Anti-piracy techniques in video games

Piracy is something that has existed in different industries around the world, from cleaning utensils, parts for cars, music, even video games have fought for many years to fight against this, however, as far as video games is concerned is something that depends on each person for different reasons such as its high price, low development countries or simply to test whether it works properly in the case of the pc.

Over the years game developers have been looking for ways to combat this problem, some opt for the easy way such as with unique codes, but these have never worked at all, others have programmed certain things that are really incredible, making your experience in the game is destroyed completely.

This means that sometimes you can't pass the video game because of these restrictions, maybe at a time everything seems normal and suddenly you get a screen completely blocking your progress. Next, I'll show you some videogames that I think were really creative in this aspect making you go through a hard time if you downloaded the videogame illegally.

The Final Fantasy saga has always been characterized by being excellent, each of its games has left a mark on the world of video games. In one of their sequels called Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates they decided to do something against those who obtained the game illegally.

In the beginning everything seemed to indicate that the game was perfect, you could play in a calm way, gossiping about any monster you found in the way, but after 20 minutes of the game it would freeze, and then it would show you a very subtle screen telling you "Thank you for Playing".

Several people went to different support forums to ask what this was, where they were told that their copy of the game was illegal and so they could not continue playing.

At the time of the 80s-90s there was an enormous amount of games of the adventure games genre, one of the companies that had a great success in this was Lucas Art which had a good catalog of titles, in most of them were several methods of anti-piracy, but the one that takes the honor on this occasion is Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders.

Before starting the game this one asked you to introduce a series of codes which in those years it was impossible to photocopy, since these came in the manual of the game in a special leaf, in addition they were not numbers, if you introduced several times the incorrect sequence our character would appear in a cell enclosed with a soldier giving you an extensive talk of why you cannot buy games illegally.

Nintendo, a prestigious company in video games, has also programmed some of its games to surprise more than one player who has acquired some of its titles illegally, but of all these there is one that can make you pass for one of the most unpleasant moments, it is EarthBound.

Only when you start you get a warning that this copy is totally illegal, however, everyone goes unnoticed this message, then regardless of the difficulty you choose the game forces you to play at hardcore level, ie that the difficulty is very complicated, but the most stubborn and optimistic could reach the final boss of the game.

Just after killing him the game freezes completely, anyone would think it was a simple mistake, but when you restart the game you realize that your saved game is completely blank, punishing you abruptly for having an illegal copy.

These were some anti-piracy techniques within the world of video games, if you liked it and want a second part let me know in the comment box.