The New Era of copy protection on PC games.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

One wonders why the gaming industy till now hasn´t used the strategy of selling their games with hardware dongles.

They have been: it's called the CD.

Dongle /= CD

Dongle = USB fob (or "dongle" is also used).

[DRoseDARs]

Anyway, the reason they haven't done this it that it is FAR more expensive to distribute games that way than just using CDs and DVDs. However, I would be interested in seeing a game put out like that and be playable from the USB fob, but I suspect the transfer rate would be too low for that purpose. Perhaps in the future, improvements in the transfer rate will allow for that.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Dongle /= CD

Dongle = USB fob (or "dongle" is also used).

Sorry, you are just wrong. Particularly since the original point "why don't game devs use dongles" fails since a USB dongle would have exactly the same weaknesses as the CD requirement.

don·gle
–noun
a hardware device attached to a computer without which a particular software program will not run: used to prevent unauthorized use.

You can try to quibble over the meaning of hardware if you want, but it's pointless.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
One wonders why the gaming industy till now hasn´t used the strategy of selling their games with hardware dongles.

I somehow doubt that it will piss off the gamers more than SecurRom already does and at least provides some real copy protection to the game (as software pirates would have to replicate a piece of hardware if they want to provide working copies).

I really don't see how that would work.

The pirates just have to EMULATE the hardware.

So the pirated version which is available via torrents is going to work just fine.

It may make SOME means of piracy more difficult, particularly like when you've purchased the software and just want to ELIMINATE the need for the CD/dongle, a dongle might be more secure than the CD in that regard (I guess you key the install to the dongle somehow).
But if it is going to be more secure, it probably means more expensive.

And as noted the fully cracked downloadable version will still work just fine, so it's paying extra to hurt only those who actually buy the software but don't want to respect the terms of use.

[Kuciwalker]

The only copy protection that might be crack-resistent is if the executable incrementally decrypted (and re-encrypted) its code as necessary, and the encryption and decryption was sufficiently obfuscated and interleaved with normal program execution that it became essentially impossible to extract just the game code. That might come with a performance hit, but more importantly, you'd need a really fancy compiler.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Main_Brain
Wasnt the UFO- Series a Microprose Series? *confused*

UFO - Enemy Unknown, AKA X-COM 1 was X-COM.

The UFO series was made by someone else, with some of the microprose developers, it is the spiritual sucessor to x-com.

Stardock published UFO aftermath, UFO aftershock and UFO afterlight, 3 awesome games in a row.

Ascaron published UFO - Extraterestials, different series and UNBELIEVABLY crappy.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Sorry, you are just wrong. Particularly since the original point "why don't game devs use dongles" fails since a USB dongle would have exactly the same weaknesses as the CD requirement.

don·gle
–noun
a hardware device attached to a computer without which a particular software program will not run: used to prevent unauthorized use.

You can try to quibble over the meaning of hardware if you want, but it's pointless.

I'm sorry you're not aware of the fact that the word "dongle" escaped out of the engineers' lexicon and into the wild years ago, taking on new uses but really that's more your problem than mine.

[DrSpike]

Maybe it would help your argument if you would provide some information on how your different definition of dongle would make your earlier argument valid.

As has been posted, a USB based protection scheme probably wouldn't be that hard to circumvent.

So?

[DRoseDARs]

You seem to be under the impression that I care enough to bother. Again, not my problem if anyone is unfamiliar with "dongle" taking on a slightly different meaning from its original use. Besides, someone's going to argue that the cost per MB on CDs/DVDs is more expensive than trying to mass-produce the same software title distributed on a USB whatever-you-want-to-call-it?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Anyway, the reason they haven't done this it that it is FAR more expensive to distribute games that way than just using CDs and DVDs. However, I would be interested in seeing a game put out like that and be playable from the USB fob, but I suspect the transfer rate would be too low for that purpose. Perhaps in the future, improvements in the transfer rate will allow for that.

Transfer rate from USB2.0: 800mb/s
Transfer rate from ATA150: 150mb/s

I think the transfer rate will be fine It's mostly just the cost (0.02/cd or so, compared to probably $1-2 per USB dongle). Admittedly an extra dollar or two per game isn't going to seriously hurt their bottom line, if it lowers the cost on their piracy prevention; but i'm not sure it would make a big difference there. If MS made a way for true hardware verification (unemulatable) then perhaps it would work; I don't know if they have made such a thing yet (or if such a thing is truly possible).

The main advantage would be that it would increase the possible size for games - need a bigger game, just make a bigger USB key - and it would be much harder to damage (Scratch). That is not necessarily an incentive for the game producers, however

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Blake
So the only real purpose of copy protection is to prevent casual piracy - sharing of CD's between friends and burning CD's. It only needs to be "good enough" to stop that.

Once someone has decided that they're going to pirate a game, no amount of copy protection will stop them. It only presents a barrier to those who are not yet pirates.

Indeed. Which is what irks me so much about this latest round of internet verification and such on top of requiring the CD. It only makes things harder on the people who actually put up with it, not for the pirates & crackers.

[Kuciwalker]

Transfer rate from USB2.0: 800mb/s

Transfer rate from the flash memory on the USB2.0 device: at most 80 MB/s.

[DRoseDARs]

Yeah, I thought that was a tad too high.

[Kuciwalker]

That's still much better than any CD-ROM drive. And quieter.

[Kuciwalker]

If MS made a way for true hardware verification (unemulatable) then perhaps it would work; I don't know if they have made such a thing yet (or if such a thing is truly possible).

It's possible and it exists: it's called a TPM chip.