Copy protection scheme that was used for Dungeon Master on Atari ST and Amiga

Re:Copy protection scheme that was used for Dungeon Master o... by TillE on Monday December 29, 2014 @07:51AM (#8809530)

> a success: It took almost 2 months

This is all based on the idea that people who pirate games (or movies, etc) are also very impatient. I'm sure that's true for a certain percentage, but I don't know if it's that significant.

A current example is Dragon Age: Inquisition, which took a few extra weeks but still got cracked. But the game still has a ton of issues on PC (even for legitimate owners), so it's probably worth waiting another month or so for patches anyway.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Copy protection scheme that was used for Dungeon Master o... by TeMPOraL on Monday December 29, 2014 @01:15PM (#8810978)

From the linked article:

> Two months may not seem like a long time, but between 30 and 50 percent of most games' total sales occur in that time. Approximately 50 percent of the total sales of Spyro 2, up to December 2000, were in the first two months. Even games released in the middle of the year rather than the holiday season, such as Eidetic's Syphon Filter, make 30 percent of their total sales in the first two months.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Copy protection scheme that was used for Dungeon Master o... by cdr on Monday December 29, 2014 @10:53AM (#8810237)

First week/month sales are critical to most media, as I understand it. Being a "best seller" can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stymieing the impatient pirates is all you can hope to accomplish anyway.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Copy protection scheme that was used for Dungeon Master o... by asocial on Monday December 29, 2014 @10:35AM (#8810159)

I think the 'success' was being able to delay the crack long enough for Christmas sales. Although whether the crack would have affected those sales considerably might be debatable.

[ Parent | on HN ]