How does the developer determine whether the customer's version of the product (a mod, no less) is legitimate or pirated?Ģ. But since Valve has the balls to release this info, they probably already have some mechanism in place to prevent these trollers from doing so.īefore you salute this vigilante gesture, a lone captain taking on the high seas of piracy, stop and consider these necessary questions:ġ.
The only hole now is that the steam ID is probably unencrypted, so malicious users can probably troll others by posting the error message on Steam tech support with their victim's steam ID. There's probably a (very unlikely) chance for a legitimate customer to be affected with the error message due to an actual bug in the copy protection code, but in that case how is that different from the Michael Jackson game? At least with the error message, Valve can help you fix it (e.g., if their records show that you didn't pirate the game, Valve tech support can ask you to reinstall the game, etc.) No such reprieve for the MJ game - if the copy protection triggered on a legitimate copy, well, it's definitely no fun anymore is it? They don't ban you outright for reporting the error message, only when they have proven that you indeed did NOT buy it.Ģ. There's no way a legitimate customer will get banned. Y’see, Steam keeps a list of which accounts have actually forked over the $9.99 for a legit copy of GMod – so it’s a simple matter of checking ids and turfing out the pirates."ġ. "Making the situation even sweeter, the number which appears in brackets after the error statement is in fact the gamer’s 64-bit steamid. Unfortunately for Fox, I was bored well before the missing CGI came into play (it really was a terrible movie), and fortunately for them, I'm interested in seeing the new X-Men First Class when it comes to theaters in June (let's hope it's not terrible). The CGI was incomplete and it was a nice reminder that I should just wait and rent the DVD (a very effective piracy deterrent, if you ask me). It reminds me of when I downloaded the X-Men Wolverine production rip.
It's so small that it doesn't cause too much harm to the pirates in terms of game play, yet big enough that the pirates know they can receive the feature for just $10-$15 depending on prior Steam purchases. The authors aren't looking out to catch the pirates, they're not looking to sue anyone, they're just comically (inside joke, of course) telling the people that they've received an inferior product instead of the normal way of big titles where the pirated versions are superior to the retail version. Well, would you prefer a more intrusive form of DRM? Removing the shading from a game isn't as bad as some of the DRM schemes that we've seen before by the bigger publishers.
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