8 Funny Ways Game Developers Trolled Pirates

[n0e]

8 Funny Ways Game Developers Trolled Pirates

Here are 8 examples of developers having fun at the expense of those who stole their games.

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[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I bought C&C Generals when it first came out. After a few years, I felt like playing it again so I dug up the disks only to find they were scratched up (it was useable for the cd check, but not to install). Some time prior, I did a complete backup of my HDD with a cloning program. So I grabbed the game off the old drive and put it on the new one. But since I was now using a different operating system, the game wouldn't run anymore. So I fudged the registry entries, and booted up the game. It loaded fine, chose the side I wanted to play, and settled in for an afternoon of blowing stuff up. But, the game's anti-piracy feature kicked in. The moment I clicked on one of my units, everything (buildings, tanks, troops) all blew up.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Surprised Crysis isn't on this list for having your guns fire chickens instead of bullets if you were using a pirated copy of the game.

 

[TilMorrow]

If I remember correctly that GTA5 one also affected those who just brought their regular cars into the multiplayer as Rockstar didn't want them getting a "free ride" as such.

I much rather No Time to Explain and McPixel's approach to piracy, they went ahead and released their games on Pirate Bay but then put a reminder after every level that you could support the devs by going to a certain steam store page and saw an increase in sales from doing that.

 

[Kreett]

I remember that if you used an already registered code for Battle of Middle Earth 2 and tried to play multiplayer everything would work fine for up to like 5 minutes then all your buildings and units would be destroyed and you lost the match.

 

[Plokite_Wolf]

Nobody remembers the game that kinda started this trend? The Settlers III would have iron smelters produce pigs in improperly pirated versions, rendering weapon production impossible. Allegedly, forester's newly planted trees wouldn't grow either.

I bought C&C Generals when it first came out. After a few years, I felt like playing it again so I dug up the disks only to find they were scratched up (it was useable for the cd check, but not to install). Some time prior, I did a complete backup of my HDD with a cloning program. So I grabbed the game off the old drive and put it on the new one. But since I was now using a different operating system, the game wouldn't run anymore. So I fudged the registry entries, and booted up the game. It loaded fine, chose the side I wanted to play, and settled in for an afternoon of blowing stuff up. But, the game's anti-piracy feature kicked in. The moment I clicked on one of my units, everything (buildings, tanks, troops) all blew up.

It can happen in legit copies too at times. The same mechanism was used in Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge, as well as with a more delayed timebomb in the Battle for Middle-earth series, after which EALA ditched SafeDisc and got SecuROM.

To resolve your problem, get an ISO to install the game with, then use your CDs to run it (well, you own the game already, eh). But your current installation is borked and you'll have to redo it from scratch (preferably to a different folder).

 

[Darth_Payn]

"The bug isn't in the game's code, it's in your moral code." Afterwhich whoever said that put on a pair of sunglasses and out of nowhere came the Roger Daltrey "YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"