Penalties for those who play a pirated copy of Automation

[xXRKellyXx1]

Hey Guys,

As we all know hundreds of games are pirates every year. We DON'T want that to happen to Automation when its released do we? That's why I need you all to give Daffy and Zeussy ideas on how to deal with the people that have the nerve to pirate a copy of Automation. Anyways, please post any ideas you come up with down below such as: no turbo options, only able to use 4 cylinders, or even only giving them the option to use 50 octane fuel!

Stay Dirty,
xXRKellyXx1

[sc90]

force them to work in the quarry for 5 years?

[haitch40]

The problem is a pirated copy is a copy of the full game so you can't exactly put a penalty on its gameplay such as removing certain things. Also why would you put a penalty on it if you knew they were doing it? Surely you would just give them a corrupt file and take their IP address and send the police round.

You can however do a few things.

Make online a key focus. Only genuine copies can access online which is part of why games are becoming more and more multiplayer focused.

Make you have to validate your copy before playing. Like with windows you have to validate it online. I think they are doing this with the game though.

[xXRKellyXx1]

im sure there's a way for Daffy and Zeussy to know of a pirated copy

We were talking about it on the livestream today. I'm sure Zeussy can implement some sort of anti-piracy code into the game. After all, they still have lost of time to do so.

[mastawyrm]

The problem is a pirated copy is a copy of the full game so you can't exactly put a penalty on its gameplay such as removing certain things. Also why would you put a penalty on it if you knew they were doing it? Surely you would just give them a corrupt file and take their IP address and send the police round.

You can however do a few things.

Make online a key focus. Only genuine copies can access online which is part of why games are becoming more and more multiplayer focused.

Make you have to validate your copy before playing. Like with windows you have to validate it online. I think they are doing this with the game though.

Please don't do the online only thing. I'm in Afghanistan and getting online is a chore.

[Daffyflyer]

It will need to be validated online, but should be able to be used offline on that PC after that

[cschrille]

It will most likely get pirated, like 99.9% of all other games. If it had to be online all the time to play, someone could just make an emulator or bypasser and you would still be able to play it. However, small projects like Automation rarely gets noticed by the scene (the ones who crack and release games), so I would not be to worried.

[BrettTheThreat]

I've heard of games that will vary the game play if it recognizes that its pirated. Ie. no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to get enough points to get medals. It usually does this without alerting the user, and basically makes the game annoying to use. What about:
- playing Rick Astley at high volumes with no option to turn it off. Or other random music...
- All engine noises sound like ducks, or emus, or farts, or just Daffy or Zuessy going "BRRRUM BA DUM BRUM BA DUM DUM BA BRUMMMM"
- Mouse moves around at random
- Random, extremely weird error messages. That way when people post them to the forums, bring on the Ban Van and the Wall of Shame.
- Engines that always backfire, or knock themselves into oblivion on start up
- Random windows blocking gameplay, random window resizing (ie. ridiculously small)
- Lock the resolution to something abysmal like 320x240

[Kubboz]

- Switching the game to pirate language.
- For tycoon part of the game - having 1h simulation of boring business meetings. Every game year. Without ability to skip it.

[Marian87]

My opinion is that there shouldn't be much effort put into this as it cam also back fire. If you make the game have discreet glitches or game play problems bad rumours will start about the game. There is no perfect way of avoiding piracy. People who will want to pay will, and people who don't won't even if they play the game or not.

[Kev2442]

If you ask me, Automation is one of those games wich do not deserve piracy.
I can't blame pirates for Activision or EA, 'cause everybody, even the ones who bought it, got screw*diver*ed (bad language avoided ) : Short-as-hell campaign, unsupported buggy games (ex : NFS Carbon on PC)...
But games like this one, awesome game by the way, is made by great guys, who know what they're talking about, and care for the players, have to be paid for : quite low price, good collector stuff...

About pirated ideas, it could detect an Internet connection after the first verification : if there's one, it will always check the copy, if not, it won't. This could solve the "Afghanistan problem", and make more work for pirates. I like the pirate language idea, but it could also be replaced with using the Webdings police...
The octane fuel is great too : 1 octane "Pirate Special" fuel ? By the way, I was asking myself if I could easily add a fuel... (Futuristic 200 !)
This could be joined with a forced 1$ starting campaign with no save feature, but there should be a "Pirate version detected" message to prevent it from being asked on the forums...
The problem is that most of those things can be avoided by modding (adding fuels), trainers (1$ campaign), traduction (pirate language) or moved files (Webdings policy).
Hey ! What about replacing most of the textures with a pirate flag ? That should do.

I do not see something else for now...
See you (maybe) on the upcoming V8 Update Bugs Thread !

[Driver69]

Please don't make it online only to play. It's one of the reasons so many people are avoiding SimCity. I have every SimCity game and have played since the early 90s and I am not sure if I will buy the game until I learn more about how it plays. If it were not for always online I would have my game preordered now because I know how great it will be. Please use an online validation system. In any case, please make sure the savegames are saved to the player's computer so that we can transfer them between computers. I hate how SimCity will supposedly store your file in the cloud - relieving you of any ability to backup your own work.

[Killrob]

No worries there Driver69, I even think the offline play is already in place with the latest launcher - one verification and then no more connection needed for an extended period of time (weeks?)... try unplugging your internet connection and see if it's working already

We want to have as mild DRM as possible to not punish our paying customers - and one online verification seems to be a good way to go.

[Anthrax50551]

There is no real way to stop pirating... If somebody has the skill to do it they will be able to crack any game... Its happened a million times and will only happen again even with the online thing a simple EXE fix can remove that.

[armandkat]

- All engine noises sound like ducks, or emus, or farts, or just Daffy or Zuessy going "BRRRUM BA DUM BRUM BA DUM DUM BA BRUMMMM"

That looks more like a cool feature to me... Will just make the game better.