Re: [stella] Copy Protection

Subject: Re: [stella] Copy Protection
From: Manuel Polik <cybergoth@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 22:22:53 +0100
Hi Glenn!

>Can anyone come up with a truly working copy protection 
scheme?

Well, they still haven't found one. A friend of a friend 
of a friend owned a CD-ROM for the N64 from day one, 
when it was released in Germany...

>Getting the game to not work on the Supercharger or 
Cuttle Cart is fine, 
>but it would still run on emulators.  And yes, it could 
theoretically be 
>patched to work.

My personal view of this is, that I think it is fine, 
when people can playtest/preview my game on emulators. I 
declared the full BIN version for freeware and 
distributable. That is the one that doesn't run on SC,CC 
and other devices and has the anti-hacking-routines 
intact.

I think this is an ok middle way between a totally (even 
royalty) free game like INV and a totally secret game 
like an Ebivision product. And it's yet another way as 
the trial/full version idea behind Jammed.

I don't know if it's the right way, but I think it is at 
least a fair way.

Posting BINs and sources here for reviews is part of the 
community. I think it is necessary to share ideas and 
help.

There's always the risk, that someone grab's a 99% 
version directly from biglist.com and spreads it, or 
that someone patches or hacks a BIN. I must either live 
with that, or decide that I do the last 10% of a game 
with one or two handpicked guys of whom I'm sure they'll 
keep everything secret.

>You'd have to talk to the emulator authors to try to 
get them to block 
>running certain games.  But there are so many 2600 
emulators you'd never 
>get them all to agree to that.

I even doubt that it is possible at all. Maybe you'd 
have to add watersigns or something like that.

But if you really don't want that people play your game 
on emulators, the only 100% save thing would be to not 
spread the final BINs at all or to offer a trial version 
only.

Greetings,
	Manuel

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/


Current Thread