Anti-piracy

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#21

Two things that I believe would help:

1. Don’t include MIDI music - This prevents people who download the “ripped” versions of the games from having any music at all and this makes it much less worthwhile for them. Think about this: How many pirates would have enjoyed Season of the Sakura as much as they did if MIDI music had not been included? Same thing applies to Tokimeki Check-In, someone could download it and get all of the music in about 1MB or less of downloading, even if it is lower quality than the CD, it certainly makes the game a lot more enjoyable than silence.

2. Make the games require the CD’s to run. This way, it makes it more difficult to get games from the net as people need to create CD cracks. I know this won’t prevent all piracy by any means, but it will certainly make it more difficult. As it stands, I own Snow Drop and Tokimeki Check-In and it would be very easy for me to install these games on a friends computer and they could run them with no loss in quality (Snow Drop) or little loss in quality (Tokimeki Check-In) without any access to the original CD’s at all.

3. Take requiring the CD one stage further, make the games executable check that one or more very specific large files exist (Such as the voice or music file packs) before starting the game, if the files don’t exist or the file size is incorrect, the game doesn’t run.

My point really is that many people are happy to rip-off games that don’t have voice and only have MIDI music, but far less are willing if it means downloading all of the voice and music files or trading / buying CD’s by post with someone like z3n (I already fell for that one myself. ).

#22

I can tell you one thing Turrican,litterary nothing can stop pirates ok,trust me Iknow =)
And to make the game require a cd when playing it? Do you seriousy think that would do anything? It’s extremly easy to work your way around this,you simply download the whole cd and then what? You just play it.
I suggest that Peach do the same thing as Studio E-go has done with their latest title Izumo,they should put SafeDisc 2.0 copyprotection on it,it’s one helluva irritating protection that will make you buy the game sooner or later (if you like it that is),trust me =)

One other thing,do people seriously think that ripped games still exist today? Most people have high speed connections so they only have to find an image of the cd and just download it.

Sorry for sounding a bit harsh ^_^;;

#23

Gurra: Well, don’t assume too much there ^^;;. Not everyone who pirates are 14-16 years old, they’re often older than that - it isn’t always a question about “getting that game even through I’m not 18 yet”, its more a question about “getting that game without having to pay for it”… And there’s certainly sites out there that distributes Peach Princess’s games - or distributes or displays all picture in one or more of Peach Princess’s games at their sites and it’s them we’re going after - FTP’s a big problem thats correct, since most of the trades between pirates occurs there, but something might be done about them, too… you never know

TraitorH: Well we could make a list if you want to .

#24

Actually kumiko, the reason why the record industry is having problems with copy protection is that the cd can’t be played in computers and a fair variety of older cd players. And it’s designed to be that way. Copy protection for computers is a slightly different story. It’s usually done by creating unreadable ‘traps’ in the cd where the cd reader returns invalid data. Programs wanting to verify wether the cd is valid, can just atempt to read from the problematic sector, to see wether it generates an error. Of course, if your an ASM guru, you can get around this pretty easily, but it’s not something your everyday joe can do. And I have to say though while I dislike requiring the cd to play a game, almost all pc games do it, so it wouldn’t really be a strike against your software. I could just hear it now. “Whats that you say? You need the CD to play? Screw that, I’ll get another game”. It doesn’t happen. Anyways, thats my rant.

Doddler

#25

BUMP


Not to initiate a new discussion, here, again, but Gamespot features an interesting article about the so-called “abandonware”. It includes comments by some major distributors as well as (some rather controversial) comments of designers like Al Lowe (Leisure Suit Larry, anyone?)

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/abandonware/


Caveat emptor: it contains at least one link/reference to one of the abandonware sites, please keep that in mind.

[This message has been edited by fxho (edited 02-24-2002).]

#26

Great article I must say
Though I’ve already been in alot of heated discussions about this subject,being a hardcore resident of Home of The Underdogs (great site).
The Underdogs is sadly I dare say one of the few “Real” abandonware sites,they only put up games that aren’t being sold anymore and if the game starts getting sold they will take it down and point you towards where it’s being sold,ey you rather want the original than a copied one right? :slight_smile:
And I agree with Al Lowe and that other guy,If I designed a game I would probably like it better that people downloaded it and enjoyed it than it being forgotten and lost in time.

But now,I just wonder what this article had to do with Peach? I sure hope there aren’t people that are claiming that there games are abandonware 'cause thats just stupid :stuck_out_tongue:

#27
quote:
Originally posted by Gurvon:
And I agree with Al Lowe and that other guy,If I designed a game I would probably like it better that people downloaded it and enjoyed it than it being forgotten and lost in time.

Unfortunately, they do not own the games nor the characters. It is sad, though, as they should, at least have a word on it. Jane Jensen of Gabriel Knight fame, when asked about the next Gabriel Knight game or novel, she told that all characters were property of Sierra, and she simply can't do anything without their consent. (And, yes, despite she was the mastermind of all the series)


quote:
Originally posted by Gurvon:
But now,I just wonder what this article had to do with Peach? I sure hope there aren't people that are claiming that there games are abandonware 'cause thats just stupid :P

Because the game that could have brought the popularity of bishoujo games, way back in the mid 90's, Princess Maker 2, is often listed in those sites, despite it never managed to get out of the distributors warehouse (if there was one to begin with). If you want the full story about what happened to the game, please check here:

http://www.softegg.com/PM2_P1.HTML


Now that I mention Princess Maker 2, the license (for the US release) ends on this comming April...

#28