Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006)

Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by StanislavPetrov on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @02:27AM (#12120165)

I was always partial to the copy protection in Alternate Reality: The City

>The first game, The City, also featured a novel[citation needed] anti-copying technique. The program disks could be copied though the standard methods and the copy would appear to work. However, not long after the player began the game, their character would become weaker and weaker and then die from an apparent disease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_(series)#Tec...

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Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by detaro on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @02:30AM (#12120176)

Settlers III broke the game similarly. You could start playing, but once you got to manufacturing weapons for your soldiers the iron smelters produced pigs instead of iron bars and you were stuck. (and few other, similar "bugs")

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Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by ascagnel_ on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @09:52AM (#12121740)

Newer games do some similar things. Serious Sam 3 had an invulnerable enemy follow you around and attack you, while Batman Arkham Asylum took away the ability to glide with the cape.

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Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by danbolt on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @04:34AM (#12120574)

They get points for the pun, too!

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Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by sgift on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @09:11AM (#12121498)

And minus points for their copy protection scheme sometimes stopping originals from working. I buyed Settler III and it didn't work correctly (trees wouldn't grow back), so I phoned their support and they told me that that was the copy protection scheme in action. Great work ... thanks. At least they fixed it in an update.

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Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by mwexler on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @10:37AM (#12122027)

The astonishing text adventure Amnesia by Thomas M. Disch (Electronic Arts, 1986) also did something like this. The copy appeared to let you play (with an obnoxious codewheel on top of a custom disk format), but you got stuck in a hotel room you can't leave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia_(video_game) and an amazing writeup giving some background of Disch and the game is at www.filfre.net/2014/09/amnesia/ For the time, really an amazing game, if frustrating and flawed in places.

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Re:Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006) by Bromskloss on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @05:25AM (#12120744)

How did it detect copying?

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