9 ms·

Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006)

31 points by mmastrac 12y ago

drpgq 12y ago
I think Bard's Tale 2 had a code wheel which I photocopied as a kid for playing on my C64. Wasteland had that little book you had to refer to for little text snippets.
- PotatoEngineer 12y ago
  Star Control II uses a starmap as copy protection ("tell me the constellation at these coordinates..."). I lost the starmap at one point, but if you can remember just one of the answers, you can just keep running the game until that answer is the correct one. (The copy protection is at the very beginning, and the game won't bug you during play.)
  - thrillgore 12y ago
    Is this a factor if you're playing the Ur-Quan Masters?
    - PotatoEngineer 12y ago
      No; I lost the starmap when I still had some 5 1/4" diskettes that said "Star Control II" on them.
digi_owl 12y ago
I recall dealing with a code wheel to play FA-18 on the Amiga, and word lookup for B-17. The latter had a lovely manual btw, it could probably be used as a reference work for historians.
Sambdala 12y ago
I remember King's Quest 3 had a bunch of spells and/or potions you needed to use to win the game that required precisely worded commands, and they were only included in the physical manual.
- bentcorner 12y ago
  Metal Gear Solid for the PS1 had something similar - it referenced a radio frequency on the back of the CD case, so if you copied the game but didn't copy the liner, you'd end up getting stuck. What a joy to play that game. One of the first games (I'd played) to take on a cinematic feel all in-engine. Regarding KQ3, I miss those little hint books you could buy for the game that came with the red reading window. Totally not necessary today, but it was a fun thing to have back then.
- ghaff 12y ago
  A number of the Infocom games required the use of various objects/information included in the game box such as decoder wheels. Wouldn't be effective today of course but it worked pretty well pre-Web when you didn't have easy ways to trade this sort of information.
- drewcrawford 12y ago
  KQ6, in addition to being one of the greatest adventure games of all time, had some of the best copy protection. The manual had an extensive "encyclopedic" section that was part background material, part hint book, and part ingenious copy protection. For example it included the following 'poem' as background material about one of the game areas: 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. As it turns out, this poem is really a solution to a puzzle where you must walk on the floor tiles in a particular order to survive: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WUw771rvxhc/hqdefault.jpg http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WUw771rvxhc/hqdefault.jpg There were several solutions that were cryptically hidden in the manual like this, such that people who hadn't read it would get stuck at various points. The real genius however was that this was before the Internet, and so if you wanted hints you had to call Sierra on their special 900 (toll) number to get help.
  - artmageddon 12y ago
    I remember this as well! There were also some incomprehensible glyphs on the tower climb, leading up to the Winged One's(just prior to the Catacombs in your screenshot) that were only printed in the manual.
Nr7 12y ago
I've always been strangely intrigued by these old-school copy protection systems. It was interesting so see all the novel ideas the companies would come up with. I especially remember playing around with those code-wheels when I was a kid. Here's an entertaining little video with a bit more information on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjEbpMgiL7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjEbpMgiL7U
pmorici 12y ago
My dad had his own business selling copy protection he invented for 5.25" floppy disks back in the early 80's. It didn't use codes from the manual though it used some trick with the floppy where a special sector could be read but wasn't written under normal conditions when the floppy was copied.
bentcorner 12y ago
On the NES, EarthBound is notable for a defense-in-depth approach to copy protection (the last layer is interesting): http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protection/ http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protec... I wonder if that helped any, though. At some point players are just going to think "this is a terrible game" and tell their friends that. The "code wheel"/shareware approach seems gentler. Give them a taste of the game for free, and then put up barriers to incentivize them to pay for the game. (IMO the F2P model has taken this way too far in this direction)
- timpark 12y ago
  Yeah, some games are a bit too subtle, like reducing player accuracy in an FPS. Others can be quite funny when players complain online. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-29-game-dev-tycoon-forces-those-who-pirate-the-game-to-unwittingly-fail-from-piracy http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-29-game-dev-tycoon... It's pretty old and has been posted here before, but one of my favourite DRM examples/writeups is Spyro: Year of the Dragon. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pirates_at_bay.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pir...
  - Shivetya 12y ago
    I wonder if you could do that with music, put a few off key notes or change a word in a song and have it uploaded to various sites? Would seem like you could have fun with people that way and still get yourself heard.
    - timpark 12y ago
      I thought I had read that DAT (digital audio tape) detected altered notes/frequencies to avoid copying, but it appears to only have been a proposed idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System#H... People have done pitch-shifting and other tricks to get around YouTube's Content ID in the past. And the fictional word "esquivalience" was added to the New Oxford American Dictionary to detect copies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary#Fictitious_entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary#...
chisleu 12y ago
try, catch, try, catch, try, catch! Take that reversers!
artmageddon 12y ago
Battle Chess 4000 by Interplay required the manual to be played, as it would ask challenge questions before it would let you play the game. The manual had about a dozen different games laid out, and a challenge question might be phrased like "On game 8, where is the white rook?" and you'd have to answer in chess notation like "D3". I had lost the manual and Interplay sent me a new one after I had cut out the UPC code and mailed it to them for proof of purchase, which was awfully nice of them. Years later, after losing the spare manual, I got prompted with this question, and after a couple dozen tries just for fun, I blindly and correctly guessed the location of a specific piece on a specific board. I'm not sure what the probability of that would be(probably smaller than 1/64) but I felt like I could've played and won the lottery that day :)
ryanthejuggler 12y ago
I used to play _The (Even More!) Incredible Machine_, which had a similar scheme. You'd be given a page and have to look up a series of three items from the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6etb0_u_hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6etb0_u_hk Anyone else remember that game?

31 points by mmastrac 12y ago

drpgq 12y ago

I think Bard's Tale 2 had a code wheel which I photocopied as a kid for playing on my C64. Wasteland had that little book you had to refer to for little text snippets.

PotatoEngineer 12y ago
Star Control II uses a starmap as copy protection ("tell me the constellation at these coordinates..."). I lost the starmap at one point, but if you can remember just one of the answers, you can just keep running the game until that answer is the correct one. (The copy protection is at the very beginning, and the game won't bug you during play.)
- thrillgore 12y ago
  Is this a factor if you're playing the Ur-Quan Masters?
  - PotatoEngineer 12y ago
    No; I lost the starmap when I still had some 5 1/4" diskettes that said "Star Control II" on them.

digi_owl 12y ago

I recall dealing with a code wheel to play FA-18 on the Amiga, and word lookup for B-17. The latter had a lovely manual btw, it could probably be used as a reference work for historians.

Sambdala 12y ago

I remember King's Quest 3 had a bunch of spells and/or potions you needed to use to win the game that required precisely worded commands, and they were only included in the physical manual.

bentcorner 12y ago
Metal Gear Solid for the PS1 had something similar - it referenced a radio frequency on the back of the CD case, so if you copied the game but didn't copy the liner, you'd end up getting stuck. What a joy to play that game. One of the first games (I'd played) to take on a cinematic feel all in-engine. Regarding KQ3, I miss those little hint books you could buy for the game that came with the red reading window. Totally not necessary today, but it was a fun thing to have back then.
ghaff 12y ago
A number of the Infocom games required the use of various objects/information included in the game box such as decoder wheels. Wouldn't be effective today of course but it worked pretty well pre-Web when you didn't have easy ways to trade this sort of information.
drewcrawford 12y ago
KQ6, in addition to being one of the greatest adventure games of all time, had some of the best copy protection. The manual had an extensive "encyclopedic" section that was part background material, part hint book, and part ingenious copy protection. For example it included the following 'poem' as background material about one of the game areas: 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. As it turns out, this poem is really a solution to a puzzle where you must walk on the floor tiles in a particular order to survive: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WUw771rvxhc/hqdefault.jpg http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WUw771rvxhc/hqdefault.jpg There were several solutions that were cryptically hidden in the manual like this, such that people who hadn't read it would get stuck at various points. The real genius however was that this was before the Internet, and so if you wanted hints you had to call Sierra on their special 900 (toll) number to get help.
- artmageddon 12y ago
  I remember this as well! There were also some incomprehensible glyphs on the tower climb, leading up to the Winged One's(just prior to the Catacombs in your screenshot) that were only printed in the manual.

Nr7 12y ago

I've always been strangely intrigued by these old-school copy protection systems. It was interesting so see all the novel ideas the companies would come up with. I especially remember playing around with those code-wheels when I was a kid. Here's an entertaining little video with a bit more information on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjEbpMgiL7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjEbpMgiL7U

pmorici 12y ago

My dad had his own business selling copy protection he invented for 5.25" floppy disks back in the early 80's. It didn't use codes from the manual though it used some trick with the floppy where a special sector could be read but wasn't written under normal conditions when the floppy was copied.

bentcorner 12y ago

On the NES, EarthBound is notable for a defense-in-depth approach to copy protection (the last layer is interesting): http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protection/ http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protec... I wonder if that helped any, though. At some point players are just going to think "this is a terrible game" and tell their friends that. The "code wheel"/shareware approach seems gentler. Give them a taste of the game for free, and then put up barriers to incentivize them to pay for the game. (IMO the F2P model has taken this way too far in this direction)

timpark 12y ago
Yeah, some games are a bit too subtle, like reducing player accuracy in an FPS. Others can be quite funny when players complain online. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-29-game-dev-tycoon-forces-those-who-pirate-the-game-to-unwittingly-fail-from-piracy http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-29-game-dev-tycoon... It's pretty old and has been posted here before, but one of my favourite DRM examples/writeups is Spyro: Year of the Dragon. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pirates_at_bay.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pir...
- Shivetya 12y ago
  I wonder if you could do that with music, put a few off key notes or change a word in a song and have it uploaded to various sites? Would seem like you could have fun with people that way and still get yourself heard.
  - timpark 12y ago
    I thought I had read that DAT (digital audio tape) detected altered notes/frequencies to avoid copying, but it appears to only have been a proposed idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System#H... People have done pitch-shifting and other tricks to get around YouTube's Content ID in the past. And the fictional word "esquivalience" was added to the New Oxford American Dictionary to detect copies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary#Fictitious_entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary#...

chisleu 12y ago

try, catch, try, catch, try, catch! Take that reversers!

artmageddon 12y ago

Battle Chess 4000 by Interplay required the manual to be played, as it would ask challenge questions before it would let you play the game. The manual had about a dozen different games laid out, and a challenge question might be phrased like "On game 8, where is the white rook?" and you'd have to answer in chess notation like "D3". I had lost the manual and Interplay sent me a new one after I had cut out the UPC code and mailed it to them for proof of purchase, which was awfully nice of them. Years later, after losing the spare manual, I got prompted with this question, and after a couple dozen tries just for fun, I blindly and correctly guessed the location of a specific piece on a specific board. I'm not sure what the probability of that would be(probably smaller than 1/64) but I felt like I could've played and won the lottery that day :)

ryanthejuggler 12y ago

I used to play _The (Even More!) Incredible Machine_, which had a similar scheme. You'd be given a page and have to look up a series of three items from the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6etb0_u_hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6etb0_u_hk Anyone else remember that game?