Most media companies in that era attempted to build an "uncrackable" system which always got cracked in short order because the mechanism depended on one tactic. By acknowledging that all protection schemes eventually get figured out and acknowledging the adversary's strengths and weaknesses, the author could then employ defense-in-depth techniques to maximize the cost of cracking the system.
Remember that every adversary has a budget.
Can you provide more details on this statement? I understand defense-in-depth and the different methodologies for cracking software but your statement doesn't make sense when applied as a whole. Do you have any examples?
At its philosophical core, defense-in-depth is the idea of delaying an attacker rather than preventing an attack. In a military or IT situation this delay usually lets the defender detect the attack and counterattack/prosecute. In the cracking world, the delay IS the counterattack, since release groups measure their performance based on release quickness and the company (theoretically) gains revenue from the game not being on Kazaa during that critical sales season.
And to cut off the "developers spend their time on that crap instead of making the game better" comment before it arrives: frankly, it's a fun and welcomed diversion to code the anti-theft stuff. For every story like this that you read there are hundreds you don't. And the "penalties" imposed by the devs are almost always funny and creative.
>those two to three months when pirated versions were unavailable must have reduced the overall level and impact of piracy.
Sure, it probably reduced the amount of piracy, but does it reduce the impact? Is there any proof that the pirates bought the game instead of waiting a few months for a crack, or that they didn't ignore it altogether? "Less people pirated the game" doesn't necessarily cause "More people bought the game". And "More people bought the game" is caused by a lot more than just piracy, so you can never be sure.
For comparison, look at The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, a game that launched with practically no copy protection at all (just an offline CD key check), which was a huge commercial success. And Spore, a game released about a year later, was a flop and actually one of the most pirated games ever, partly out of pure spite against the extremely restrictive SecuRom DRM included with the game.
To me, fighting piracy seems like wasted effort. You can usually only delay it, there's no proof that those efforts will actually earn you sales, and you risk damaging your relationship with legitimate, paying customers in the process. That time and work can be spent making the game better. You hear about games reaching record sales because of good gameplay, good graphics, intense multiplayer, good marketing, whatever. You don't read "GTA V becomes fastest-selling entertainment product in history because of anti-piracy measures."
Judging by the article, there was a lot of serious software engineering resources put to this crack protection system. It takes thousands or tens of thousands of sales to pay back the time spent. This money and effort could have been spent on making the product better in a way that is directly visible to the customer. How many sales could have that bought?
But things have changed since the days this game (and article) came out. Ubiquitous Internet connectivity is now on consoles too. Games get (more) patches after they are released (well they are also more buggy on release day). The downside is not being able to play when your connection goes down (or the servers go down) but this has become somewhat acceptable (albeit it's a nuisance).
It has become a lot easier to buy games online and a lot more difficult to pirate them. This is what ultimately made me stop pirating games.
Sure not all will, but a lot of pirates aren't intent on pirating. They just do it when they can. For example, I want to see American Sniper at the theater. But if a DVD quality rip is out on launch day, fuck it, I'll take it free.
Most PC games go on sale a few weeks after launch and yet people are still paying a premium at launch.
If your crazy uncle wears tinfoil hats to combat CIA mind-rays, this doesn't mean CIA mind control technology is a concern.
It just means your uncle is mentally ill.
> And I remember Nintendo saying piracy had hurt DS software sales in Europe (understandably: instead of buying several full titles, people would buy a cheap "R4" or similar flash cart and play hundreds of games for free
This is no proof that sales were hurt. It could be true (and almost certainly is) that people who did this would not have bought extra games even if the flash carts had been unavailable. If the 12 yr old pirates $17,000 (retail price) of music, this does not mean the record companies are out $17,000... 12 yr olds don't have $17,000 to spend even if they are prevented from pirating.
You're not being logical, you're just parroting anti-copying propaganda. It's more than a little sick.
> If the 12 yr old pirates $17,000 (retail price) of music, this does not mean the record companies are out $17,000... 12 yr olds don't have $17,000 to spend even if they are prevented from pirating.
Right, but it does not mean that the record companies are out $0 either. They are probably missing out on at least several hundred dollars worth of revenue for that particular person.
Why do you assume they have no evidence?
> This is no proof that sales were hurt. It could be true (and almost certainly is) that people who did this would not have bought extra games even if the flash carts had been unavailable.
What makes you think kids with flashcarts wouldn't buy games? Their parents buy them a DS and a game or two for Christmas/Birthday. Their parents would probably buy them future games, too. Or the kid has pocket money. But the kid has a flashcart now, they need not buy more games.
This isn't like computer software piracy. They already had to spend money on a DS and flashcart, assuming they wouldn't buy additional games is nonsensical. Who buys a DS and doesn't play games on it?
It is anecdotal, but the people I know who bought DS flashcarts definitely would have bought games. And, although it is just my reasoning, I think it's fair to say people who owned the Nintendo DS would have bought games for it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8743310
In short: what's rebellious when you're a young kid operating at the margins becomes tyrannical and oppressive when performed at massive scale by an elite upper class (hackers today). Piracy is no longer a "countercultural" act. It's more akin to labor union busting -- helping beggar content creators so content distribution mills can "monetize" their stuff for free.
Very, very few console owners run unlocked consoles, so they don't even have the option of running cracked games.
On the other hand, every PC owner can run cracked copies, and it only takes a few minutes of reading for even the most non tech savvy Windows user to find out about bittorrent and how to procure cracked games.
If that were true, these console developers wouldn't need to worry about their games being cracked. And yet, as the article discusses, there really is a piracy problem.
Those R4 carts were all over the place. I was living in Japan at the time and everyone and their mother had one. There is no doubt it cost them a lot of money.
http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protec...
