6 ms·

EarthBound’s Copy Protection

64 points by LaSombra 11y ago

jimmaswell 11y ago
It seems like this would punish unwitting buyers of the pirated carts, not the pirates.
tfb 11y ago
You know what... this is really interesting to learn about this now, because I played the hell out of Earthbound when I was younger using an emulator, but to this day I don't recall ever beating it. And it is extremely rare that I would just stop playing a game. The only game I started and haven't completed is Oblivion. I can't for the life of me remember completing Earthbound or when/why I stopped playing it. I just watched that Youtube clip of the end battle with Giygas and I vaguely remember it, but I have no recollection of some kind of ending. If anything I remember being kind of confused. I bet I ran into that last layer of protection where it randomly freezes and deletes the saved game, and that's why I don't recall an actual ending. Learning about this now, I guess I feel a little better about not remembering ever beating Earthbound.
- FlannelPancake 11y ago
  Eh, as the article points out it's pretty unlikely you encountered that last layer of copy protection from a ROM.
  - tfb 11y ago
    Yes, I read that. But it's also most logical explanation for why I don't remember the ending.
  - sukilot 11y ago
    But what is the difference between a "cartridge copies" and however ROM files are created?
- asveikau 11y ago
  I remember the end of that game as being very hard. When you agree to inhabit the robot, it's a bit of a point of no return, and if you haven't prepared well it's easy to fail. I remember I came extremely close to beating it in the mid 1990s, but never did. Then I revisited it in the early 2000s on an emulator, and was able to do so.
michaelochurch 11y ago
You cannot grasp the true form of copy-protection's attack!
- eropple 11y ago
  I know HN is grumbly and doesn't dig jokes, but Michael, y'all owe me a new keyboard. I remember playing around with a SNES flash cart a few years ago when I stumbled into a working SNES for $20. Earthbound was one of my favorite games as a kid, and it was the first one I went for. The cart had features I straight-up didn't understand, but proved useful for this specific game--the ability to disable SRAM banks being the big one. "Why would you ever need to do tha--oh."
- dragontamer 11y ago
  The fact that this is horribly downvoted demonstrates how few people have actually played Earthbound. EDIT: Hurrah! Parent comment is positive again!
  - Bahamut 11y ago
    I've noticed a lot of people just downvote his comments without even trying to understand anything he says - in this case, it was an amusing Earthbound related joke, and unsurprisingly downvotes follow because of the commenter, and not the comment itself. Goes to show how broken the system is.
  - KeytarHero 11y ago
    Or people who get the joke are downvoting it because they like serious discussion and don't want this place to eventually be filled with cheap one-line jokes like Reddit.
- DiabloD3 11y ago
  Perfect music for this comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204BDmIg7B4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204BDmIg7B4
  - michaelochurch 11y ago
yoklov 11y ago
This is great. Reminds me of Game Dev Tycoon's developers releasing a cracked version of the game onto torrent sites where you'd always lose due to players pirating your game [0]. When I heard what they did I sort of thought it was stupid, but the chart at the end where they show that 90+% of the users of the game were playing the pirated version is somewhat chilling. Kind of makes me want to release a version of games I make to pirate sites (well, if I ever went indie... this would be a very hard sell anywhere I've ever worked), just to get similar usage information, although it's probably a mistake, as the information would only bother me. [0]: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-...
- anon4 11y ago
  If 90% of players pirate and if your statistics for how many players there are for a given game usually come in the form of "number of sold copies", then you could be severely underestimating the size of the potential userbase; feeling that you are getting a small piece of a small pie, while in fact you're getting a small piece of a much larger pie. Statistics on pirate behaviour are sort of hard to come by anyway -- if you buy games at all, you're not really a pirate, you're someone who downloaded a game they didn't know if they'd like, or you didn't have money at that moment and wanted to check it out, or any other explanation. Over the years, me and my friends, have basically bought every game we've played. On the other hand, if you habitually pirate and never buy, game developers aren't interested in talking to you; in fact you're basically a criminal in their eyes, stealing their profits. I really wish to see some sort of study disentangling these two groups and finding a way to talk to and understand the latter group. Why they do what they do, what motivates them and so on. Once you know that, you can start addressing the issues that drive such behaviour.
  - sukilot 11y ago
    You are wondering what is the explanation for people taking readily available free (to them) stuff they enjoy? This is not a deep mystery of the Universe.
jcurbo 11y ago
If you thought this was interesting, there's a lot more in this vein from the author (Clyde Mandelin aka Mato/Tomato) who is a professional translator as well as a ROM hacker (not to mention, his fame in internet Earthbound/Mother fandom). He has a great blog, Legends of Localization[1], where he talks about how games were localized into English, and streams interesting game hacks and unusual games from Japan on Twitch (usually with his wife, Poe)[2]. For instance, for the past few days they've been playing through an English translation of BS Zelda[3], a 16-bit version of The Legend of Zelda released on Nintendo's Satellaview service for the Super Famicom, which is long gone but the game has been put back together by enterprising programmers. [1] http://legendsoflocalization.com/ http://legendsoflocalization.com/ [2] http://poematocx.com/ http://poematocx.com/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview_games_from_The_Legend_of_Zelda_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview_games_from_The_Lege...
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Spyro YOTD (PS1) also had interesting copy-protection: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pirates_at_bay.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pir... Both that, and the Earthbound article, have been posted on HN before. Someone might have the links.
Tiktaalik 11y ago
Another interesting thing about the development of Earthbound was that one of the main programmers of Earthbound was Satoru Iwata, who is now the current CEO of Nintendo. An Earthbound fan translated an old Famitsu interview with him and another programmer about developing the game and some of the challenges involved. https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-september-9-1994-2/ https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-septe...
lifeformed 11y ago
Method #3 (increasing enemy spawn rate) sounds iffy. It's a subtle change that just makes the game worse, and the player isn't going to know it was because of piracy. They'll just think the game was designed poorly and be less inclined to support the developer.
- KeytarHero 11y ago
  I tend to agree - except there are way more enemies. It's not exactly a subtle change. Also keep in mind this was 1994. If someone ran into this, it's not like they could go complain on Twitter or Reddit where millions of people would see it and it could potentially damage Nintendo's reputation because people think the game is buggy. Plus, Super Nintendo piracy was a lot more difficult than modern PC piracy, and it was a lot less common. It's not like today where some people will download a game just to try it out and then buy it if they like it.
  - XorNot 11y ago
    Yes but here is how your word of mouth for that goes: A: should I buy this game? B: I played it and it's just stupidly balanced. A: Ok I guess no then. Notice how in no part of the exchange is anyone going to be communicated any pertinent information about the context, nor do they have incentive to do so.
greggman 11y ago
It doesn't seem like copy protection that makes the game un-fun to play is really a good idea. It seems more likely to backfire as it might generate bad word of mouth for your game. "Damn, that game sucks. Glad I didn't buy it. Better warn my friends" IIRC when we made Gunship for the Commodore 64 it had something long these lines in that if the loader was tampered with the helicopter wouldn't get enough power to take off. Whether or not that was a win for anti-piracy I have no idea. I do know the game was completely pirated within 2 weeks of shipping though even though we had gotten some fancy copy protection. At least the copy protection added a fast loader so it was a plus for the user :p
- XorNot 11y ago
  Red Alert 2's "all your units explode" copy-protection was incredibly stupid. It would let you type in something like a 30-digit CD-key, and then not prompt if you got it wrong and trigger the "exploding units" code in the game.
AustinG08 11y ago
I feel compelled to post how this was the defining game of my youth. It was the ultimate video game experience in my child brain. I was enamored for years. I wanted to be Ness. My very first website was a GeoCities page, an ode to this game titled "Earthbound: The Best Game Ever." I have scoured GeoCities archives for a copy of it but unsuccessful each time. There was a neat attempt at an Earthbound MMO http://www.skyon.be/node http://www.skyon.be/node but it appears to be discontinued. I love you Earthbound.
- robhunter 11y ago
  Had the same experience. Played it a dozen times that first summer as a 10 year old. Go through it again if you have time.
- cremno 11y ago
  This summer a fan-made Earthbound (well, Mother) game called Mother 4 will be released for free. http://www.mother4game.com http://www.mother4game.com
  - AustinG08 11y ago
    that just sent me down a rabbit hole. came back with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hVuv7mDNqM&feature=share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hVuv7mDNqM&feature=share
jay_kyburz 11y ago
I really think this old attitude to copy protection is short sighted and why free games are now the top revenue earners on every platform. If a player is enjoying your game, great! The hardest part of the battle is already won, you made a great game and got it in front of the customers. Now you just need to get them to spend some money. Sure, back in these days is was probably harder to just ask a user for a credit card number, but punishing people that enjoy your game is crazy.

64 points by LaSombra 11y ago

It seems like this would punish unwitting buyers of the pirated carts, not the pirates.

tfb 11y ago

You know what... this is really interesting to learn about this now, because I played the hell out of Earthbound when I was younger using an emulator, but to this day I don't recall ever beating it. And it is extremely rare that I would just stop playing a game. The only game I started and haven't completed is Oblivion. I can't for the life of me remember completing Earthbound or when/why I stopped playing it. I just watched that Youtube clip of the end battle with Giygas and I vaguely remember it, but I have no recollection of some kind of ending. If anything I remember being kind of confused. I bet I ran into that last layer of protection where it randomly freezes and deletes the saved game, and that's why I don't recall an actual ending. Learning about this now, I guess I feel a little better about not remembering ever beating Earthbound.

FlannelPancake 11y ago
Eh, as the article points out it's pretty unlikely you encountered that last layer of copy protection from a ROM.
- tfb 11y ago
  Yes, I read that. But it's also most logical explanation for why I don't remember the ending.
- sukilot 11y ago
  But what is the difference between a "cartridge copies" and however ROM files are created?
asveikau 11y ago
I remember the end of that game as being very hard. When you agree to inhabit the robot, it's a bit of a point of no return, and if you haven't prepared well it's easy to fail. I remember I came extremely close to beating it in the mid 1990s, but never did. Then I revisited it in the early 2000s on an emulator, and was able to do so.

michaelochurch 11y ago

You cannot grasp the true form of copy-protection's attack!

eropple 11y ago
I know HN is grumbly and doesn't dig jokes, but Michael, y'all owe me a new keyboard. I remember playing around with a SNES flash cart a few years ago when I stumbled into a working SNES for $20. Earthbound was one of my favorite games as a kid, and it was the first one I went for. The cart had features I straight-up didn't understand, but proved useful for this specific game--the ability to disable SRAM banks being the big one. "Why would you ever need to do tha--oh."
dragontamer 11y ago
The fact that this is horribly downvoted demonstrates how few people have actually played Earthbound. EDIT: Hurrah! Parent comment is positive again!
- Bahamut 11y ago
  I've noticed a lot of people just downvote his comments without even trying to understand anything he says - in this case, it was an amusing Earthbound related joke, and unsurprisingly downvotes follow because of the commenter, and not the comment itself. Goes to show how broken the system is.
- KeytarHero 11y ago
  Or people who get the joke are downvoting it because they like serious discussion and don't want this place to eventually be filled with cheap one-line jokes like Reddit.
DiabloD3 11y ago
Perfect music for this comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204BDmIg7B4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204BDmIg7B4
- michaelochurch 11y ago

yoklov 11y ago

This is great. Reminds me of Game Dev Tycoon's developers releasing a cracked version of the game onto torrent sites where you'd always lose due to players pirating your game [0]. When I heard what they did I sort of thought it was stupid, but the chart at the end where they show that 90+% of the users of the game were playing the pirated version is somewhat chilling. Kind of makes me want to release a version of games I make to pirate sites (well, if I ever went indie... this would be a very hard sell anywhere I've ever worked), just to get similar usage information, although it's probably a mistake, as the information would only bother me. [0]: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-...

anon4 11y ago
If 90% of players pirate and if your statistics for how many players there are for a given game usually come in the form of "number of sold copies", then you could be severely underestimating the size of the potential userbase; feeling that you are getting a small piece of a small pie, while in fact you're getting a small piece of a much larger pie. Statistics on pirate behaviour are sort of hard to come by anyway -- if you buy games at all, you're not really a pirate, you're someone who downloaded a game they didn't know if they'd like, or you didn't have money at that moment and wanted to check it out, or any other explanation. Over the years, me and my friends, have basically bought every game we've played. On the other hand, if you habitually pirate and never buy, game developers aren't interested in talking to you; in fact you're basically a criminal in their eyes, stealing their profits. I really wish to see some sort of study disentangling these two groups and finding a way to talk to and understand the latter group. Why they do what they do, what motivates them and so on. Once you know that, you can start addressing the issues that drive such behaviour.
- sukilot 11y ago
  You are wondering what is the explanation for people taking readily available free (to them) stuff they enjoy? This is not a deep mystery of the Universe.

jcurbo 11y ago

If you thought this was interesting, there's a lot more in this vein from the author (Clyde Mandelin aka Mato/Tomato) who is a professional translator as well as a ROM hacker (not to mention, his fame in internet Earthbound/Mother fandom). He has a great blog, Legends of Localization[1], where he talks about how games were localized into English, and streams interesting game hacks and unusual games from Japan on Twitch (usually with his wife, Poe)[2]. For instance, for the past few days they've been playing through an English translation of BS Zelda[3], a 16-bit version of The Legend of Zelda released on Nintendo's Satellaview service for the Super Famicom, which is long gone but the game has been put back together by enterprising programmers. [1] http://legendsoflocalization.com/ http://legendsoflocalization.com/ [2] http://poematocx.com/ http://poematocx.com/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview_games_from_The_Legend_of_Zelda_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview_games_from_The_Lege...

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

Spyro YOTD (PS1) also had interesting copy-protection: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pirates_at_bay.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131439/keeping_the_pir... Both that, and the Earthbound article, have been posted on HN before. Someone might have the links.

Tiktaalik 11y ago

Another interesting thing about the development of Earthbound was that one of the main programmers of Earthbound was Satoru Iwata, who is now the current CEO of Nintendo. An Earthbound fan translated an old Famitsu interview with him and another programmer about developing the game and some of the challenges involved. https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-september-9-1994-2/ https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-septe...

lifeformed 11y ago

Method #3 (increasing enemy spawn rate) sounds iffy. It's a subtle change that just makes the game worse, and the player isn't going to know it was because of piracy. They'll just think the game was designed poorly and be less inclined to support the developer.

KeytarHero 11y ago
I tend to agree - except there are way more enemies. It's not exactly a subtle change. Also keep in mind this was 1994. If someone ran into this, it's not like they could go complain on Twitter or Reddit where millions of people would see it and it could potentially damage Nintendo's reputation because people think the game is buggy. Plus, Super Nintendo piracy was a lot more difficult than modern PC piracy, and it was a lot less common. It's not like today where some people will download a game just to try it out and then buy it if they like it.
- XorNot 11y ago
  Yes but here is how your word of mouth for that goes: A: should I buy this game? B: I played it and it's just stupidly balanced. A: Ok I guess no then. Notice how in no part of the exchange is anyone going to be communicated any pertinent information about the context, nor do they have incentive to do so.

greggman 11y ago

It doesn't seem like copy protection that makes the game un-fun to play is really a good idea. It seems more likely to backfire as it might generate bad word of mouth for your game. "Damn, that game sucks. Glad I didn't buy it. Better warn my friends" IIRC when we made Gunship for the Commodore 64 it had something long these lines in that if the loader was tampered with the helicopter wouldn't get enough power to take off. Whether or not that was a win for anti-piracy I have no idea. I do know the game was completely pirated within 2 weeks of shipping though even though we had gotten some fancy copy protection. At least the copy protection added a fast loader so it was a plus for the user :p

XorNot 11y ago
Red Alert 2's "all your units explode" copy-protection was incredibly stupid. It would let you type in something like a 30-digit CD-key, and then not prompt if you got it wrong and trigger the "exploding units" code in the game.

AustinG08 11y ago

I feel compelled to post how this was the defining game of my youth. It was the ultimate video game experience in my child brain. I was enamored for years. I wanted to be Ness. My very first website was a GeoCities page, an ode to this game titled "Earthbound: The Best Game Ever." I have scoured GeoCities archives for a copy of it but unsuccessful each time. There was a neat attempt at an Earthbound MMO http://www.skyon.be/node http://www.skyon.be/node but it appears to be discontinued. I love you Earthbound.

robhunter 11y ago
Had the same experience. Played it a dozen times that first summer as a 10 year old. Go through it again if you have time.
cremno 11y ago
This summer a fan-made Earthbound (well, Mother) game called Mother 4 will be released for free. http://www.mother4game.com http://www.mother4game.com
- AustinG08 11y ago
  that just sent me down a rabbit hole. came back with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hVuv7mDNqM&feature=share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hVuv7mDNqM&feature=share

jay_kyburz 11y ago

I really think this old attitude to copy protection is short sighted and why free games are now the top revenue earners on every platform. If a player is enjoying your game, great! The hardest part of the battle is already won, you made a great game and got it in front of the customers. Now you just need to get them to spend some money. Sure, back in these days is was probably harder to just ask a user for a credit card number, but punishing people that enjoy your game is crazy.