Anti-Piracy...

[UltraMagnus]

Starforce when used properly is probably the hardest software protection to crack on any game. Dongle protection used on Cubase 4 another one, thats not been cracked at all but dongles won't ever be used on games most likely, would be interesting if they did though.

you know, if games came with interesting collectable dongles it would be quite a nice incentive to buy a game. but the is always dongle emulators.

 

[MicShadow]

Hardware bundles and compelling online play. Thats what counts.

And also, extras with the games. I brought The Witcher - Enhanced Edition (its like 14 gb of data, if i downloaded)
It has 2 Audio cds with the game, a nice map, behind the scenes, bonus content, game patches + fixes, a decent manual, a story guide (real good) and a game guide. And it all comes in a really nice box

Google that shit, it was like 60 bucks here and it certainly worked for me

 

[UltraMagnus]

steel battalion for the original xbox, it required a twin joystick, 40 button, three foot pedal controller to play. (its actually a really good game, even if it cost more than the original xbox)

Didn't they take down the online component soon after release though because not many people bought it?

just the online campaign mode, and it was taken down at lest a year after after Line of contact (the on-line version of the game, original was off-line only) was released. other modes (deathmatch, etc) still work fine (apparently, I never played it that much on-line).

 

[godsakes]

i agree with one of the eariler posts re online content/multiplayer elements - the fear of getting banned seems to put off plenty of would be 360 hackers. the potential for your anti-virus program get blacklisted from updates (or even turning on) kinda renders it usless

out of interest is it even possible to hack a game of world of warcraft? (don't play it myself, but it would save some people a fortune)

 

[zidane_genome]

The game that has the best anti-piracy protection...

Duke Nukem Forever

Console that has the best anti-piracy protection...

The Phantom

End of thread...

 

[sconethief]

The best piracy protection is making it free/open source so it doesn't need to be pirated at all!

 

[Hideki-kun]

The PS3's. I'm not waiting for a 50GB download XD.
So: make the games stupidly big?

 

[Neversoft]

Cartidge based systems back in the days of the SNES and N64 were effective against piracy. Of course the same can't be said of the GBA or DS due to flashcards, but I don't think piracy was as rampant o nthe older cartidge based systems.

Similar existed back then. I had a SNES with a Super Magicom, which basically dumped carts out to floppy disk. To play a game you simply loaded the disk into the internal ram on the copier and it played like a cartridge (similar in many ways to DS flascarts now). The Megadrive had the Super Magidrive and IIRC the N64 had the VDoctor and Z64 (which dumped to Zip disks I think).

The best *current* anti-piracy system has to be the PS3 for now simply because it isn't cracked yet and it's prohibitively expensive. If I had to pick an all-time copy protection I'd go with Flashback by Delphine Software on the Amiga... That was a total whore to crack back in the day. US Gold used to re-release games on a budget label called Kixx and they didn't want to spend the extra on reproducing the code-wheel for the game. They hadn't been supplied with the source code by Delphine so the only option was to get it LEGALLY cracked (we did a lot of this on the Kixx label, that and fixing cache issues on the later Amigas)... After two weeks of poking around in the code I still couldn't bypass the entire protection (although I had cracked it) and eventually had to give in and USG released it with some stupid reference sheet in the manual I think. So it might not be the best protection ever but it was my nemesis for a couple of weeks so that gets my vote ;-)

 

[Strider]

The arguably best anti-piracy measure is creating games that are worth buying. Blizzard followed this with great effect, but are faltering now.

 

[DeMoN]

Best way is to make an online-only game or a game where the single player is pretty pointless. Then add CD-keys to the mix, and voila.

Worked wonders for Blizzard, I tell you.

 

[Fatboy12345236]

Is this topic alive?

 

[wolffangalchemist]

make a console/hand held game system that all games released for it are legally free that way it's not piracy.
not the best way for devs to make $$$ but the best piracy protection.