Gaming Encryption chip to end videogame piracy

[Chanser]

Wave hello to Steam.

 

[AshuraZro]

Piracy prevention is really starting to piss me off. Now right off the bat. Yes. I am being hypocritical! With that out of the way, I'll paint a little picture or two.

I bought a laptop for my aunt and uncle recently. It was a Gateway (I got one HELL of a deal, let's move on!). It was preloaded with Vista and of course plenty of third party software so I promptly reinstalled tge appropriate version of Vista (is there such a thing?!) and of course updated everything to service pack one and all other updates before giving it to her. Fast forward to last sunday. Phone rings in the morning and it's my aunt. Windows is claiming the installation and Product Key is not genuine and advises her of several things (including buying another copy).

Now here's my point. Why is it that I have to phone up microsoft and get a licensing issue fixed when I have done absolutely nothing wrong? Is this what gaming is eventually going to have to come to? Am I going to have to phone up Valve when Steam decides that my copy of Half-Life 3 is fishy? Keep in mind tgat in present day if the VAC server is having problems you can find yourself getting booted from servers all day for having an "invalid steam key".

Hey, how about another one! Playing Crysis online and getting booted every second because of crappy game protection! Oh, I don't have my punkbuster up to date because I have to go and download the standalone patcher and update it when I was never told to do that at any point. Well, now that I'm done that, let's play online! Oh shit, it's still claiming the key isn't legit! Well, betting check to see if my firewall is blocking any crucial ports! Oh look, the latest patch just dropped my performance. Well, glad I jumped through some hoops for average gameplay! Here's my instant review of Crysis by the by. "Looks pretty. Played Far Cry and Far Cry Instincts years ago. Yawn."

I went into a rant. Yes. Now I'll spell my point out. Piracy prevention are one of the things that are taking attention away from something more important. THE FUCKING GAME ITSELF! If the games are good, I'll fucking pay for them!

An anti-piracy measure should never effect a legitimate customer. When I look at this, I see a step in the wrong direction.

 

[linuxares]

I agree with AshuraZero.

Anyone remember Bioshock?

The people that used cracks got the game working better than the legit user.

 

[Prime]

Why is then in the Wii forum?

This chip is to stop PC piracy

 

[manias]

PC gaming is almost dead, Crysis has barely made 1m sales to date. This will bury it.

Crysis is not a proper benchmark, hardly anyone COULD play it at the time

too heavy
Look at MMORPGs on the PC, PC gaming is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from dead. What is it now? 10+ million subscriptions?
And now age of conan, etc. PC will move more and more online I recon.
Things like steam and online keys and paid subscriptions are far better and cost-effective than "encryption chips"

 

[WarmWoollySheep]

As long as it doesn't make buying more difficult than pirating, it's a good thing. The industry needs better copyright protection.

 

[scousethief]

It will never become a reality, taking in to account that some graphics cards alone cost more than a games console manufacturers would be stupid to include a chip that stops you playing games on the pc, you would have to have an agreement to appease all software developers and hardware manufacturers otherwise its not in their interest to take up the chip/software. Piracy is still minimal and the majority of people buy games its developers blaming their crap ideas or shitty console ports on pirates rather than admitting that theyve produced a load of shite that is pretty much unplayable.

 

[samsam12]

remember when people were disscusing ideas of cracking the virtual console. there were plenty of theroys, but then the WAD installer came, and our prares were ansewerd

 

[epicelite]

Remember when there was hardware or software that nobody was able to crack?




No me either.

 

[elfsander]

The XBOX 360 has this chip, and we ALL know how that ended.

 

[The Teej]

PC gaming is almost dead, Crysis has barely made 1m sales to date. This will bury it.

PC gaming is not dead, at all.

One shitty game that had shitty sales does not declare what the state of PC gaming is.

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=873&page=2

Read this.

 

[Deleted member 76381]

I agree with AshuraZero.

Anyone remember Bioshock?

The people that used cracks got the game working better than the legit user.

Remember Mass Effect too? They were saying it was going to use...some form of copy protection labeled as "draconian" and apparently would force the user to confirm their install every ten days to keep playing. Because of the public outcry, they decided to do away with that (as far as I know anyway).

One of the biggest points people make about anti-piracy measures is how well Sins of a Solar Empire did, for having absolutely no copy protection at all.

 

[Defiance]

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell seems to think so.
While speaking at a conference, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell suggested that game piracy will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a new chip that is currently in production.

He pointed out that this stealth encryption chip (called a TPM) is being installed on the motherboards of most of the new computers that are being built. He believes that it will open up revenue prospects in areas such as Asia and India -- which have previously been notorious hotbeds of piracy -- as the chip will be able to "encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world -- which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords -- which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."

While this should prove to be good news for software developers, Bushnell believes that piracy of movies and music will continue to be an unstoppable force because "if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it. Games are a different thing, because games are so integrated with the code. The TPM will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay."




Don't these guys ever give up they are just making hackers smarter than they already are compared to programmers.

Look like we will have to wait until these 'Uncrackable' become 'Crackable.'

 

[osirisFIVE]

I download ROMs on the DS but not my Wii.

This is because doing so on the DS doesn't void my warranty.
I'm proud to say that I've spent at least 800 bucks on Wii games alone.

S$800 = US$587

Yay, I'm now an accomplished Nintendo fan that doesn't delve into Videogame piracy.
Oh wait, let's not talk about the DS.

 

[deathfisaro]

If that chip has the level of security they claim, that'll reduce the number of players online, which will discourage people from buying the game.

Pirates don't directly contribute to game maker's profit, but they create an environment that draws more people in; thus indirectly helps sell more retail copies.

Also people will use other version that's cracked (for example, playing PS3/360 multi-platform game on hacked 360 instead of buying PS3 retail copy) if there is one.