Do you think it is piracy to use Cheat Engine on a F2P game to get otherwise paid content?

wickedmonkey

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You understand that the amount of Gems you have is just a number that gets checked and increased/decreased when certain functions are called right?

The function that adds Gems will *only* be called after you make a legit purchase and is inaccessible to you otherwise. Without seeing the process, the RAM values you are editing are likely getting this function called or directly altering the Gem amount value - working round the intended mechanism to access these Gems to enjoy the advantage granted by these Gems.

Whichever way it goes, you're still taking a free game that you haven't had to pay anything for - the developers have not charged you to play this game, circumventing the only method the developers have of generating income off this game so you can play it a bit quicker.

This is stealing.

What game is it anyway? And if you like it so much why not send the developers a few quid?
 

WeepingAngels

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Zachary Amaranth said:
WeepingAngels said:
What content is unauthorized? Is infinite invincibility in Super Mario World authorized by Nintendo? Is that relevant? No and No.
Okay, fine. Pretend it's not relevant. I don't get the point of asking a question if you're going to take the actual definition of piracy and respond to it to the effect of "lalalalalalala! I'm not listening."

You've just made a successful argument that virtually nothing is piracy. Hell, you edited out the hex gen question which actually takes your theory into what is actually considered piracy, so I'm pretty sure you yourself see the bridge. But fine. Whatever. Have it your way.

As far as Super Mario World goes, you keep going back to examples that largely predate modern copyright law. Shouldn't that tell you something about your argument?
Are you saying that under modern copyright law, cheat devices are now illegal?
 

Mister K

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It isn't piracy,but it IS other type of crime.

I don't remember the actual name, but basically it is illegal to tinker with any software without a permission of the person(s) who made this software. Unless in manual (or in any other way) developer(s) state that users are allowed to do so.
 

WeepingAngels

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wickedmonkey said:
You understand that the amount of Gems you have is just a number that gets checked and increased/decreased when certain functions are called right?

The function that adds Gems will *only* be called after you make a legit purchase and is inaccessible to you otherwise. Without seeing the process, the RAM values you are editing are likely getting this function called or directly altering the Gem amount value - working round the intended mechanism to access these Gems to enjoy the advantage granted by these Gems.

Whichever way it goes, you're still taking a free game that you haven't had to pay anything for - the developers have not charged you to play this game, circumventing the only method the developers have of generating income off this game so you can play it a bit quicker.

This is stealing.

What game is it anyway? And if you like it so much why not send the developers a few quid?
I don't play F2P games. It's just an interesting question.

Let me run this by you.

You understand that the amount of Lives you have is just a number that gets checked and increased/decreased when certain functions are called right?

The function that adds Lives will *only* be called after you get a 1up or 100 coins and is inaccessible to you otherwise. Without seeing the process, the RAM values you are editing are likely getting this function called or directly altering the lives amount value - working round the intended mechanism to access these lives to enjoy the advantage granted by these lives.

You are not calling the "lives=lives+1" function when you edit RAM. You are directly changing the number.

At memory address 009E25 is the lives value and by default it is set to 04 (5 lives) but by changing it to 62, you start with 99 lives. You aren't calling code written by Nintendo.
 

deth2munkies

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WeepingAngels said:
deth2munkies said:
The DMCA has anti-circumvention rules that I haven't fully researched yet, but they seem to be made for cases very similar to this: basically what you're doing is equivalent to circumventing DRM, which is illegal regardless of whether you do it for personal use or for distribution (with exceptions, which is why jailbreaking is legal for instance but No-CD cracks are not).

I'd have to know more about exactly what the trainers do and go back and read the DMCA and subsequent case law, but just based on gut feeling it really seems illegal.

I am sure trainers do the same thing cheat devices do, they alter RAM. NES games had DRM too (the 10NES Lockout chip) but using a Game Genie was not illegal. Altering the ROM chips would have been illegal but that's not what cheat devices do.

Also, unless a game has some sort of security that you have to crack to get access to the RAM, I don't see how anti-circumvention applies.
I actually just read the game genie case for class, and there's a big hiccup in that kind of analysis here. The court in Lewis Galoob Toys v. Nintendo of America [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/964/965/341457/] distinguished another similar case (Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Arctic International [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/704/1009/107395/]) which held that chips that sped up Galaxian games were in fact derivative works that violated copyright. One of the factors they focused on was that Game Genie did not "physically incorporate a portion of the copyrighted work, nor does it supplant demand for a component of that work". It also distinguished a non-gaming case called Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co. for partially the same reason.

These cases are, to my knowledge, still good law, but I'm not a lawyer and none of this shit is legal advice. These cases were also pre-DMCA which may have changed how it works, I don't know. (Westlaw still has them as good law and not abrogated by statute, or at least a court hasn't held that they're abrogated by the DMCA yet and it was cited favorably last year).

What I do think is that allowing for cheat codes to get you currency bought with real money supplants the demand for a component of the product which would clearly fall outside of the Game Genie exception.
 

WeepingAngels

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Zachary Amaranth said:
WeepingAngels said:
Are you saying that under modern copyright law, cheat devices are now illegal?
Are you simply going to dodge any question or statement I make?
I am trying to understand why you are making F2P games an exception to cheat devices being legal. Just because a dev sells a cheat code does not mean I am bound to cheat ONLY using the devs code. Accessing my own RAM and making changes just isn't illegal.

Just because Ford sells their own engine parts does not mean I am bound to buy them to repair my car.

deth2munkies said:
WeepingAngels said:
deth2munkies said:
The DMCA has anti-circumvention rules that I haven't fully researched yet, but they seem to be made for cases very similar to this: basically what you're doing is equivalent to circumventing DRM, which is illegal regardless of whether you do it for personal use or for distribution (with exceptions, which is why jailbreaking is legal for instance but No-CD cracks are not).

I'd have to know more about exactly what the trainers do and go back and read the DMCA and subsequent case law, but just based on gut feeling it really seems illegal.

I am sure trainers do the same thing cheat devices do, they alter RAM. NES games had DRM too (the 10NES Lockout chip) but using a Game Genie was not illegal. Altering the ROM chips would have been illegal but that's not what cheat devices do.

Also, unless a game has some sort of security that you have to crack to get access to the RAM, I don't see how anti-circumvention applies.
I actually just read the game genie case for class, and there's a big hiccup in that kind of analysis here. The court in Lewis Galoob Toys v. Nintendo of America [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/964/965/341457/] distinguished another similar case (Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Arctic International [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/704/1009/107395/]) which held that chips that sped up Galaxian games were in fact derivative works that violated copyright. One of the factors they focused on was that Game Genie did not "physically incorporate a portion of the copyrighted work, nor does it supplant demand for a component of that work". It also distinguished a non-gaming case called Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co. for partially the same reason.

These cases are, to my knowledge, still good law, but I'm not a lawyer and none of this shit is legal advice. These cases were also pre-DMCA which may have changed how it works, I don't know. (Westlaw still has them as good law and not abrogated by statute, or at least a court hasn't held that they're abrogated by the DMCA yet and it was cited favorably last year).

What I do think is that allowing for cheat codes to get you currency bought with real money supplants the demand for a component of the product which would clearly fall outside of the Game Genie exception.
Yeah I can see that.
 

Something Amyss

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WeepingAngels said:
Just because Ford sells their own engine parts does not mean I am bound to buy them to repair my car.
Is your Ford automobile protected under copyright, terms of use, or software licensing?

I think we both already know the answer to this.
 

DEAD34345

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"Piracy" in this context is a slang term to describe a legal concept. It doesn't really have any basis in reality, so I'd say it's piracy if it's illegal and not if it isn't. I guess that means it would or wouldn't be piracy depending on where exactly you did it, and what legal jurisdiction you were in.

That's probably not a useful answer though, so I'll also say I don't think doing that would be wrong, regardless of whether it's technically piracy or not. People should be able to modify or mess with programs and data on their own computer as much as they want and however they want. If developers are cheeky enough to try to charge you to increase a number stored in your own computer, they shouldn't be surprised when you just bypass them and change the number yourself.
 

newwiseman

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I'd argue that a system where you pay for gems, in a game where they are slowly earned over time, is a freemium model that doesn't deserve to be played in the first place.

I'll pay for maps, new characters, hell even costumes on rare occasion (though more often I'll just mod my own game art assets - I'm looking at you LoL) but I will never buy into a freemium, or pay-to-win model. It's fortunate that I have the willpower and lack of addiction that makes that possible, many people don't.
 

crypticracer

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This depends on several things. Does the game have to connect to the internet to get said freebies?

Also, are these things that can be earned in game by grinding? Because if so, that changes things. Many games allow you to pay to get things you could earn just by playing, even non-f2p games.
 

wickedmonkey

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WeepingAngels said:
Just because Ford sells their own engine parts does not mean I am bound to buy them to repair my car.
That's a rather wonky analogy but whatever. The car itself has already been paid for, the product has provided its intended source of income for Ford. Your engine parts would be like official Bethesda mods for Skyrim, where as third-party parts would be user-created mods.

WeepingAngels said:
I don't play F2P games. It's just an interesting question.

Let me run this by you.

You understand that the amount of Lives you have is just a number that gets checked and increased/decreased when certain functions are called right?

The function that adds Lives will *only* be called after you get a 1up or 100 coins and is inaccessible to you otherwise. Without seeing the process, the RAM values you are editing are likely getting this function called or directly altering the lives amount value - working round the intended mechanism to access these lives to enjoy the advantage granted by these lives.

You are not calling the "lives=lives+1" function when you edit RAM. You are directly changing the number.

At memory address 009E25 is the lives value and by default it is set to 04 (5 lives) but by changing it to 62, you start with 99 lives. You aren't calling code written by Nintendo.
Thanks for the specifics. Using the example of the game with lives above, if the game only allows you to acquire more lives by paying for them, in addition to earning them very slowly through in-game actions and you add lives through tinkering with memory addresses you are stealing - you want the lives without having to wait for them but you're bypassing the mechanism that allows you to do this because you don't want to pay for the convenience.

If the game is already paid for and there are no paygates to access the convenience I would not classify that as stealing, go nuts.

If the game is F2P and the paygate is the only source of revenue generation from that game then you are most definitely stealing.
 

WeepingAngels

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Lunncal said:
"Piracy" in this context is a slang term to describe a legal concept. It doesn't really have any basis in reality, so I'd say it's piracy if it's illegal and not if it isn't. I guess that means it would or wouldn't be piracy depending on where exactly you did it, and what legal jurisdiction you were in.

That's probably not a useful answer though, so I'll also say I don't think doing that would be wrong, regardless of whether it's technically piracy or not. People should be able to modify or mess with programs and data on their own computer as much as they want and however they want. If developers are cheeky enough to try to charge you to increase a number stored in your own computer, they shouldn't be surprised when you just bypass them and change the number yourself.
Right, there is a difference between buying new content and buying a cheat code, IMO.
 

Techno Squidgy

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WeepingAngels said:
If I can pay real money for Gems to speed up a game function, is it piracy to give myself Gems with Cheat Engine or a trainer? I am talking about single player games only.

I personally say NO. If a developer writes code to add gems and then sells it and I illegally download that code then that is piracy but using Cheat Engine to manually modify a RAM value is not using the devs code.

What's your opinion.
Is this purely hypothetical or something you've actually done?

So if I understand the situation:

Game is free.
Game has timers preventing actions.
Game has 'gems' that cancel/shorten timers.
Gems cost real money.

Is it piracy to edit RAM values to provide yourself with gems for no cost?
According to Google, one definition of piracy is "the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work."

One could probably quite successfully argue that using/acquiring these gems without paying for them is unauthorised use of another's work, seeing as the authorised method of acquiring the gems is by paying for them, not modifying the RAM value that holds the number of gems you have. So I'd say, yes, piracy.

Using Cheat Engine is not unauthorised use of another's work, as I assume whoever made Cheat Engine essentially said "go nuts". However, using the gems acquired by modifying the RAM value with Cheat Engine is unauthorised use of another's work, and even if you were to successfully argue that that it is not piracy, I'll still come clean and tell you straight, I think you're a shitty person if you do this. You are depriving a developer of money by circumventing their pay model. If you're not going to pay, accept the wait timers.
 

Ipsen

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WeepingAngels said:
Zachary Amaranth said:
Piracy is the use or reproduction of another's work without applicable permission.

This seems to fit that definition to a T.

I would call it piracy.
Applying a cheat code with hardware/software not made by the developer is not using the developers work at all. Just like giving yourself infinite invincibility (sparkles) in Super Mario World isn't piracy.
We also don't get to arbitrarily decide what is or isn't a developer's work, for you have it twisted; The developers' work IS the barring of access to the trinkets/abilities from the normal and free game, to be accessed by gems (which are purchased or attained through extra effort in game). It may not be infallible work (since we're discussing cheat engines), but the intention is clear nonetheless; you are not supposed to access this content without specific action (usually payment of real money).

But largely, it's all developer request that you comply with their rules (that's largely what a game is, isn't it?). Depending on the severity, you may face lawsuit, but you'd usually just lose access to the store or game if caught.

But this highlights two things that I think developers value: Not just that we buy games, but also the design and rules of the game as they are. To you SMW example, infinite star power doesn't decrease (or even change( the price of the game, so Nintendo doesn't have grounds to cry piracy. However, it IS clearly not their intent to have Mario have infinite star power, because the game you paid ~50$ for back then didn't have him experiencing a rainbow seizure from frame 1.

Or choice as consumers at any given is 'buy' or 'do not buy'. We control prices, but only by our choices over time; the 'consumers decide the price' quip is NOT a self-serving statement. And the economic system generally works this way (maybe less so nowadays).

For even thieves do work to get what they want. It's just that the burgled is screwed out of both product AND money when they succeed. In any case, it doesn't help a system of exchange thrive.
 

Little Gray

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WeepingAngels said:
I saw this on NeoGaf and think it's an interesting question.

If I can pay real money for Gems to speed up a game function, is it piracy to give myself Gems with Cheat Engine or a trainer? I am talking about single player games only.

I personally say NO. If a developer writes code to add gems and then sells it and I illegally download that code then that is piracy but using Cheat Engine to manually modify a RAM value is not using the devs code.

What's your opinion.
Its a fairly clear cut case and while piracy may not be the correct term it is illegal. It is no different then generating a dlc code for a game and downloading it for free. You are using a hack to access content that requires money to access. I am not sure how anybody in their right mind could actually believe that getting access to paid content for free would be legal.
 

WeepingAngels

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Little Gray said:
WeepingAngels said:
I saw this on NeoGaf and think it's an interesting question.

If I can pay real money for Gems to speed up a game function, is it piracy to give myself Gems with Cheat Engine or a trainer? I am talking about single player games only.

I personally say NO. If a developer writes code to add gems and then sells it and I illegally download that code then that is piracy but using Cheat Engine to manually modify a RAM value is not using the devs code.

What's your opinion.
Its a fairly clear cut case and while piracy may not be the correct term it is illegal. It is no different then generating a dlc code for a game and downloading it for free. You are using a hack to access content that requires money to access. I am not sure how anybody in their right mind could actually believe that getting access to paid content for free would be legal.
..because the paid content is really the DLC itself and by altering the RAM yourself, you are not actually downloading the DLC at all.

Now calling a RAM altercation "content" is stretching things but whatever. I mean there is nothing being added to the game, a value is being changed. A memory address goes from 0000 (0 Gems) to 01F4 (500 Gems).

I can see it both ways.
 

Little Gray

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WeepingAngels said:
..because the paid content is really the DLC itself and by altering the RAM yourself, you are not actually downloading the DLC at all.

Now calling a RAM altercation "content" is stretching things but whatever. I mean there is nothing being added to the game, a value is being changed. A memory address goes from 0000 (0 Gems) to 01F4 (500 Gems).

I can see it both ways.
No the paid content in the in game currency that you are modifying, how you get access to it is irrelevant.
 

Erana

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If we're talking content that is already in the game's code, and the values for that content are client-side (on your computer/phone/device, etc.) then I consider purchasing premium currency to be essentially a service that unlocks the currency/content more conveniently. You can play with and modify the code on your end however you want; when all the data is in your control, they have turned over control of their product experience to the player.

When the data is stored remotely, then the product is made up of both the client information and the remote database service. In this case, I think it starts to get fuzzy.
 

ecoho

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if its a free to play single player game(never herd of one btw) I don't think its piracy but it does defiantly fall into a grey area.

my vote would be no but still a dick move I guess.