Thoughts on V-Mate

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#201

tabris17, if you think opposition to V-Mate equals support for piracy, you’re mistaken. Very much mistaken. If you read this thread carefully, you’ll find a variety of objections raised against the system and the limitations it imposes.

My own criticism stems from VM’s restriction against offline play. In simple terms, you must always have an Internet connection available in order start a game. This isn’t a major obstacle for some people. Those who only play b-games from their online PCs with continuous connections or cheap dialup access may be quite satisfied with the system as it stands. It’s another matter for those of us who must play on laptops or offline systems far away from ISPs.

In essence, VM game media are disposable plastic discs. Even those who play from online PCs find they may only be used for a few installations, and they offer no resale value. In essence, they are a downloading substitute for people who lack broadband connections.

So be careful about claiming this system is retailer or consumer friendly. It may favor the producer by reducing the need for hard copy distribution. It may please those consumers who can live with the scheme’s inherent defects. It may even accomplish its stated goal of stopping piracy. But it also has the unfortunate effect of disenfranchising people who want to play offline, and it may succeed in eliminating third party redistribution and the resale markets.

Some of us vehemently oppose piracy while still holding that VM is not an attractive solution.

#202
quote:
Originally posted by tabris17:
About 2 years ago I decided to take a course on Japanese. I visited the Anime Club on campus. Walk in see students watching Anime. Find out a little while later they had an entire library of Anime Videos they had downloaded off the internet.

That sounds a lot like my college anime club, except that I was there in the glory days of VHS subbing, where getting shown at JAC (the club's name) made the difference between seeing a show, and barely having heard of a show. Now their attendance has fallen off, dramatically. They're almost not needed anymore; barely 3 years into the digisub revolution and the whole of the campus is barely supporting the club. They did show some licensed material, but almost nothing that was actually available in stores.

And they had a library, but it is all fansubs and stuff gets pulled real fast if gets licensed. In the old days it was entirely a tape library; they still call it that, I think, but it's almost wholly a CD library now.

Of course, I have a gigantic collection of anime fansubs AND a gigantic collection of anime DVDs. I feel the one obligates me to have the other :) Sadly, far too many don't share that opinion.

#203

My club used fansubs - IF the title wasn’t out in licensed DVD format yet. (Except one case, I think - ISTR there was one very old anime where there was a licensed version but significant changes had been made to the content, so we stuck with the much funnier fan version.)

On one show there was a bit of alternation because the next DVD wasn’t out yet, but considering the quality of the fansub on that particular show we were eagerly awaiting the real release.

So once again, there are plenty of people who both share AND buy.

quote:

I don’t see the inconvenience overshadowing the benefit.

The inconvenience of not being able to play at all? Teeny bit overshadowing.

#204
quote:
Originally posted by papillon:
The inconvenience of not being able to play at all? Teeny bit overshadowing. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

* nods *
Exactly - and thus having no reason for buying the game anymore!

EDT:
And? Did the shadow now grow a bit more after I put it that bluntly?

[This message has been edited by Unicorn (edited 12-15-2004).]

#205

Friend who purchased the game Let’s Meow Meow definitely said this is his last game he purchases with v-mate on it. He’s already at his second activation because his mainboard had the very bad luck of going bad the second day he had the game. New mainboard new activation. He’s not very happy right now after realizing a little bad luck and one activation of the product is gone.

#206

That does suck. I’m figuring it’s not a great idea to install V-mate games on more than one computer…

#207

Usually, I would suggest to him to contact G-Collections and tell them his case, so they could unlock the one usage that got fried one day after he installed the game first.

But taking into account how eagerly they communicated after the first criticisms as well as suggestions for improvements (and the unregister-feature in particular) were discussed, I suppose he shouldn’t set his hopes too high…

[This message has been edited by Unicorn (edited 12-16-2004).]

#208
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Let me elaborate on this a bit. I was one of the people saying that. I was flat out wrong.

You're not the only one who says that. Several others have said that too, as well as a hacker on a IRC channel that Italicus visited.
#209

hmm well it looks like cracked versions of hitomi are now available on my university network , whether this was taken from the outside or knocked up by a fellow CS student on site I assume it will be torrenting across the web in due course if not already.

Anyone else seen this or the others in their travels (no Im not looking for links my piracy days are long gone) really looking at the problem as a computer scientist although I havent attempted to break the system myself theres not really that great a degree of complexity this problem can pose to a determined cracker , this was going to happen eventually.

and now well … looks to me like the only way most people can get the product they really want is not to pay for it hmmm. way to go G-Col.

#210

The thing is, though - is the crack playable? That’s the question.

I don’t think it’s so hard to buy Hitomi - My Stepsister if you want to.

#211
quote:
Originally posted by unknown:
hmm well it looks like cracked versions of hitomi are now available on my university network , whether this was taken from the outside or knocked up by a fellow CS student on site I assume it will be torrenting across the web in due course if not already.

I have been monitoring one of the central choke points for such activity (yes, even for something as decentralized as the net they do exist), and I have not seen this alleged crack. This does not, of course, mean that it does not exist. It does mean that it is not widespread enough to have hit this central point yet.

Should this prove true, I expect other VMate games to follow shortly. I also expect to see them come through this choke point.

#212
quote:
Originally posted by unknown:
really looking at the problem as a computer scientist although I havent attempted to break the system myself theres not really that great a degree of complexity this problem can pose to a determined cracker , this was going to happen eventually.

We've all said this before. As a computer scientist myself, I drew the same conclusion; especially since most prior product activation systems - at least PC ones (in the dark ages lots of things were copy protected) - haven't worked terribly well.

We were wrong. It is a fairly respectable system, in that it would take a fair amount of time and effort to crack. (No, I haven't looked at it myself, but I know someone who has taken a cursory look at it.)

#213
quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
[How ever since it seems the latest bunch of B-games are rather short in length as say compared with Hourglass of summer or Brave Soul I don't think that is a real problem.

Well,I think it depends on the person.Some people plays it once and never plays again,but some(like me for example)plays it again even when we've finished the game so long ago,either because we're bored or just want to play it again.If you are of the first type then it's no problem,but if you are of the second type then you are doomed
Heck,I took out my copy of Kana and played it again just a few days ago

But this problem makes me wonder,so what should I do if I upgrade my computer?Should I give them notification or what?

#214

I chave went through about roughly 4 cpu/mb and os installs since I first bought chain. I think I would be out of ghetto credits if it were vmate.

#215

my apologies to unknown coz i accidentally deleted your post while i was editing your post

please refrain from discussing the details/workings of the crack; this is a company bbs after all. thank you.

#216

Oh sorry I honestly didnt think about what I was saying when I made that post , but anyway in summary the crack I found does work but is very poorly written and un-user friendly to the extent its unlikely to leave this university, and no I havent used it but this is on reliable sources (i.e. the stupid undergraduate who wrote it ^^).

#217
quote:

I don't think it's so hard to buy Hitomi - My Stepsister if you want to.

Oh, sure, it's not hard for me to give them my money - but I'd be completely throwing it away for a game I couldn't play.

My broadband connection is flaky and up and down a lot - and I play these games when my connection is down, because I can't WORK with my connection down.

On top of that, I'm in the middle of doing my yearly hardware cycle, where I poke around replacing half the innards of my machine and swapping them back and forth trying to figure out what works best (this new motherboard is SUPPOSED to be faster but it keeps lagging when I close an IE window... switching to Firefox fixes that but until I find the underlying problem I'm not going to be happy)

So, if I paid for those games, I'd be the proud owner of a set of coasters.

If I *really wanted* a new g-coll game I'd have no choice but to acquire and test a crack before paying for the useless, collectible box. But I don't need their games that much.

#218
quote:
Originally posted by unknown:
but anyway in summary the crack I found does work but is very poorly written and un-user friendly to the extent its unlikely to leave this university

I have been unable to verify the existence of any V-Mate game download on the major pirate sites. Based on that and what unknown now claims, I would have to say there is no true crack for V-Mate. More likely, it's something along the lines of the LAN solution I suggested previously[the details of which are withheld].

It appears that our little troll on the other board will have to wait for a new date to celebrate the cracking of V-Mate. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

#219

I continue to believe that there is no true crack for the V-Mate games, but if anyone has information on a way they can be cracked, we’d appreciate it if you’d sent them to us so we can test them just in case. Thanks very much for your assistance.

#220

I’ve seen it called LMMW in other places. It’s not like the abbreviation is so unique that it had to originate in one place.

Err…wait, that was one of my posts. Nevermind that.

[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-05-2005).]