Disclaimer: This comment may run a little long. But as you can see from my join date and post count,I usually have something to add to a conversation(< this is a complete lie).
I liked learning a bit more about how the gaming is in the "east".I remember some good games and mods coming west for the Commodore 64 in the early 90s.All of those imports,for lack of a better word (It was the BBS days) prompted me to trade a Sega Genesis AKA Sega Mega Drive for a C64 in like 1991 or 92.That sega was new and I traded for a 2nd generation Commodore.(It is the model that looks like a C128,but isn't.)I had given my younger brother my old C64 and he had trashed it somehow.It was just easier to get another Sega than it was to find a 5-10 year old computer then.
I am primarily a wargamer,so I got a good deal.I was able to get old disks at yard sales and thrift stores in the 80s and early 90s.And over the old boards where sailed the pirates of the golden age of hacking.
Cracking games back then was a sport and people would time themselves and crack something that had already been done and passed around.When I got into it (early 80s),it had been going on for a while but hadn't hit full stride.It damned near ruined computer gaming because people stopped paying,period.The only games I ever cracked were already done,I was just learning how in case I ever had to.There were "how to" guides on opening up specific games and fiddling around with them.If you didn't care about cracking them and just wanted to play the stuff for free,you could put in a copy disk with pre-written programs to copy previously cracked games.I looked at Home of the Underdogs a few years ago and saw some of the old "Cracked By" animations from guys I "knew".(The Bandit, Eaglesoft, etc.)
The companies were wise to it from the start.(I'm sure some of their employees were cracking stuff...it was that widespread)The companies bright idea was to have the copy protect "words" from a rulebook.That is,the program would ask you "what is the 3rd word in the 4th paragraph on page 42" of the rules/story book that came with the game.-----People would just pass the "words" along or put them as an added file on the disk directory.
LOAD "$",8 For you old school gamers remember that you didn't need a ,1 (comma one) after the 8 because the directory ($) wasn't a specific program,it was just how you found all the programs on that side of the disk.
The words didn't stop piracy,and neither did any of the other tricks,although some of them made it a little foolish and maybe not worth the effort.A few people will remember these and I'll bet it drives fans of emulations crazy: I'm talking about making the storyline text outside of the view screen,in a booklet that came with the store bought version (and often a nice little map too).The screen would ask you to turn to a certain passage on some page of the book,and that would describe the encounter or the situation.This isn't like the Temple of Apshai where memory limitations made them describe the rooms in the book.This was all about making the game less fun for pirates.
SSI was very good at that.I'm thinking mainly because they had to pay TSR a boatload of money to use the Dungeons and Dragons name.I'm sure people still play them but I hope they have some version of the book and something to replace the little "Rune-wheel" or whatever in Pool of Radiance.This was a two piece cardboard thing with a rivet in the middle that let you spin a wheel and match up symbols to reveal the Pass Word.It was a lot like the Led Zeppelin album that did this(if that helps).
But that text thing was really only good for RPG's or something with a storyline and character/NPC interactions.Wargaming lacked that for the most part.One solution there was to make a cardboard map and maybe a few representative counters to "hold" the units onscreen,but any kid with some good geography skills or an atlas could get around that.Even if no map at all were shown onscreen,only grid coordinates that went with the map provided,you could make a map of the "NO GO" areas with graph paper.
All of this piracy doomed some companies back then and I am sorry to have contributed to it.I bought a good many games,but the reality was that if I thought getting it free was almost as good as paying for it,I'd copy it.There were times that I copied something and then went and bought it.But it was generally in the software store's version of a "remainder table" by then and cheaper than before.
When I saw the companies going down at the end of the 1980's and I was getting close to the age where I could be prosecuted as an adult, I had an epiphany and started paying for almost everything I got.That second C64 I traded for was old and unsupportd by that time(PCs ruled gaming by then).Most of the new stuff for it that I got came( for free,I didn't know who or how to pay)from Poland,Hungary,the Balkan countries and some of the other "Iron Curtain" countries, for whom I assumed a C64 was fairly high tech.If the language barrier wasn't a problem or could be translated,I would find some cool new stuff...very often with some "Cracked By" animations in a foriegn language.
The phone bills cost a bit though.I would get booted from the 10 cents per minute long distance plans all the time because I loopholed some international rates.Or I could call a fellow wargamer in an office somewhere in corporate America and we would conference call to a foreign board and copy down foreign C64 stuff.I'm talking a 45-50 year old COO of a corporation was helping me be an international software pirate.But other than all of that I kept my nose clean.And I only pirated the C64 stuff.
I'm thinking about doing it again though.I have a couple of games that I bought in the past 5 years or so that hate my DVD drive due to a secureROM not reading it.I'm specifically talking about Atari's Axis and Allies.I have it box and all and I know why it won't work.I also know where to get a NoCD crack of it.Hmmmm.*
* Atari never answers me and I have contacted them a few times,so I'm leaving piracy on the table for that one.
Again,sorry for the long post,but your article was interesting.I would like to learn more of how it was in those countries that I visited over the phonelines 20 years ago.
