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March 13th, 2008, 10:19 GMT · By Calin Ciabai

Thanks For Playing Pirated Games

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Probably game developers have already thought about filling a Blu-Ray disc with anti-piracy protection for a game that has about 900MB, but eventually the game hackers or
the game pirates will manage to crack it and offer it on torrent websites. It happened with every big game (just remember the Assassin's Creed PC beta or demo version released quite a while ago) and it will probably never stop. Still, there are some anti-piracy measures that are really funny.

Take Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, the recently released Square Enix game, as an example. According to dsfanboy.com, hackers needed just a few hours to crack the game and make it available via different torrent sites. Or, at least, they thought they managed to hack it.

Because Square Enix came with a really interesting solution which is only visible after you play the game for 20 minutes or so: the message "Thank you for playing!!" appears on the screen and players are unable to progress. However, they can restart from the last check point but the message will appear again, at random intervals. And that is absolutely hilarious: not just that Square Enix slapped and made fun of the hackers, but also found a way to stop piracy - at least partially, because I really doubt that is something those master brains can't hack.

Again, it could prove to be a good marketing strategy, since it is a slim chance that those who get stuck after 20 minutes of playing would feel the need to continue the real game, head to the nearest game store and get the original, as they should've done in the first place. It is indeed something hard to believe - most of them will very likely wait for the new crack but, still, there is a chance. And, most important, this decision Square Enix made for their Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates proves that game developers can still trick the pirates and create some... non-hackable games.

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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Anonymous on 16 Mar 2008, 23:51 UTC reply to this comment

Non-hackable? Hackers? Who the hell do you think you are? People who share things for free that you would normally only acquire by purchasing are not hackers, they are pirates. Hackers are people who can bend a BASH shell completely to their will, just as a psychic may bend a spoon with their minds. Hackers are the people that have put together the software that runs this site. Pirates share data freely. You take a stance as if you are high-and-mighty over these pirates, but that's hardly the case. Unless you personally know every single person who has 'pirated' this or other games, and know that they have the ability to purchase the game, you should hardly speak in such a pious tone. On that same note, your pious attitude should be reserved until you have seen with your own eyes exactly where every dime of spent money goes, and can assure that every dime goes to paying only for the development of current and future games and game systems. If a single penny goes to cigarettes, boats, or houses that are twenty times the size some part of Square Enix or any other game production company needs, then no one can blame some people for deciding to pirate, rather than pay.

Even beyond that, this game was never "hacked", simply dumped and shared. The "hacking" will be when people release firmwares that bypass this admittedly funny little stop in the game. Nothing in this world is "non-hackable."

Learn to write a story instead of just following along with what you're told like a brain-dead sheep.

Comment #1.1 by: Bob Denver on 27 Apr 2008, 06:37 GMT

Amen to that. Couldn't have put it better myself. There certainly are individuals out there amongst us that haven't a clue and do indeed frequently speak from their rear-ends in an effort to seem like they actually know what they are speaking about. He is apparently an excellent example of one of these.


Comment #2 by: wyndham on 07 Dec 2009, 18:00 UTC reply to this comment

I get the point of game developers of trying to make their games anti-piracy but this will continue to happen in the future with every single game because pirates always find the way even if it takes time and sometimes they unite forces with other hackers/pirates to fullfill their task, so i guess the best game developers could do its to release their games for free and charge for downloads like free downloadable music works, also they could just simply place it online and charge a little less than with the cardtrige since its only the archive plus they would get more people to buy the game since its already online or another option its that the buy the rights of distribution of for example with nintendo ds or dsi they could spend money to buy these companies wich produces r4 and r4i slots and so on that way they´ll control these pirates even more making pirateable devices more expensive charging for the money they lose with their cartridges.Well i guess that will be my best solutions against pirated games and pirates.

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