When does copy-protection become too much?

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#1

I just posted the article When does copy-protection become too much?.

  Today we had a bit of an  unusual newssubmit by ryan.good. He  submitted an interesting link to a thread on the JoWood Forums in which people are complaining that  JoWood's...

Read the full article here:  [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/6102-When-does-copy-protection-become-too-much.html](http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/6102-When-does-copy-protection-become-too-much.html)

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#2

Postal 2 was the same… Already seen copies of Chaser to download so has the protection worked?

#3

I downloaded the demo of this game, people are better off returning this game and getting a refund and should feel fortunate it does not work.

#4

This game sucks, consider yourself lucky if you bought it and had to return it due to isntall issues.

#5

Thye seem to have posted fixes for the various installstartup prolems, this is from the news page on their website: “CHASER: UK Retail Emergency Fix If you experiencing problems installing or running the UK retail version of Chaser make sure to install this emergency fix. Please note that these patches only work for the Chaser UK retail version and will only help if you have installation or game starting problems. If you do encounter trouble installing the game, please download the following file before trying to install the game again: Chaser Install Fix: Run the Chaser-Installfix.exe on your system (it will create a c:jowoodchaser directory with a file in it). Then run the Chaser setup from the CD1 again. In case the game itself won’t start after successful installation of the game, use the following file: Chaser Exepatch: Run the Chaser-Exepatch.exe on your system; it will copy a new Chaser.exe into the game-install directory. You should now be able to start and play Chaser normally. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Your JoWood Team” The funny thing is there’s no doubt a hack in them thar hills if one examines files in the download and the CD contents. So why bother with the protection in the first place. Not seen the game myself, but it probably is crap…I’ll stick with playing MOHMOHSH thanks…

#6

I cannot remember (certainly not in the last few years) where, if you purchased a game, you didn’t have to d/l patches and/or fixes to enable compatability with one or another piece of software or hardware…some of these patches/fixes are 50M plus…to me this screams of sloppy coding and/or premature release to chase the dollar… you would not pay full price for a car then have to take it back to the dealer every month to have additional parts installed to make it run better… Software companies are selling their wares by deception and should be made legally responsible to compensate consumers for faulty goods…Why the phark should I have to get online to d/l a patch to bring a piece of software up to the level it should have been at when I purchased it…???..and these greedy bastards wonder why piracy thrives…:X

#7

Just to clear something up, the games pretty good (but thats besides the point!)

#8

I notice that the most crappiest games have the natiest protection versus the decent games don’t. Hmmmm… If companies want to make money all they have to do is make CD Keys ie. like Half-Life sure its copiable and you can run it on LAN but for the online experience you need a legit key, and those who appreciate the game will go out and buy it, either way… If people like it they will buy it, regardless if its piratable. :stuck_out_tongue:

#9

Copy protection is too much when it starts to hurt your product. I mean, yeah I want to add this copy protection so people don’t make illegal copies but if that’s gonna stop it from doing such a basic thing as installing I won’t add it to my program. Of course I wouldn’t use copyprotection anyway, but what are my choices, if I were. I could make a game and sell a few copies and everyone would copy it. Or I could make a game, add copy protection that would stop features from working or make it impossible to install, and everyone would return the game I would have sold no copies. Right now, copy protections aren’t selling very well. They’re trying to crame it down our throats and eventually one of two things will happen. The consumers will just accept it as is, or the companies will realise that the consumers will never accept it, and stop using it in their products…

#10

Oh my good god. It’s not of their business if I have CloneCD installed or not. What’s going to be next? “I’m sorry we have detected that you’re running Kyodai Mahjong, this is our main competitor and we won’t tollerate an installation of our game on the same computer as their game is installed.” Bloody hell, stay away from my software, I install what I want to install thank you very much!

#11

I am not really a game person and have few games on my HD, but i borrowed this game from a friend of mine and in twenty two minutes protection was history with no installation problems and the game was not that enticing to remain on my HD. Copy protection does not and will not work because there is no such thing 100% and this has been proved over and over again.

#12

I bought this game last weekend and had problems copying it using Blindwrite. I’ve downloaded the patch and now my copy installs but won’t play and thats good enough for me. When ‘www.gamecopyword.com’ posts a crack for dis ting I’ll be at the front of the queue waiting to download it! “For one small moment, in the whole history of man, all computers on this earth are truly one”

#13

If they just dropped the prices of the damn games, people wouldn’t bother with copying them. If they were all $20Au / $15us, it wouldn’t be worth you time copying the damn thing, and everyone would own it. Better still, they wouldn’t have to pay licensing fees for protections that don’t work, which would reduce the price of the game anyway :stuck_out_tongue: I agree that the Unique CD key is probably the best way to ensure that the majority of users have a legitimate copy, and blocking public keys. Maybe the way to go would be to give the games away for a minimal fee (for single player gaming), and requiring users to purchase a key to play online.