What was the worst piracy protection you experienced before DRM?

[ZedClampet]

I guess this is mostly for the older folk, but games used to have you do weird things before they would start up, like type in the third word of the fourth paragraph on page 36 of the instruction manual. Wait, does that partial paragraph at the top of the page count?

Unfortunately, I can't remember which method went with which game, but there was a game that had a 3 level decoder that came in the box, and you had to spin the three wheels around and come up with the answer to a question that was written in code. If you couldn't get the answer, you didn't play. If you lost the decoder, you didn't play. Etc.

So what were some weird or annoying ones that you experienced before the blessed DRM came about?

 

[Frindis]

I remember playing Cruise For A Corpse and not figuring out the spinning wheel copy protection thing because I had misplaced the manual. Another time I was playing Police Quest and each time you needed to open the locker inside the police station where you had your belongings, you had to enter a code from the manual. If I am not mistaken you had to do it each time you opened the locker and if so that was kind of dumb.

 

[isleepinabed]

I don't remember actual instances in my experience apart from putting in the serial code pasted on the box.

Some of the actual good old games on GOG keep those mechanisms and they usually have a digitized version of the manual in the files. Last ones I saw were Eric the Unready but also The Colonel's Bequest and... Star Control?

Colonel's Bequest had you identifying fingerprints. Which in theory is fun but in practice not so much as with CGA graphics a smudge is not so different from other similar looking smudges.

 

[Alm]

I remember Leisure Suit Larry having questions that kids of the time wouldn’t know the answer to. Some games had a letter lookup from the manual. Some had a code wheel with symbols. I’m sure there were more types.

 

[isleepinabed]

I remember Leisure Suit Larry having questions that kids of the time wouldn’t know the answer to.

That's right! And no Wikipedia to look up who was Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale

 

[Johnway]

I remember playing Cruise For A Corpse and not figuring out the spinning wheel copy protection thing because I had misplaced the manual. Another time I was playing Police Quest and each time you needed to open the locker inside the police station where you had your belongings, you had to enter a code from the manual. If I am not mistaken you had to do it each time you opened the locker and if so that was kind of dumb.

I had the game and manuals and i couldn't make heads or tails of the security in that game. I was like 9 and had hoped it was going to be a simple match the icon with a number but it just didn't make sense and a good portion of the time i couldn't even get in to play it.

Starforce comes to mind as being awful personally. I didn't encounter any of the pc breaking mechanics but i couldn't play the game. MS just wouldn't boot the game up and prevented me from playing it.

 

[January's Ghost]

I remember Leisure Suit Larry having questions that kids of the time wouldn’t know the answer to.

I first played the game when I was 19 (1 year after it came out) and it took me like four attempts to get the answers right.

 

[Zloth]

... like type in the third word of the fourth paragraph on page 36 of the instruction manual. Wait, does that partial paragraph at the top of the page count?

Exactly that, and for exactly that reason!

Temple of Apshai (sp?) for the Atari 400 didn't have anti-piracy on purpose, but, when you went into any room in the game, it would just show you a number. You had to look up the room's description in the manual. Memory was reeeeaaaly tight back then! If you pirate the game without the manual, you'll have no clue what's in the room.

 

[JCgames]

Having to put the CD in the drive, none of the other ones bother me and honestly i don't even notice the whole sign into a launcher or denvo or even always online. But swapping bloody disks was the absolute worst. It's why none of my old games will even load.

 

[Colif]

For lots of games in the past, swapping disks wasn't about copy protection, it was about disk space. Sometimes the next area isn't on the disk you had loaded. Especially if you didn't have a hard drive and was running game off the disk. Less necessary once the game is installed on a drive.

Having to have the CD in was a pain though.

We didn't have web pages like this in the past. Lose wheel... tough luck

The Secret of Monkey Island - Dial A Pirate

The Secret of Monkey Island - Online Interactive Code Wheel. Dial-A-Pirate Code Wheel is form of copy protection from original The Secret of Monkey Island Retail boxed game developed by LucasFilm Games in 1990...

www.oldgames.sk

 

[isleepinabed]

Exactly that, and for exactly that reason!

Temple of Apshai (sp?) for the Atari 400 didn't have anti-piracy on purpose, but, when you went into any room in the game, it would just show you a number. You had to look up the room's description in the manual. Memory was reeeeaaaly tight back then! If you pirate the game without the manual, you'll have no clue what's in the room.

It was probably more expensive to pirate the manual than the game then afair...
Unless you had access to a work or school photocopier and someone else would pay for it

 

[DXCHASE]

Not sure if this is relevant but, for me, my piracy issues only came when it was just me being able to find the right places to download emulators and roms. Any pc game i played back then weren't pirated, but that doesnt mean i didnt have a modded original xbox with a bunch of different roms and emulators on them.

 

[mjs warlord]

Just like Zed i remember all the tricks that companies used to try and stop piracy.
All you had to do was link 2 cassette desks together to copy a game and share it with whoever you wanted to.
Then the software houses decided to fight back , page 6 , line 3 , word 8 and even dark blue ink on purple paper so the info you needed would come out all black on a photo copier but their was one thing the companies could not stop.

Multiface - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As well as editing the software you could use it to copy a game but if you gave your copy of the game to somebody who did not have a multiface the first screen was a mess so all you needed to do was copy it at the press any key to continue screen and as soon as you pressed a key to start the game the mess was gone.

My first packard bell xp machine had a pre installed item called dx now and it could copy all the discs of any game. It copied some games that paid for software could not copy

I know what we all did back in the day was wrong but thats how easy it used to be.

 

[isleepinabed]

You all know about that 1976 "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" that a young Bill Gates published condemning software piracy at a time when most people would not think that something that didn't really exist, like software, had monetary value!

An Open Letter to Hobbyists - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Plus the "hacker ethic" of freely sharing development was also at odds with ownership of software.

And this was in 1976... Time to link this topic to that "what if..." one.

 

[ZedClampet]

It was probably more expensive to pirate the manual than the game then afair...
Unless you had access to a work or school photocopier and someone else would pay for it

Someone gave me a copy of Bard's Tale 2, and I don't know how they did it, but the entire manual was a scroll, had to unroll it to read it. I was a kid and didn't think much about it, but maybe some of the early home printers used a paper roll?

 

[Johnway]

For lots of games in the past, swapping disks wasn't about copy protection, it was about disk space. Sometimes the next area isn't on the disk you had loaded. Especially if you didn't have a hard drive and was running game off the disk. Less necessary once the game is installed on a drive.

Having to have the CD in was a pain though.

We didn't have web pages like this in the past. Lose wheel... tough luck

The Secret of Monkey Island - Dial A Pirate

The Secret of Monkey Island - Online Interactive Code Wheel. Dial-A-Pirate Code Wheel is form of copy protection from original The Secret of Monkey Island Retail boxed game developed by LucasFilm Games in 1990...

www.oldgames.sk

yeah with 1.44 mb per floppy most games (on the amiga at least) came on 2 disks and 3 or 4 disks was nothing. Of course if you had a point and click adventure game, you had anywhere from 10-20 disks... A nightmare.

The codewheels were actually a thing of art, they were very high quality plastic or card so were durable and well made. There weren't that horrible tbh all things considered. Hell most of the ones on the amiga weren't that bad, but compared to starforge (as mentioned previous) just preventing me from playing the game takes the biscuit.

 

[mjs warlord]

Someone gave me a copy of Bard's Tale 2, and I don't know how they did it, but the entire manual was a scroll, had to unroll it to read it. I was a kid and didn't think much about it, but maybe some of the early home printers used a paper roll?

my first spectrum printer had rolls of grey paper and when the printer was running it smelt as if something was on fire.

ZX Printer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[January's Ghost]

You all know about that 1976 "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" that a young Bill Gates published condemning software piracy at a time when most people would not think that something that didn't really exist, like software, had monetary value!

I remember an interview with Bill Gates where he talked about copying punch cards that had automated routines for machines to read and claimed it was the first form of software piracy ever.

 

[JCgames]

For lots of games in the past, swapping disks wasn't about copy protection, it was about disk space. Sometimes the next area isn't on the disk you had loaded. Especially if you didn't have a hard drive and was running game off the disk. Less necessary once the game is installed

If you had space you could always do full installs, you just needed to use the custom install options, every game i owned had them, but yes you could also use the trimed versions if you were short on space,, but full installs still always needed the disk.

Baldurs gate was one game for a short while I had to for that reason. The disks are labeled, play disk 1, 2-6 were called install. that game was too large for win 95 and its 1gb partition. I swapped disks on that one for almost two years! Even later games like tropico 4, Oblivion, Dragon Age 2, all needed to be in the drive. those are some of the last games on disk I bought. I think the final game on disk I bought was star trek online.

You could of course use a CD Crack to avoid it, but it was DRM. Back when games were on floppy you didn't need to put them in and of course it was super easy to make copies of them too. I still have a floppy install of wolfeinstein 3d.

So yea I'll stick with my thought, disks in drives is my least favorite DRM.

 

[Colif]

DRM that requires a server to be online can be worse than one that just requires a disk to be in the drive. You can get a copy of the disk, you can't remake the server its looking for. I remember trying to help one guy with that problem, I wonder what ever happened to him.

Lots of games are broken now because the server isn't there to check the DRM install is okay.

 

[JCgames]

DRM that requires a server to be online can be worse than one that just requires a disk to be in the drive. You can get a copy of the disk, you can't remake the server its looking for. I remember trying to help one guy with that problem, I wonder what ever happened to him.

Lots of games are broken now because the server isn't there to check the DRM install is okay.

I suppose that is worse, but I have zero games with a server check DRM. I guess lucky me that scenario has never happened in my world. (server based games disappearing has but that's another story and also is a type of game to reduce piracy so that could be called drm as well.

Scratch that, Midnight sun still has one but fraixis will remove it eventually. They are too solid of a company to pull that. I actually own a bunch of games that had it once, but every single one removed it.

So, I'll concede in theory, yet for me CD takes it, but honestly mostly as a huge annoyance. though I guess your lucky to have that annoyance as you can still play games that are not even available in digital, like mech commander 1&2