Gaming Why do pirated PC games have no achievements?

[Bonny]

Topic.

If i check for certain pc games on gamefaqs.com, i can see that these titles actually have achievements. But the pirate scene releases have none. Why? And is there any way to add them?

 

[The Catboy]

Because most game achievements are tied to an online service like Steam. If it's pirated, it's most likely not tied to any online service.
I could be wrong, but kind of makes sense to me.

 

[Blebleman]

1st reaction : .....really?

2nd reaction : Guess someone has to teach you -- most of those games probably use the Steam framework -- if they were uncracked, the game would connect to Steam, realize you don't own the game and fail to start.
Therefore -- legit = Steam = Achievements
pirated = No Steam = No Achievements

 

[Bonny]

This is what i already expected. Thanks for confirming it. So there is no way to "add" these achievements to the games for offline play, right?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

So... If a person purchases a pc game in a store, and playes it on his pc only offline, than he will also have no achievements?

 

[DinohScene]

Other then purchasing it legit in the summersale...
Not really.

I don't know steams policy on pirated games.

 

[Blebleman]

So... If a person purchases a pc game in a store, and playes it on his pc only offline, than he will also have no achievements?

Where would you even CHECK these achievements?

 

[Bonny]

Where would you even CHECK these achievements?

What exactly do you mean? When i buy an X360 game, and play it only offline, i can unlock the achievements. A online connection isn't necessary. But i guess... i understand this whole Steam-thing. People have profiles there and the games need the Steam Framework so they can add up the achievements.

Well... this answers my question. Thanks!

P.S.: It's still sad that it's not possible to patch this in some way

 

[Blebleman]

What exactly do you mean? When i buy an X360 game, and play it only offline, i can unlock the achievements. A online connection isn't necessary. But i guess... i understand this whole Steam-thing. People have profiles there and the games need the Steam Framework so they can add up the achievements.

Well... this answers my question. Thanks!

P.S.: It's still sad that it's not possible to patch this in some way

I was banned from Xbox Live many many years ago for modding my console and running backups. Since then, my achievement points reached 50k+. But hopping either online on another console or with Games for Windows Live, you would see that my profile only had ~1000 points.

The only way I could show my friends would be to invite them over....very hard nowadays considering I live over 10,000 km away from them.

When my 360 dies, they will disappear forever. Do you see? Achievements lose their meaning when you can't show them, or even sync them across consoles.

 

[Bonny]

I was banned from Xbox Live many many years ago for modding my console and running backups. Since then, my achievement points reached 50k+. But hopping either online on another console or with Games for Windows Live, you would see that my profile only had ~1000 points.

The only way I could show my friends would be to invite them over....very hard nowadays considering I live over 10,000 km away from them.

When my 360 dies, they will disappear forever. Do you see? Achievements lose their meaning when you can't show them, or even sync them across consoles.

OK, now i got your point!

Maybe you'll think i'am nuts, but i really don't care if anyone can see my achievements. There will always be thousands of players who are much better than me. I just like to have them and unlock them for me personally. It gives me a feeling like: You're playing the game the way the devs want it to be. And sometimes i also hate the whole thing, because the devs made it so damn hard/time consuming/stupid to get them.

And because of this i was asking if it was possible to somehow add/patch them, just for me offline. I knew that display/collect them online is impossible.

 

[Hells Malice]

You earn achievements offline if you buy games on Steam, it DOES have an offline mode. Not that it matters if you already have it legit.

Piracy gives up most features except the game itself.

 

[razielleonhart]

myself i dont care for achievements if i like the game i will play again and again

 

[Blebleman]

OK, now i got your point!

Maybe you'll think i'am nuts, but i really don't care if anyone can see my achievements. There will always be thousands of players who are much better than me. I just like to have them and unlock them for me personally. It gives me a feeling like: You're playing the game the way the devs want it to be. And sometimes i also hate the whole thing, because the devs made it so damn hard/time consuming/stupid to get them.

And because of this i was asking if it was possible to somehow add/patch them, just for me offline. I knew that display/collect them online is impossible.

As far as I know, Steam gets an 'achievement list' off its servers for every game you play. That's the reason developers can patch in new Achievements, and also the reason they wouldn't work on a pirated copy. They work on Offline Mode since you have downloaded that list at least once (since you need to be online at least the FIRST time you run a game)

Hopefully someone can patch them in someday for you, but.... honestly, I don't think it's easy to do, nor a very in-demand thing Sorry pal!

 

[Gamemaster1379]

Not storing achievements clientside allows the service to prevent excessive manipulation (in some cases, it's still possible even with serverside storage, but far more difficult). Sometimes a service also uses these as an incentive for certain activities (in TF2, you can unlock weapons, as well as TF2 items from other games for their respective achievements). At one point, they also offered the Valve complete pack for a series of acheivements throughout multiple games in an ARG. For that reason, they want to prevent excessive manipulation and make things harder for the client to spoof and the like.

As a general rule of thumb, pirating a game with online abilities is generally not doable. DRM checks are going to fail. There are rare occurrences where games have still managed to get online even on a pirated copy, but these are few and far between and had their own imposed limitations just the same. In these cases, I could only think of games where it was a p2p (or in the case of Halo CE, custom servers FOR Halo CE) connection, and not connection to any official servers. Since steam achievements are online services, they are not pirate-able. As said above, when you pirate a game, the most you're going to get is just the game, plain and simple. Online is usually not doable.

This is why Ubisoft tried imposing some online DRM to single player games. In particular, Assassin's Creed II comes to mind. Even with no online interaction whatsoever, they tried using online DRM to make it unplayable without an internet connection.

 

[Walker D]

Not related to pirating games, but, I got curious about a thing after reading this thread...


Do GoG games have achievements? ...and if some of them do, do you need that Steam-like game-hub of sorts that they have now to be able to see this achievements at all?

 

[Nathan Drake]

Not related to pirating games, but, I got curious about a thing after reading this thread...


Do GoG games have achievements? ...and if some of them do, do you need that Steam-like game-hub of sorts that they have now to be able to see this achievements at all?

They do not. As GoG games run DRM free, there is no service to keep track of things like that. They install and run, and that's that. It would be an excessive amount of work to try to build achievements into every title specifically for their service.

 

[Taleweaver]

It gives me a feeling like: You're playing the game the way the devs want it to be.

I hate to bring it to you, but devs usually don't want you to play the game pirated.


And since you apparently don't know steam: those achievements aren't so much locked to the game but to your steam account. There are some games who have their own reward system (erm...my farm life is one that just comes to mind), but the far majority just links it to online. It's better in two ways: for one, it's harder to cheat your way to the achievement (if it was stored offline, it's only some hex editing away of unlocking). And for the other, the achievement isn't gone when your hard drive breaks. The third plus for devs - that it discourages pirates who want achievements - probably was more of a happy extra for them.

@Walker D: as Nathan said: nope. GoG games have no achievements. With galaxy it may be possible, but I don't know of a single game that even tried to use it.

 

[Gamemaster1379]

Not related to pirating games, but, I got curious about a thing after reading this thread...


Do GoG games have achievements? ...and if some of them do, do you need that Steam-like game-hub of sorts that they have now to be able to see this achievements at all?

Doubtful, and if they do, they're likely built into the game and actually client side (or displayed on the developer's personal hub for the game).