Cheating/Piracy Punishments

Technology and Gaming
#1

My friend was at one point, not too long ago, a real EVE Online nerd. I liked to play it alright myself, but he was so into it he would buy in-game money from a 3rd party site so he could afford the best stuff. Anyhow, he kinda got out of it, thought of playing again, and when he logged in, he found that, instead of banning him, or forcing him to sell items to pay back the illegal money, they simply reversed the contract, causing him to pay back the money from out of his game wallet. Money he didn’t have, of course, leaving him with a massive negative balance. This might not seem like such a big deal unless you know that any transaction in EVE requires fees, just like in real life. Meaning not only could he not buy anything, he couldn’t sell anything either, and no one could even send him money to help him pay it off. It was a total ball-busting move - the only way he could earn money is from running tons and tons of missions for the relatively paltry rewards.

So anyway, I thought that was a pretty hilarious way to deal with that situation. What are some of your favorite anti-piracy or anti-cheating methods in games?

#2

the Anti piracy move by Garry Newman.

#3

The ones that don’t work. :pirate:

#4

YAARRGH

#5

ARRRR

#6
#7

Ones that actually punish the pirates and not the consumer.

#8

Blacklist. Never let 'em use the internet ever again.

Thankfully, no organization is powerful or dumb enough to work out such a system.

#9

I think CCPs punishments are pretty good, as most developers I know of just terminate the account which to some people might not seem as bad.

#10

Earthbound has some balls-to-the-wall style Anti-Piracy systems. I.e making the game hard as tits, or deleting your saves right as soon as you fight Giygas’s final form or whatever.

It’s EVIL.

#11

I gave up on that game a few weeks ago, those heat seeking monsters we’re pissing me off.
edit: definitely evil, no doubt about it, especially that demonside place

#12

https://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2009/09/09/eidos_plays_trick_on_batman_arkham_asylum_pirates

#13

In Mirrors Edge, there’s an anti-piracy measure that makes the player move at walking speed moments before you make a jump across a street off of a very tall building.

Cracked: 6-hilarious ways game designers are screwing with pirates

#14

Yeah, but there 's a fix to that, I learned of it the first day I got the game =)

#15

I think I had the Earthbound loads of enemies glitch a couple of years ago due to a badly ported ROM. The Batman: AA was quite a good piece of game design because you had enough play time to get you completely hooked, and then you get stuck with an unsolvable puzzle, making the pirates want to go out and buy the game.

However, the EVE Online money thing is just really smart.

#16

inb4 sersoft

oh wait nevermind

#17

I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite thread about piracy on Black Mesa forums.

Oh and also, pirating is wrong…and stuff. :confused:

#18

Skyrim should make every enemy a Dragon if you pirate it.

#19

If I’m getting Skyrim I’ll definetaly buy it.

#20

IIRC, in the Cracked version of Lego Star Wars: the original Trilogy, it would freeze up on the intro movie. the audio would continue like normal, but otherwise the game would render itself unplayable

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.