6 ms·

It's rated as one of the top (if not the top) games of its era. It was the all-time top seller on the Atari ST platform in question. They did great with the re

It's rated as one of the top (if not the top) games of its era. It was the all-time top seller on the Atari ST platform in question. They did great with the resource allocations they chose to make.

shmerl 12y ago
What was great about wasting any resources on copy protection instead of using them for something actually useful for users?
- recursive 12y ago
  "Waste" means "use" with a negative connotation. The good thing about spending resources on copy protection may be that the developers were able to make more money on sales. I don't know if it's true.
  - shmerl 12y ago
    That's the point. Copy protection doesn't help making any money on sales. It only reduces them. It's a common fallacy of DRM proponents which they like to repeat (that DRM helps them increasing sales).
    - mynameisvlad 12y ago
      This is detailed in the article. If it were easier to go out and purchase the game than to copy it, then you'd be more willing to do so. The problem these days is that it's ridiculously easy to crack DRM, so it's often useless. Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Therefore, it did, in fact, increase sales.
      - shmerl 12y ago
        > Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Yet it was cracked and cracked copies were floating around all the same. DRM was stupid then, DRM is still stupid today and will always remain so. I.e. this claim: > That partially explains why they sold lots of copies! is simply false. Copies were sold not because of copy protection, but despite it. I.e. users are always annoyed by DRM, by inability to back up their games and etc. So they are less likely to buy it to begin with.
        girvo 12y ago
        > So they are less likely to buy it to begin with. You and I, perhaps, but the majority of users? I doubt it.
        shmerl 12y ago
        There were studies which showed that DRM is likely to reduce sales. But it's rather self obvious. DRM cripples usability in some way. Worse product means less potential interest from the user. Not to mention that DRM is simply insulting, and insulting your own users sounds like a bad idea to increase sales.
        bigbugbag 12y ago
        I'm aware of those studies and an anti-DRM proponent, but this has all to do about how it's done nowadays and whom it profits. It's not done with the user experience in mind, which is quite different with the dungeon master protection which allowed to play the game for a while (it was even possible to finish it with well timed saves but not see the end scene). Video games now are an industry and most come from major corporations in it for profit which means DRM are badly done, slapped on a game as an afterthought (see below why it's bad) Besides DRM are a joke for crackers while on the other hand the dungeon master protection caused much respect from the crackers of the time: What's the best job of a game crack (ST) you have ever seen? Dungeon Master. It seemed to be written in some kind of interpreted language which made it very difficult to fathom. It also had protection embedded throughout the game. Good protection is like good encryption, it can never be an afterthought, you can't buy it off the shelf, it has to be part of the fabric of the game. Apparently it had a protection check after the final boss, just so you couldn't see the end sequence. Hats off to them. Hats off to Was (Not Was) for cracking it. http://web.archive.org/web/20081121032254/http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk/interviews/atainter.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20081121032254/http://www.dbug-au...
      - beagle3 12y ago
        > Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Therefore, it did, in fact, increase sales. There was almost never a point in time where you needed more than perseverance. A debugger was usually enough, given enough time and determination, to strip any copy restrictions - and while the time constants have changed, it is mostly the same today. And whether or not it increased or decreased sales (even back then) is not so easy to decide. A penniless 10 year old would pirate everything but buy nothing even if it was successfully copy restricted -- due to lack of applicable resources. A gainfully employed person with something to lose would rather pay a reasonable amount than face the hassle and potential lawsuits -- although that is often predicated on getting a "taste", which an unrestricted copy (whether DRM broken or demo from download or a magazine cover) provides. Personally, I buy all music I have copies of. If I wouldn't pay money for it, I don't waste space on my hard drive.
    - bigbugbag 12y ago
      Except this doesn't apply for Dungeon Master, first because it is a great game as in a genre defining kind of game and secondly because at the time teenager me had dozens of games for my atari st all but two were copied: dungeon master and chaos strikes back (sequel to dungeon master). Why ? because when I got my hands on the copied versions of the game it was badly cracked but still allowed me to play long enough to really get into the game until the party unexpectedly died. Which means increasing sales is made through making really good games and that piracy channels can be leveraged to increase sales.
    - mootothemax 12y ago
      Copy protection doesn't help making any money on sales. It only reduces them. Are you aware that commercial piracy used to be a big thing? You could walk about your local market and see pirated copies of games on sale for a quarter of the price. These pirate sales absolutely had an impact on "real" sales, e.g. it was pretty common for parents who didn't know any better to buy a game in passing.
      - shmerl 12y ago
        > Are you aware that commercial piracy used to be a big thing? You could walk about your local market and see pirated copies of games on sale for a quarter of the price. Did it change much? Except now all that is available through torrents and so on and even for 0% of the price. While DRM didn't prevent it then and doesn't prevent it now. All it does is annoying legitimate users who buy the product, and as well gives some control freaks tools to shape the industry and the law (with DMCA-1201 like methods).
        pandaman 12y ago
        >While DRM didn't prevent it then and doesn't prevent it now. Current generation console games are pretty well protected with their DRM and sell much better than their PC ports. Care to explain how it works with the theory that the DRM kills sales and gets cracked immediately?
        shmerl 12y ago
        Console games aren't "protected" by DRM, they are "protected" with reducing their portability. And those companies (like Nintendo) try to attack those who produce emulators. I.e. they want to control how you use the product. It's not about piracy, it's about their desire for control. When Geohot tried to distribute tools to strip DRM from PlayStation, Sony was all rage and sued him. As I said, DRM is about control freaks trying to shape the industry with corrupted laws, not about any piracy or the like.
        pandaman 12y ago
- zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  The game selling well in part thanks to its copy protection is what allowed to finance sequels after that. In that sense, the copy protection certainly benefited the users.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - shmerl 12y ago
    I'm not sure how they could conclude that it was selling because of copy protection and not because it was a good game. The way I see it, games with DRM sell despite it, not because of it in any way.

It's rated as one of the top (if not the top) games of its era. It was the all-time top seller on the Atari ST platform in question. They did great with the resource allocations they chose to make.

shmerl 12y ago

What was great about wasting any resources on copy protection instead of using them for something actually useful for users?

recursive 12y ago
"Waste" means "use" with a negative connotation. The good thing about spending resources on copy protection may be that the developers were able to make more money on sales. I don't know if it's true.
- shmerl 12y ago
  That's the point. Copy protection doesn't help making any money on sales. It only reduces them. It's a common fallacy of DRM proponents which they like to repeat (that DRM helps them increasing sales).
  - mynameisvlad 12y ago
    This is detailed in the article. If it were easier to go out and purchase the game than to copy it, then you'd be more willing to do so. The problem these days is that it's ridiculously easy to crack DRM, so it's often useless. Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Therefore, it did, in fact, increase sales.
    - shmerl 12y ago
      > Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Yet it was cracked and cracked copies were floating around all the same. DRM was stupid then, DRM is still stupid today and will always remain so. I.e. this claim: > That partially explains why they sold lots of copies! is simply false. Copies were sold not because of copy protection, but despite it. I.e. users are always annoyed by DRM, by inability to back up their games and etc. So they are less likely to buy it to begin with.
      - girvo 12y ago
        > So they are less likely to buy it to begin with. You and I, perhaps, but the majority of users? I doubt it.
        shmerl 12y ago
        There were studies which showed that DRM is likely to reduce sales. But it's rather self obvious. DRM cripples usability in some way. Worse product means less potential interest from the user. Not to mention that DRM is simply insulting, and insulting your own users sounds like a bad idea to increase sales.
        bigbugbag 12y ago
        I'm aware of those studies and an anti-DRM proponent, but this has all to do about how it's done nowadays and whom it profits. It's not done with the user experience in mind, which is quite different with the dungeon master protection which allowed to play the game for a while (it was even possible to finish it with well timed saves but not see the end scene). Video games now are an industry and most come from major corporations in it for profit which means DRM are badly done, slapped on a game as an afterthought (see below why it's bad) Besides DRM are a joke for crackers while on the other hand the dungeon master protection caused much respect from the crackers of the time: What's the best job of a game crack (ST) you have ever seen? Dungeon Master. It seemed to be written in some kind of interpreted language which made it very difficult to fathom. It also had protection embedded throughout the game. Good protection is like good encryption, it can never be an afterthought, you can't buy it off the shelf, it has to be part of the fabric of the game. Apparently it had a protection check after the final boss, just so you couldn't see the end sequence. Hats off to them. Hats off to Was (Not Was) for cracking it. http://web.archive.org/web/20081121032254/http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk/interviews/atainter.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20081121032254/http://www.dbug-au...
    - beagle3 12y ago
      > Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Therefore, it did, in fact, increase sales. There was almost never a point in time where you needed more than perseverance. A debugger was usually enough, given enough time and determination, to strip any copy restrictions - and while the time constants have changed, it is mostly the same today. And whether or not it increased or decreased sales (even back then) is not so easy to decide. A penniless 10 year old would pirate everything but buy nothing even if it was successfully copy restricted -- due to lack of applicable resources. A gainfully employed person with something to lose would rather pay a reasonable amount than face the hassle and potential lawsuits -- although that is often predicated on getting a "taste", which an unrestricted copy (whether DRM broken or demo from download or a magazine cover) provides. Personally, I buy all music I have copies of. If I wouldn't pay money for it, I don't waste space on my hard drive.
  - bigbugbag 12y ago
    Except this doesn't apply for Dungeon Master, first because it is a great game as in a genre defining kind of game and secondly because at the time teenager me had dozens of games for my atari st all but two were copied: dungeon master and chaos strikes back (sequel to dungeon master). Why ? because when I got my hands on the copied versions of the game it was badly cracked but still allowed me to play long enough to really get into the game until the party unexpectedly died. Which means increasing sales is made through making really good games and that piracy channels can be leveraged to increase sales.
  - mootothemax 12y ago
    Copy protection doesn't help making any money on sales. It only reduces them. Are you aware that commercial piracy used to be a big thing? You could walk about your local market and see pirated copies of games on sale for a quarter of the price. These pirate sales absolutely had an impact on "real" sales, e.g. it was pretty common for parents who didn't know any better to buy a game in passing.
    - shmerl 12y ago
      > Are you aware that commercial piracy used to be a big thing? You could walk about your local market and see pirated copies of games on sale for a quarter of the price. Did it change much? Except now all that is available through torrents and so on and even for 0% of the price. While DRM didn't prevent it then and doesn't prevent it now. All it does is annoying legitimate users who buy the product, and as well gives some control freaks tools to shape the industry and the law (with DMCA-1201 like methods).
      - pandaman 12y ago
        >While DRM didn't prevent it then and doesn't prevent it now. Current generation console games are pretty well protected with their DRM and sell much better than their PC ports. Care to explain how it works with the theory that the DRM kills sales and gets cracked immediately?
        shmerl 12y ago
        Console games aren't "protected" by DRM, they are "protected" with reducing their portability. And those companies (like Nintendo) try to attack those who produce emulators. I.e. they want to control how you use the product. It's not about piracy, it's about their desire for control. When Geohot tried to distribute tools to strip DRM from PlayStation, Sony was all rage and sued him. As I said, DRM is about control freaks trying to shape the industry with corrupted laws, not about any piracy or the like.
        pandaman 12y ago
zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
The game selling well in part thanks to its copy protection is what allowed to finance sequels after that. In that sense, the copy protection certainly benefited the users.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- shmerl 12y ago
  I'm not sure how they could conclude that it was selling because of copy protection and not because it was a good game. The way I see it, games with DRM sell despite it, not because of it in any way.