting children hooked on lootboxes. For kids that’s like virtual crack.
Nowadays they've finally mastered the perfect copy prevention technique: make the content so bad that nobody is interested in copying it!
I think EA is on to something here...
People are still buying and pre-ordering trash content games. Just look at Redfall.
Thinking the same 3 years later
there was always bad content. it's just easier for people to let each other know about it now.
>Or you're board as balls and simply want something to watch while you eat lunch...
**gasp** Oh LGR, you know me too well!
+encycl07pedia Oh no! Someone made a mistake on the Internet! Whatever shall we do?
*Borned.
I literally sat down with my food and saw a good 18 min video and took my bite as he said that.
Ditto! lol
Got me too! Just watched on lunch
I know this is a really old video... BUT... just so you know it was one of the 3 most important videos on UA-cam that made me want to start my own channel :D Thanks Clint for turning non-interesting subjects into brilliantly documented history pieces!!!
I hope you know your content is also amazing. Keep up the good stuff!
Clint can make anything sound interesting with his voice
Ok
i've already seen this video 10 times already since july 5th and yesterday already and i enjoy it a lot
and even by yesterday
Holy shit I couldn't even tell that this video was from 2012. Your quality has always been so consistent!
Holy shit I couldn't even tell that this comment was from 2018. Your quality has always been so consistent!
Holy shit I couldn’t even tell that this reply was from April. Your quality has always been so consistent!
@@eeveegaming4798 Holy shit , you are shit.
@@needforspeedgaming7148 Well that was just unnecessary...
@@eeveegaming4798 Holy shit I couldn't even tell that this comment was from 2020. Your quality has always been so consistent!
Oh god. The memories of looking up extra CD keys online so my friends and I could have a LAN party with only one copy of the game. Those were the days.
You can look at it from other way... Most people go through their ownloves constantly getting cracks of Microsoft Office... I would have said "just pay me and all your problems go away"
People do live to live in the hard lane sometimes.... I don't value that. but why should you have to switch to other free alternatives just because you hate DRM, all because some users won't do the right thing if they can afford.
Thank you GOG for not using DRM!
GOG is a gift.
Humble Bundle also provides plenty of DRM free games too. :D
I like GOG but I find myself spending more money on Steam, mostly because I like the app interface better and I like using my steam link
That's great. Complete cross platform support and DRM free is the best.
i never even heard of GOG I always used steam... I'm curious now
Copy Protection is mostly useless because it can be bypassed and only cripples the experience of the people who legally bought the game. There are several games I own and payed for but always play cracked because of intrusive and often incompatible drm and/or third-party front ends like uplay. You can argue the ethics of piracy all day long but it's pretty much a no-brainer to not constantly screw over the people who still spend money on games.
Cyrillion But look at games like sonic gather battle and you will see when they take copy protection to the extreme
Actually, piracy doesn’t affect sales (or so says the secret EU report on that matter).
I stopped buying AAA games due to DRMs. I found I have a better experience with pirated copies. I buy no-DRM indie games only. Not that I play many AAA games anyway, but still, I refuse to buy an insulting hassle. Unless it's on Steam, and even then if the game is available elsewhere then I'll buy elsewhere.
The one thing that bugs me about all this DRM is simple: What happens when the game goes out of print? I want to play Commander Keen 6. Where can I get it? Nowhere legitimately. My mother threw out the floppies I once had because she's smart. That particular game is actually pretty easy to pirate because the DRM was just manual look up. But in 20 years, I want to play Batman: Arkham Asylum. However company has since gone bust, the authentication servers are down. How can I play it? I can't.
The problem with all DRM is people not really thinking about the future of art and culture. They just assume no one will want to play their games in 20 years. I cannot think of anything more laughable.
These days its 'Buy now, play now, quit when sequel releases, dont play old game' and its getting worse.
Pirating a game is one thing. I'm afraid one day, EA will shut down Need For Speed 2015. Without servers, the game won't even run. Yes, I like this game, but music and cars licence will expire one day. Look what happened to Driveclub, you can't buy the game anymore.
@@Robciomixxnfs Someone will find a way to set up a custom server so that you can play, or a hack to play offline. Hopefully.
@@jennylee9761 Honestly, I think it's impossible. As of 2020, nearly 5 years after the game's release, it still remains uncracked. And as far as I know, the way the whole game is built around its online framework would make a creation of custom server, or offline emulator a very difficult thing to do, if not impossible.
And knowing EA, if any fan projects like that would start, they would sue them, or "politely" tell them to stop.
Fans sometimes make full remakes of games if the game is really good and they have access to visual and sound assets (which they theoretically do always)
I like the DRM from the '80s and early '90s that actually fits into the game lore, like resarching codes and looking up info. It kind of adds to and enhances the game's experience in a way.
The worst has to be constant online confirmation and limited installs.
Computers are usually replaced as they age, so limited installs are already anti-PC/Mac to begin with. It's almost like they think they're doing this on consoles. And as for online? You shouldn't need to be online to play something which doesn't use the internet for any gameplay features.
As a consumer and a developer I dislike DRM and consider it to be largely pointless. Not only will pirates get around it, but at the point that a legitimate customer is adversely impacted by it that can lead to loss of future sales. I know many DRM companies list the number of pirates copies and try to say that it represent such and so losses, but that's assuming 100% of pirates would actually have paid for it, and really, I think that it's a minority of uses who are actually discouraged from buying when piracy is available. Unless of course the pirates have a better experience with the DRM removed, in which case users will be more likely to pirate even if they could otherwise buy it.
Even in cases like Starcraft 3, where it took more than a year to pirate, I would still call that a failure because people generally don't want to buy software that can destroy their computer's basic functionality. This of course is why Starforce threatened to sue CNET. The more that people are aware of what it will actually do, the less they will want to buy it, and you can't exactly return a game once opened.
For online examples, my primary issue stems around the loss of "First Sale Doctrine" and, imho, the first platform that can successfully sell used virtual copies alongside new copies and otherwise allow people to transfer their content will gain a competitive advantage over literally every other online platform. Although, I am still more likely to to purchase a DRM free version.
The issue with DRM that's based around a particular hardware configuration is that upgrading your computer can invalidate the install. I once had a case where upgrading the graphics card required me to buy a game a second time, because it also had limited install. Instead I didn't buy it a second time and I never bought another product from that company since.
With the exception of an MMO, where online play is to be expected, I outright refuse to buy any game that requires an always on internet connection. Only the pirates get to play without issue. When you create a situation that rewards piracy and punishes customers you pretty much deserve to be pirated. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people who bought those games later on pirated it just to stop the headaches.
What type of developer are you?
I am majoring in genetics and computer science so I primarily work on programs that I can apply later in in bioinformatics. Eventually though, my goal is to be working on the multi million dollar hardware than genetic engineers use (which I have to dual major for) so obviously there is less of a concern for software piracy when the hardware is so expensive. Then again, programs that can speed up research in finding cures for human disease is also valuable without special hardware. Still, when my target demographic is the medical research crowd, it's important to not do anything to cause any problems for them. That can lead to liabilities. The last thing I want is for only software pirates to be able to use something as intended.
On the side, in off semesters, I primarily work in Unity with VR. I am working on games as a side hobby really, but eventually I'll have something I consider good enough to release commercially. The thing I have found is that, as a student, there's very little time to actually practice what I have learned. I'm a senior, but I still have a few years ahead of me and the work gets increasingly difficult. Stopping to practice what I learned helps me to integrate the knowledge and do better, so the occasional semester off is a must.
You'd make more money with drms, because they'd need to pay for longer, to get the game.
Basically, they'd need to pay, others need to pay, in a long time, they'd get it free, instead of people actually paying for it.
where do you find starcraft 3 lol
The sounds like the original Titanfall on the bottom...
This was just recommended for me and i thought it was a new video right up until you mentioned the "upcoming" SimCity nightmare. Lol
We are from the future and we must tell the past about how bad it will be
Cities Skylines took it over anyway
heh yeah, was nice to see a DRM history video without really getting into whether it is somehow inherently bad or not bad.
@@josso1 Agreed, always nice to get just an objective take on some subjects.
same
I remember the copy-protection of the game "M1 Tank Platoon" in the Amiga days: A tank-game the protection was identifying American and Russian tanks & armoured vehicles. All it took to "break" this DRM was going to the local library and finding a book on modern Tanks. ^_^
Meh I like this DRM if you're willing to learn about tanks you can easily bypass it that's actually a cool one
In the late 90's I got copy of the original Leisure Suit Larry. It didn't have DRM, but it did have a bunch of questions you had to answer to prove you were an adult before you could play. The problem was that while I was an adult the questions were written in the 80's for Adults in the 80's. So I had to look up a lot of the answers, even though I was over 18.
I know this comment is 4 years old, but I got the same issue lol. I bought the Leisure Suit Larry Sierra Collection and there are no documents with it. The game was sealed, I always buy games from that store and those games are legit, but bad luck on this one, although you can skip it by pressing certain keys...
I liked the one of "Red Alert 2" where your base blew up after a few second when using a pirated version. But sometimes also when the CD could not be read properly.
Metal Gear Solid: "The frequency is on the back of the CD case." You spend ages looking through your inventory or running around trying to find a CD case before realising they meant the actual game case.
Wow thank god it wasn’t just me
When you bought it from GameStop in one of those little yellow sleeves....
i stil cri
This pissed me off when I was little because it wasn't on the back of the CD case, it was in the manual (at least in Aus)
That wasn't really a DRM-reason they did that though right? I just figured it was another Kojima-style fourth wall break.
@@zamardii12 nope its pre 2000s copy protection at its finest
I love how accurate you low key predicted how bad the situation with Sim City would be.
Took them years to crack DJ Max Trilogy. I had to import my damned copy and I still have the entire thing, and it was money well spent as the game is amazing.
Same here. Damn shame I lost the Dongle, but I will get it again. The game is worth every penny!
Um suprised to see u here walcom
Online-DRM checks need to stop. These game developers don't realize that no matter how hard they try or how much money they invest into their DRM system, someone out there is smarter than them and ALWAYS cracks it!
I bought House of the Dead Overkill for my Android Tablet, played it for weeks and then stopped playing it. 2 months later I was on the train to work and suddenly had this urge to play HotD:Overkill again. I start it up and get slapped in the face that I need to activate my software with an internet connection in order to play it! I wanted to @#%(^ all over Sega for that crap! I had to tether my Tablet to my Phone, reactivate the licence and I was able to play it again. WHAT A LOAD OF BULLCRAP!!!!!!!!! The worst part is that there was no warning that the game had an online DRM check when I purchased that POS game. I wrote a complaint to Sega about it, they told me to suck it and they're doing this to protect their software from piracy. So you know what I did right after? I uninstalled the game, downloaded a cracked version of the game and now I can play it offline WHENEVER I WANT WITHOUT THE NEED OF TETHERING IT TO MY PHONE! SUCK ON THAT SEGA!!!!!!!! Besides, I bought the game! It's not like I stole it. I just wanted a version of the game that doesn't waste my time with all this DRM crap.
When will these companies learn?
Why waste millions of dollars to DRM protect their games that will end up being cracked anyways, when they can just release release the game without online-DRM and be happy that there are some people out there that will buy your game just because they love your game and your company?
If you sell 1 million copies, but 5 million played your game for free through piracy, then so what? You still sold 1 million copies! Don't slap an online-DRM just so you can boost an extra 500k to maybe 1 million extra copies because maybe you won't even manage to sell that many extra copies in the end.
Online DRM checks are bullshit, yes...however, Nintendo barely managed to pull the video game market out of the dumpster that copyright issues threw the gaming market into long ago in the first place, and that is why there is still DRM today. Look up "video game crash of 1983" in Google to see what I am talking about.
***** The so called "crash" (mainly affecting video game consoles in America) was because of bad business practices and letting any crap game get a license, flooding the market with crap. (or allowing unlicensed games)
Zabeus I always get this wrong...dang.
Ah well...the same effect still took place either way.
***** No problem I just wouldn't want them or any company using that as an excuse for invasive DRM. :)
Zabeus Yeah...one thing that I'm glad about is that I wasn't a dumbarse and starting a flamewar in that reply. Lately I've been really grumpy because of how different my new room feels and I've finally pushed past starting a flamewar out of my foul attitude from this. Although I still feel really, REALLY tired whenever and wherever I go...it's enough that I would be containing this thought and thinking it to myself instead of typing it up to give the thought some crutches if I were feeling more energetic.
DRM stands for:
Disastrous-Fucking-Bullshit-That Really Makes-You-Want-To-Smash-The-Fucking-Disk
My thoughts exactly
DFBSTRMYWTSTMD
DFBTRMYWTSTFD
As someone who grew up on VHS, I have my own take on the DRM concept - Around 1993 the first VHS tapes to feature what was dubbed "Macrovision" appeared in video stores (two examples in Australia were the Palace Films release of "Nemesis" and the 21st Century Pictures release of "Cyber Tracker"). Within the year most labels used this tech but some didn't.
As for overriding this form of VHS DRM, it is surprisingly easy to circumvent - simply connect the "source player" (the VCR playing the tape) to another VCR (which doesn't have to be able to play tapes, just be able to transmit the output, then connect that one to the copy-making VCR or DVD recorder and this will work fine (although you might come across a candidate for the "bypass player" that might not want to play ball). This method also works fine for copying DVDs VCR-style to a DVD recorder.
Funny thing about always-online DRM: Tele1st was sort of a very early analog-era prototype for always-online DRM since its descrambling code was recorded to a subscriber's tapes at the beginning and end of each broadcast, and circumventing it was theoretically trivial: playback your recording on the VCR that your descrambler box is connected to, and assuming it has composite A/V I/O, run the composite A/V out to a B deck for dubbing and start recording to the B deck at the same time you press play on the A deck that your descrambler goes to, assuming the descrambling code didn't work on composite A/V out and only applied to RF I/O, you just circumvented that ancient copy protection, don't know why anyone would've wanted to given that service didn't even last a year and it sucked the whole time from what I could dig up on it, but it would've been doable in theory.
The mere mention of Starforce sent a shiver down my spine
that mini book from alone in the dark is adorable
But a pain in the ass
Pablo K. M and likely caused a mental break down to children and parents alike rofl
When you said "oversized CDs", I was so confused because I thought you meant a physically oversized CD and I was wondering how on earth that would work. I'm an idiot. XD
haha.. more information to ya. I think laserdiscs went that far.
I think Sony did do that actually. Slightly bigger CDS that couldn't fit into a computer .
Knowing you're an idiot is the first step to not being an idiot. Welcome to the club, we're glad to have you.
I've spent countless hours as a child, trying to crack the code and climb the mountain in King's Quest 6. Now 22 years later, I finally found out that I was missing the guidebook! Thanks LGR!
For game silliness, Game Dev Tycoon is my favorite. The devs made it so that pirated copies made you go bankrupt BECAUSE the games you made were pirated. Diabolical...
Hello LGR, I would like to personally thank you for sharing your nostalgia and extensive knowledge of gaming. I hope you see this and I hope this inspires you to continue doing what you are doing for as long as you can. Thank you.
You are most welcome, and comments like yours certainly help me continue :)
Wow this brings back memories! I wrote my senior thesis in Software Engineering on copy protection back in '94! I spent months hanging out on IRC and obscure web sites discussing the issue. It was a really competitive field and different groups and individuals would try to be the first to provide a hack for any new software that came out. The conclusion for my paper was that it all failed because ultimately hackers would figure out a way to jump the copy protection code and create an executable which you could run and hack your own version.
And it's still like that today. It's a point of pride to crack a game first, or seed a movie first, or whatever the case may be.
A three level copy protection wheel can be made into a two dimensional spreadsheet. It turns out if you use the first two values to calculate an offset, you can then use the third as an index. I did this for several games way back in the day... all in case I lost my manuals, of course.
lol. those wheels did have more than one use
Instructions unclear. Watched while eating dinner instead.
Also, Windows 10 now refuses to run any DRM software that acts in the same way as malware, ie most varieties of SecuROM.
***** I run Linux.
+allealle9090 8.1 is still better than 7 :p
***** I don't know much about the nsa, and I wasn't aware that they watch OS's, but that doesn't matter to me, since they'd get the info one way or another. Also I'm not in the USA. With 7 if you want to avoid said spying you have to avoid certain updates and that is just so lame, that I say fuck it. Waste your money on spying on me!
+Jacob Turner Probably has to do with Windows Anti-Malware that checks on boot or probably something involving DEP.
The install limit thing is so friggin archaic, just recently I had to contact Magix because the mere act of updating to Windows 10 had used up one of my installations of Movie Edit Pro.
The Gold Box D&D games (Pool of Radiance and sequels) had pretty amusing code wheels that had multiple fantasy alphabets. It was used as copy protection, but you could also use it to translate coded messages that appeared in the game for extra loot or even optional areas.
On a side note; DRM is also known as "Digital Restrictions Management", mostly by those who oppose it.
Hahahahahaha
an 3-letter acronym can be twisted in any way these days.
DRM is like the fucking war on drugs.
If drm worked well that would be one thing ... Seems drm only stops the people who bought the software.
Me: cries in spore
it stops people who bought because THEY don't do it right.. it's not without problems, but its still better than not getting payed for it.. As piracy remains rampet, many are still assured, if marketed right companies could get twice the profit.. and DRM-free
BS... You except me to believe 50% or more will just decide on their own accord to buy something they have pirated all their lives?
Na Na well, if they aren’t doing it right then the software maker needs to make it clearer how to do it. Also online only DRM is done so poorly, if you look at Adobe they do it right, if there’s no connection you can still use the software for a few days even, the DRM just needs to check in every so often. So on a game you could do the same thing but maybe shorter - how about 30minutes. That way if you’re connection gets slow or cuts out you don’t have problems
@@haruruben Adobe does do it right, but you'll also see people have issues even with that..The idea freedom users want, is no DRM at all, and any slight alternation that throws off that balance, people get ripped up. I understand the intention of which direction developers were going to try and protect their stuff they worked hard to create,, but users need to understand that as well. Even if that means it doesn't work for them mostly.. It's not like you MUST use Adobe, or whatever software-DRM you have, but if your one of those that must use particular software and you have DRM that's embedded, show a bit of respect for the 'reason' why they did it.
That's what i get angry at... Instead, just people don't care.That's why i hit back at them all the time. And the results is always "shut the door and more on" At least i can say with 100% certainly i have respect f for DRM, even if it gets in my way..
How many can be confident in saying that today? Probably not many,..
@@haruruben You can only use Adobe for a few days without an internet connection?
DRM: Draconian Revenue Monitoring
When I was in third grade, I borrowed the game "Traders" from my classmate, but when he wanted it back he also naturally wanted the DRM sheet back, which meant I wouldn't be able to play it anymore. A color copying machine would have solved the problem, but I was in third grade and either didn't have access to one or (more likely) didn't think of it. So I spent the day in class manually copying the grid of tiny different colored shapes - squares, circles and Xs - using colored pencils. But I only got about 1/3 of the way through copying it before he got impatient and demanded it back. But I had something, at least. So each time I booted up the game, I'd have to hope that the code that it asked for (C3 or A6, or whatever) was included on my incomplete sheet, or reboot the game and try again. I tell ya, these kids nowadays don't know how good they have it..
When I got Skyrim, the game forced me to install Steam to play it, even though I bought it physically. Me, not having a Steam account, installed it on my sister's account instead. That caused a stupid amount of trouble for us before we worked out how playing offline worked.
I do enjoy using Steam now, but if I buy a physical game, I want to be able to play it as-is. If I have to download extra shit off the internet to scare off the pirates or whatever else, what's even the point of releasing a physical copy? It would be cheaper and more eco-friendly to not be mass-producing all those plastic bits and pieces for something you have to go online at least once to use anyway.
I'm guessing the companies' argument is that physical released increase awareness and sales.
wtf
And that is the story of how most of us got on Steam. Wanting to play a game that is only accessible on Steam. For many of us that game was CS 1.6 and Source. However Skyrim was a turning point. It was a major release targeted to pretty much everyone and their grandmother(Same as Oblivion), and even so being a Steam only thing. Effectivly forcing everyone that wanted to play Skyrim to get it, really paved the way for Steams success.
@@SknCommonLisper Shame that Epic is doing the same thing but doing it incorrectly and in the worst way
@@karisasani7006 The difference is Epic has the money and resouces to give a monitary reason for devs to put their games on there. if Valve introduced Steam now(and something else had excisted), they'd be doing the same. Valve isn't a good consumer friendly company, it never was.
With that said, I hate Epic more than I hate Steam, no question. But I've been conditioned to like Steam over the last 14 or so years. These days I prefer GOG and it's where I purchase most games, that or directly from the developer\publisher. Fuck Steam, and fuck Epic.
I still remember the nightmare that was the Zak McKracken copy protection for the C64. You had numerous sheets of paper filled from top to bottom with tiny, hard to distinguish geometrical shapes, which the game prompted you to look up every time you used the airplane in the game to leave the country. It was dreadful.
Kalkbrenner Also one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games for C64 had that weird coloured sheet filled with small numbers. Now I remember why I didn't play that game much even though I liked that game very much.
Clint,
Your historical videos rival The Gaming Historian, who is the only other channel I donate to via Patreon. I'm proudly donating to you now, as well. Your videos are hideously fascinating and I'm only about halfway through your catalog. PLEASE keep it up!!!
Thanks so much!
I remember a few old Cd-rom games that could easily be cracked in notepad, it was basically just a search path pointing to a file on the disk so all you needed to do was copy the targeted file and change the text file. Those were the days.
Btw, I started using steam when it was in beta and I was quite surprised when it scanned my computer for installed games and recognized a bunch of games I had borrowed from friends. I still have access to all them through my steam account, I like steam.
The music at the beginning of this video is from The Sims. It's track SHD_dt_cheap4.mp3, just incase anybody is wondering. I recognized it right off the bat. It's by Jerry Martin.
This is why I prefer GOG: No DRM at all! =D
Sarato Never bought from GoG, mostly buy from steam and occasionally Humble Bundle/store(got one of their Indie bundles and the 2nd Nindie bundle). I just like having my games all based around one central service haha.
yep GOG will get my $ any day over steam.
shh silica there is no saving these software serfs
GOG sells games with DRM. This is fact. ArmA II has BattleEye DRM and anti-cheat.
I find games that aren't on steam on GOG, but for everything else I use steam. I just install all my games onto my drives and leave them there, internet goes out? I restart steam in offline mode and play my games by running a local server if needed.
lgr has had such consistently high quality content i couldn't tell this was a video from a decade ago until clint talked about simcity 2013 in future tense
I am just watching your videos for weeks now. So informative and entertaining! Awesome channel! :D
Scary part of online-required DRM/activation is in 5+ years, will the program continue to function? Shockingly I can still activate Windows XP when I play with it. But when will a company decide to axe that feature? And if so will they release a free patch to disable it? (Probably not.) When I buy things, I hold on to them. I love every now and then taking out an old computer, and playing old things on it. Who is to say that in another 20 years I cannot play software I paid for? Great video explaining all the technologies.
I heard from somewhere that if Valve had to axe Steam-which is very unlikely to happen, but you never know-that they would release a patch for the client to deactivate its DRM. I haven’t done the research to confirm it, but that is the most pro-consumer statement any digital retailer could ever make.
I have a retail copy of Bioshock that I can no longer install, as it cannot contact the activation servers. 2K games refuse to help. They just say I will have to buy it again through Steam. Never buying a 2K game again.
A funny little tidbit. The Atari ST version of Ultima V had on disk copy protection, and if the disc happened to be pirated, the game would be hard as balls and be winnable. The company that distributed the German version just copied the game to blank floppies and sold those.
*****
untrue, it's a hidden image. nothing to do with being a pirated game or not
***** It was just a hidden easter egg on the Sonic CD disc. Just a for fun thing thrown in by the Sonic Team
***** It is true, some early copy attempts would result into that screen. That screen is also hidden on Sound Test.
"Not gonna condone or condemn any of it"
Proceeds to condemn all of it.
I don't think there's a positive way to talk about it. At first glance it does sound logical that developers should be paid for their work, but shouldn't consumers have the right to use something they paid for freely as well?
I've never bought a hammer that just stopped working after 20 years because the company that made it went bankrupt. I've never bought a vinyl record that stopped playing because I used it on too many record players. But with software, I often have to resort to piracy for games that I paid for years ago, which is ridiculous.
@@aggserp4340 "I've never bought a vinyl record that stopped playing because I used it on too many record players"
Isn't that how vinyl records get damaged and degraded though? At some point you'd be getting close enough to the record not being able to play, because the quality's worsened so much.
@@k-leb4671 that's normal wear and tear, though, not intended obsolescence. it's not a great example.
Except digital doesn't wear out. Your Steam games don't degrade with age. Nothing you buy should become obsolete, unusable, or locked as a result of the passage of time unless the physical media itself is damaged or destroyed. If you paid for a digital copy, it should work in perpetuity.
The latest sim city was so hated that as soon as a decent competitor got onto the market in the form of cities skylines EA's sales of the game dropped to practically zero. I haven't heard anyone talk about sim city is years.
I have heard people talk about it.
Mostly videos about failed video games.
No matter what type of protection, someone always cracks it. I thought that the dongle idea was great in the mid 2000's until I found a program that would trick the computer into thinking you have it plugged in. Like a virtual disc drive.
I recently had my internet shut off due to financial issues and it wasn't until then I realized how shitty DRM really is. I have hard copies of both sims 3 and sims 4. Can't even install them, because I need a connection to origin. And even games that I already had installed on origin won't allow me to play them because they need to be activated. Can't activate them because NO INTERNET. Now I have all these games and can't play any of them. Thanks DRM policies. I feel bad for any body who doesn't have internet for some reason. They're basically saying fuck you to that part of their fan base.
Too many things rely on the internet these days.
I have a really old copy of the Sims 3, pretty sure it was the release one. It doesn't require origin or internet (aside from activation) but the disc needs to be in the system to run it.
I had this problem with steam once. A full year without it, and couldn't play anything because the offline mode wasn't working. Can't remember the details, but I think had something to do with Steam not being able to connect to the servers at least once to actually turn on offline mode or something like that. This was in 2014, so it may or may not be better now.
I truly believe copyright needs a massive overhaul. It doest help artists or buyers it just makes frustrating less valuable products.
0:22 this. Your videos are very relaxing to watch
Fuck, I was eating ramen when I pressed play.
Thanks for the brief quick review of DRM being 25 its nice to learn what was going on when i was born and the years before, started with windows
me as my first comp
4:49 _Manual?_ This game is like a billion years old. I don't have the manual!
Then thou art screwed.
werent you the guy who made the windows xp sparta remix that sucked hard
@Δ yes, do i need to sort new and reply to comments made by kids with poor grammar?
and also i'm the PF94 guy who does the e xact same thing lol
Games came with manuals? LOL That's how we learned to play games before UA-cam. Us old folk remember when almost all software shipped with manuals. Even DOS.
Startropics on the NES actually had a feely included. There was a letter from the main character's uncle stapled to the instruction book. Halfway through the game, you're told to dip the bottom half of the letter in water to reveal the radio frequency you need to progress.
StarForce completely fucked my friend's computer when we tried to lan rainbow six lockdown. It corrupted his hard drive completely. I had to reinstall windows for him.
Thats why patience is needed when shopping for games, if a game contains awful DRM, just wait for it to be sold on GOG... Or get a crack... Or get a different game...
Imagine if Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing have DRM...
maybe it would have been like ss3's: it removes all the fun by making it a mediocre racing game
Maybe the DRM was to make the game really awful, like it is currently, except they screwed up and made it so the game thought everyone had pirated it.
Maybe Big Rigs is great, just ruined by one really awful mistake.
+Kitschy Ghost ruined? it gave fun to millions of you tube watchers, making it awful made it became extremely fun, even if only for a few minutes.
There's no way it could have been a little more than bearable if it hadn't it's bugss(1 s isn't enough)
Roberto De Gasperi I suppose that's a fair point. Ironically, the only way Big Rigs would ever be known to exist was because of its many, _many_ flaws.
If someone just made Big Rigs Online play, haha.
This is a video I come back to and rewatch every few years. Its a great recap of DRM up to 2012.
Ton of info, not annoyingly edited, well done LGR-man
I love the dial-a-pirate. King's Quest 6 had a lot of in-game copy protection, but it was well-implemented
The best DRM is no DRM at all. Prison Architect has a Steam version, and a No-DRM version. So if you give the exe and files to other person, it works! And you know what? Everyone pirates it. But then buys it. The developer said once "The only thing I hear is Pirated, then bought!"
And Steam's DRM has been absolutely trivial to bypass for a full decade, so IMO there's no good reason for a singleplayer Steam game to use Steamworks.
And that’s the reason why piracy doesn’t really affect sales unless the content is bad.
bullshit . ninche games gets pirated heavily but whatever floats...
check Monste hunter world . its not cracked its from capcom and sell heavily. this would be imposible for capcom if game gets cracked after release
Story of my life, I pirated around 90 percent of my current steam library before buying, but mods, easy updates and other little perks of buying them (plus knowing exactly what I am buying beforehand) really add up to make it worth.
I had a pirated version of Monkey Island with a copied Dial-a-pirate, laminated and everything. My dad didn’t mess around. Still one of my favorite series.
Railroad Tycoon had a good one; you had to identify a train engine by looking it up in the manual. They were probably guessing that anyone who knows enough about trains to not need the manual are also the sort of early fans who will *increase* sales if you let them pirate the game.
There was also a Countdown game that required you to look up or solve a 9-letter anagram in 30sec, and similar reasoning applies.
"Starforce threatened to sue BoingBoing and CNET for reporting on these issues."
I'm sorry, what? That is NOT the way to make your DRM look better in the public eye, you lamebrains!
they're russian - so nothing special
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Reputation: -∞
We were all correct. Sim City 2013 came with always online DRM. We bitched at them and we finally got an offline mode. :D
Too bad their "but its impossible!" lie aas busted by a modder, or else people would still have to pay for a piece of crap
tuxcup that's why I have it on my mac & am able to play it without a problem. Maybe you just don't know how to turn off your internet.
knuxiefan1994 tell tuxcup about this short tutorial on how to disconnect the internet
step 1: go to collage
step 2: take the internet cable
step 3: push the clip on top down
step 4: pull it out, and feel good that the illumanati isnt watching via that webcam on top of your phaptop
Both EA and Ubisoft have done more than enough to piss me off, and it's not just the clients. Even though I have not played AC Unity, I have heard tales of how buggy and unstable it was after launch. On top of the review embargo that was until half a day after the game was released. And as far as EA goes, it has everything to do with Sim City 2013 and the always online requirement. Until they can improve their images, I will not be buying anything from them.
My first game crack back in the day was Pool of Radiance on the Commodore, which used a code wheel. All I did was take a sector editor and find the area in the software that contained the various symbols and change them all to the same thing. I think I changed it to the letter A. I then changed the window directions to tell people to type the letter A to begin. Did the same thing to the rest of the SSI game collection, and then uploaded them to the largest BBS in Kansas City.
Wow this video holds up so well that I honestly thought it came out this year. Good job.
Its funny, because when I first saw this video, I watched while eating lunch. You are a mindreading master! (Or not.. Who knows?)
My dad had a Commodore Amiga when i was a child. Also a stack of nearly 200 disks all pirated
Damn, this video is old, i was expecting you to get to even newer methods which are even worse than what you showed there, but then i saw the upload date. Actually you really covered everything that had to be covered at that time and the video was very interesting regarding the old physical copy protection. Good job back then
Hey Lazy Gamer, I'd be curious to see a sorta of extension to this video that talks about Denuvo and perhaps why it's been so much more efficient than any DRM to date. You're a rock, err I mean you rock!
ultima 8 has a piece of fabric as drm. thank goodness the copy i found at the thrift store had it included.
game dev simulator has a fade system where you always lose because of pirating if you have the official released pirated version.
The plus side to this is that the "pirate" version is completely legal so all you have to do is mod it to restore full functionality and its a legal free version of the game
Watched while installing HL2, Conflict Desert Storm and MSoffice 07 from bootleg CDs made in 2007. 3rd world is a magical place.
7:15 I really enjoyed the King’s Quest 6 copy protection. Since it actually made you read the guide to find the information action, instead of just looking it up, I was interested and I read the whole thing. It provided even more atmosphere and lore, and useful information for much of the game, outside of the Cliffs of Logic and the Labyrinth. (Though I did only play it in the future, and didn’t pay for it at all. I did have a real KQV CD growing up, and that’s probably lost in a box somewhere at my parents’ house.)
Apparently KQIII’s meticulous typing in of precisely worded spells or you die was just unintentional copy protection, and there was boring copy protection elsewhere in the game? It was just cumbersome because that’s Roberta Williams’s trademark style.
I broke out laughing when he said "or you're simply bored as balls eating lunch" (the camp I fall in).
Oh Dial-a-Pirate, how you delayed my ability to play Monkey Island for months. I remember my mum told me to draw each individual combination and I got about 3 spins drawn before I got bored, which meant inevitably 9 times out of 10 I loaded the game I couldn't play it... but oh my when a combination I had drawn came up.... oh the joy...
it may have been mentioned (i didn't read all 2985 comments) but there was a way to defeat the copy protection on mid to late 80's pc disks, both 5.25 and 3.5 inch. The best piece of tech at the time which most people have never heard of. The "Copy II PC Deluxe Option Board" by central point. Literally, that was the name of it. Purchased mine at EggHead computers and it allowed a pure duplicate of a disk bypasswing all ondisk protection. Worked 100% of the time. Thanks for the great article LGR.
Thank you LGR for an awesome videos, you have the voice needed to watch such videos, you rock!
Glad you enjoyed!
Very much, my youngest son loves PC history, we both will be fans for sure!
One of the worst offenders of Constant Online DRM is friggin Sonic Adventure 2 for Steam. WHY DID IT EVEN NEED THAT? You cannot play offline, as a stupid 17 yr old with sleep problems, my internet is cut off after 11pm, and cannot play my sweet dose of Chao Garden. Horribly unnecessary, not even sure why it ever needed Constant Online DRM. Fucking hate it.
Nobody should be cut off from their chao garden :(
this is the part where you emulate sa2
Nikki Babaii I've been able to play it with no internet.
OMG my dad does the same thing to me! I feel with you ;n;
As if SA2 wasn't already hated enough already
I was going to make a comment about how Always Online games would be unplayable when the servers shut down in 10 years time, but then I realized that if they had Always Online DRM, chances are, the game wasn't that good to begin with and not worth coming back to.
+The 64th Shadow That fun nostalgia of picking up something you remember from childhood is something the current generation will never experience, Kind of sad.
***** Im not really a gamer so the reference is lost on me, Im thinking stuff like Colecovision cartridges :)
***** Thats kind of hilarious
***** Downer for people who spend money on them too, I still feel ripped off over the $70 I spent on the new Sim City.
+'Murrican Oil SC:CT was the best one in the series IMO. I loved the gameplay and especially the soundtrack. Amon Tobin's works were a perfect match for Chaos Theory.
"Do not toast your floppies"
"Do not feed your floppies to crocodiles"
"Do not use your floppies as kites"
Dang. now I need a new toilet paper holder...
Or put a lighter to them.
Or cut them open
Or stomp on them
Or play horseshoe with them
Or use them as frisbees.
Or use them to wipe your butt after you had some taco bell
My brother and I used to play the hell out of that football game at 4:16. You just picked plays, waited (and waited) and then watched the computer play them out. Some of those matchups got pretty intense lol.
An interesting DRM can be found in professional RC sims. You want to play them using an RC controller since using a joystick or keyboard kinda defeats the purpose. Some RC sims use a special dongle that allows you to connect your transmitter to a computer via a trainer port. Other go the full mile and you need to use a transmiter-shaped joystick included in the box. You can copy the software all you want, but getting it to run without the provided hardware was a royal pain in the butt.
This kinda faded into obscurity with the rise of broadband internet. Nowadays most games are downloaded, and RC sims are no different, so shipping prioperiatary hardware is out of the question. Some of them who are still sold in boxes in hobby shops still use it though
3:59 - who the hell was feeding their disks to crocodiles?
Aquaman?
Florida Man.
King K. Rool
Literally the only realistic one is “don’t step on it”. Like who uses floppy disks to hold _toilet paper._
I still remember the poem that was used in the KQ6 manual for a puzzle in game.
"Three roses laid upon the bower,
A scythe for he who cuts the flower,
A crown, a dove, most noble race!
Thy bones make sacred this dread place."
2012 video that seems from 2020. Unbelievable quality. Thank you for your time doing this videos.
"...a library full of unplayable bits and bytes."
I'm not a fan of extremes, so I settle for the middle ground and format my computer in nibbles.
very few get this.... i praise you buddy. Mostly fueled y the freedom its built on.
There was one for the Amiga that was particularly bad - It was a 32 page codebook, printed by black laser, on black glossy pages. Thus you had to tilt the page under the light to see the matte printing on the page. No colour photocopying that one!
Christ, never seen that one haha, but seen a good few spinner and "red-sheet" ones. Inventive stuff! I used to like those spinner discs as a kid, just using them as toys lol.
I know this is an old post, but Alien Breed (CD-Version on PC) had the same black text on glossy black pages copy protection.
1:44 That 8-inch floppy disk though! I feel that nostalgia in my bones!
Cool, I have an old/complete copy of Colonel's Bequest and I haven't thought about that unique copy protection scheme in decades!