Nostalgia talking: In-Game Security Questions

[IndianaJonny]

It occured to me a while back that for sometime in the 90s(?), it was the norm for security questions to pop up in-game for many MS-DOS based titles requiring you to look up certain words on certain pages of clunky manuals. Nowadays, most games come with a unique 'key' of sorts entered in at the installation phase that takes care of almost all the security and none of the old 'pop-quiz' features of the older titles.

I was wondering whether anyone could shed some light on how this quirky security-question practice ever got started, it's eventual decline and why they didn't catch onto (or where unable to implement) the unique 'key' feature earlier? (Info on the Web seems pretty scant on this kind of history)

 

[ultratog1028]

I would have to guess that because of the uprising of the internet, Pirates would be able to either include the answers, or simply remove the pop quiz feature. Also, not everyone kept thier manuals so it was replaced with cd keys that only need to be used once.

 

[Corven]

Heh, I still remember kings quest six having puzzles you couldn't solve in the mountian steps without the booklet. At the time I had no idea it was security, I just thought it was neat.

 

[IndianaJonny]

I would have to guess that because of the uprising of the internet, Pirates would be able to either include the answers, or simply remove the pop quiz feature. Also, not everyone kept thier manuals so it was replaced with cd keys that only need to be used once.

So as gaming became less and less localised with broader ways of distributing data/answers this method became untenable - yeah, that sounds about right. But why decide on this feature in the first place; to ensure people bought the games in retail packages?

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

Heh, I still remember kings quest six having puzzles you couldn't solve in the mountian steps without the booklet. At the time I had no idea it was security, I just thought it was neat.

that's awesome