The Best Anti-Piracy Techniques Ever Seen in Video Games
Reading Time: 5 minutesThese games went the extra mile to deter gamers from pirating them.
You wouldn’t steal a car. So why download a game? Piracy is an age-old problem that has plagued many entertainment industries, and the gaming industry was no exception. Developers were constantly on the hunt for the best way to prevent piracy.
Some developers took a more creative approach, making some of the most hilarious anti-piracy measures ever seen in the gaming world. Some of these anti-piracy measures are just plain funny, while others are scary enough to make anyone think twice about downloading a game illegally.
1. Earthbound: Difficulty x1000
Earthbound is already well known for having steep difficulty curves throughout its playthrough. But for anyone playing an illegal copy of the game, the difficulty was increased tenfold. If an illegal copy of Earthbound was detected, the game instantly spawned far more enemies than usual. Not only that, but they were also far stronger than the original version of the game.
If anyone somehow managed to battle their way through the seemingly endless hordes and make it to the boss, the screen would freeze, prompting you to reset the game. Once reset, the game would delete all the saved data.
2. Spyro: Year of the Dragon: Missing Parts
Spyro: Year of the Dragon would employ a similar tactic to Earthbound’s to deter people from playing illegal copies of the game. Zoe would inform you at the beginning that the game was illegal and it more than likely wouldn’t work properly.
If you persisted, an onslaught of errors would occur. Characters and items might not appear, Sparx wouldn’t be able to restore any health, and Spyro would sometimes randomly teleport back to the start of the level. And if you somehow managed to make it near the end, all the saved data would be wiped. But hey, you can’t say Zoe didn’t warn you.
3. Game Dev Tycoon: Piracy Glitch
Game Dev Tycoon had the most painfully realistic anti-piracy method on this list. Game Dev Tycoon is a simulation game where you make a game. You might succeed, making all your video game dreams come true, or you might fail. And illegal copies of Game Dev Tycoon were destined for failure from the beginning.
If an illegal copy of Game Dev Tycoon was detected, your game would start smoothly without any hitches. But suddenly, you would start bleeding money, and people would stop buying your game. Why? Because pirates started making illegal copies of it. Suddenly, your video game dreams would crumble to the floor. This piracy glitch was not present in legitimate copies of the game.
4. The Sims 4: Censorship
The Sims 4 developers took a very sarcastic stance against pirated copies of their game. If you have ever played a Sims game, you might be familiar with the pixelated censorship bubble that appears over your Sim’s private parts whenever they do something like take a shower or go to the bathroom.
If an illegal copy was detected, that pixelated area wouldn’t go away once your Sim was finished doing its business. Instead, your Sim would become trapped in an endless cycle and the pixels would eventually spread until the entire screen was censored.
5. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Runaway Train
One of the main features of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is the train. The very one that travels the spirit tracks, in fact. If the game’s programming caught even a whiff of piracy, however, the controls for the train would simply not appear.
The game was rendered completely unplayable without these very important controls, so gamers who managed to get their sticky paws on an illegal copy would find themselves crying all the way to their local games store to pick up a legitimate copy of the game that they could actually play.
6. Crysis Warhead: Angry Birds
Crysis Warhead had possibly one of the most hilarious anti-piracy tactics known to mankind. Rather than shooting bullets, pirated versions of the game would make your gun shoot chickens instead. Chickens certainly have their place in life, but being used as bullets is definitely not one of them.
These chickens did zero damage to your opponent. Granted, they would stun the enemy, but that doesn’t get you very far in the long run. At that point, you would be better off playing Angry Birds.
7. Alan Wake: Captain Alan Wake
The developers of Alan Wake served their anti-piracy measures with a side of satire. Many of the games on this list employed tactics that make the game unplayable if it was perceived as illegitimate. But Alan Wake, on the other hand, simply let the pirates know they knew. Whether that made them feel guilty or not is unclear.
If you were playing an illegal copy of Alan Wake, the game would slap a great big pirate eye patch right on Alan’s face. It made no difference to the gameplay whatsoever, apart from making Alan look edgier and slightly more illegal.
While the idea of playing through Alan Wake with a pirate eye patch on might seem a little appealing, there are actually real security dangers of playing pirated video games, or downloading any cracked software in general. Not to mention the fact that we want to be supporting the devs who are making these games, so they can keep making more in the future.
8. Serious Sam 3: Unleash the Kraken
Serious Sam 3 went for a more nightmarish approach. Players of illegal copies would be incessantly haunted by a giant red scorpion-like arachnid. This beast was impossibly fast and would not stop until you were dead. If that wasn’t scary enough, it was also invincible.
Playing through the game, never knowing when this hideous creature was going to spawn and attack you, was surely enough for people to just purchase the game. Playing the real thing would have been far more enjoyable without the constant threat of death looming over them, albeit a little less exciting.
9. The Secret of Monkey Island: Dial-A-Pirate
The Secret of Monkey Island would ask a series of questions at the beginning of the game that would prevent you from continuing unless you had the Dial-A-Pirate Wheel. This cardboard anti-piracy measure had a series of pirates with unique codes that would be revealed once the corresponding parts were lined up.
This wheel was obviously only provided with legitimate purchases and was one of the few physical anti-piracy measures for video games.
10. The Witcher 2: Mistaken Identity
While many of us may be under the impression that the age of piracy is over, that is unfortunately not the case. Online piracy was found to be increasing in 2022. So it wasn’t just classic games from the 90s that had anti-piracy techniques in place.
If we had to rate anti-piracy measures, The Witcher 2 would definitely be in first place. The Witcher 2 has a series of romance mechanics that let you unlock cutscenes where Geralt and an NPC of your choice would engage in a raunchy cut scene.
If you were playing an illegal copy of the game, however, your chosen NPC would be replaced with a rather unsightly old lady by the name of Marietta Loredo. This surprise would surely have been enough to scare any gamer onto the right side of the law.
Purchasing Games Legitimately Is by Far the Best Way to Support the Games You Love
While piracy is less of an issue for modern-day consoles, it was once a plague that every game developer had to deal with. But hopefully, these quirky and creative anti-piracy measures were enough to deter people from downloading their games illegally and inspire them to go out and support the people who developed these incredible games instead.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/best-anti-piracy-techniques-in-video-games/
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