People keep misunderstanding why this is huge deal.
Obv razor is not going to file suit for copyright, that’s just dumb, but the big news is that they are using a cracked version and selling it as a legitimate one. This means they somewhat approve of the crack in the game in that fashion. That is surreal and also proves a bunch of arguments against DRM. That is the real news here.
Feels like there should be class action lawsuits for the people who purchased what they thought were legit copies of the game.
If it’s through steam then there are receipts about what binaries where installed; and at the end of the day it’s legally their game so if they sell it then it is automatically legit.
This is also why Nintendo feels they can sell emulators they didn’t write with the Mini consoles and the VC & Nintendo Online…
This means they somewhat approve of the crack in the game in that fashion
No it doesn’t lol
“We absolutely disapprove of cracks! Here, buy this cracked game.”
Well I know it makes sense in corpo-world, just not in a world that runs on logic and common sense.
It just means someone was lazy and hoping nobody would notice, it says absolutely nothing about how much they approve of it lol
It’s like how the “You wouldn’t download a car” video has pirated music in it.
That’s just an internet myth that everyone wants to be true.
It was a completely different obscure anti-piracy commercial.
https://torrentfreak.com/sorry-the-you-wouldnt-steal-a-car-anti-piracy-ad-wasnt-pirated-170625/
This reminds me of when Nintendo was caught selling ripped ROM’s from a pirate site in the WiiShop lol.
Also reminds me of the time Microsoft was using a cracked version of SoundForge to make system sounds:
http://www.techpavan.com/2009/05/24/microsoft-deepz0ne-pirated-cracked-sound-forge-windows-xp-audio/
IIRC it didn’t end with the wiishop either. Off the top of my head, there was some controversy surrounding the NES/SNES Classic consoles. I think they used emulators that were written by pirates, instead of writing their own?
This is not just Rockstar, and it’s been pretty common for years. Bunch of developers when moving to digital versions and not using CDs simply packaged the digital games with no-cd cracks found on piracy sites instead of reworking the code.
I’m not very savvy for piracy, so I think I need an explanation.
Rockstar grabbed the crack made by Razor 1911 and put it on the Steam version of Midnight Club 2 instead of taking out the DRM themselves.
Id say it’s more nuanced. The game is theirs? Some might say they stole their work… But the game is theirs and they never contracted or even gave permission for the work to be completed? I’d say it’s unethical still since they have the resources to accomplish this on their own.
“Stolen” isn’t the right language to use for something that’s been intentionally made available free to anyone who wants it.
To play a game without buying it need to be cracked, or in other words the security in place needs to be hacked. In the olden days you would borrow your friends game of a copy and place a no-cd hack on it, so that you could use it. With online security this was more difficult and people had to make a new crack to let the drm think is was connect to the server and all was oké. Most companies bought DRM software from third party developers that got implemented into the games gold release (the version that goes on ace or store). To remove this DRM cost time because the game and assets need to be recompiled without this DRM system, most of the time even braking some checks.
So as a solution here and not spending time on development time, to just a piece of software from a “pirate” group. Although most of the time the group who made the crack never distributed the game as a torrent, some third party groups made bundle torrents where at one go you had the game and crack.
Historically, games would refuse to boot unless you had the game disc inserted. Even if the game was fully installed and didn’t need the disc to run, requiring the disc was a primitive form of DRM.
One of the most common forms of cracks was a NoDisc crack, which did exactly what it says on the label; It removed the requirement for you to insert a disc. This was usually just a quick file replacement. So it was easy to take the game disc to your buddy’s house, use it to install the game on their computer, apply the NoDisc crack, and then your buddy could play the game whenever they wanted without using your disc. This was many people’s first intro to piracy. Obviously game publishers hated this, and constantly played whack-a-mole to shut them down. On the data preservation and user friendliness side of things, NoDisc cracks were popular because they allowed you to play your games without digging through your giant book of CD’s. It also meant you weren’t locked out of a game just because your little sibling scratched your CD.
When transitioning to digital sales, the disc requirement obviously won’t work. You can’t require a disc when the user never actually received a disc. So the game publishers had to remove the disc requirement when they put their game up for sale on Steam. And this is showing that in the official Steam release, a pirate’s signature is found. They simply used a NoDisc crack (from one of the crackers that they had constantly been battling) on their own game, to remove the disc requirement. Instead of finding an “official” way to do it, they just used the most straightforward route.
And yet game publishers still constantly harp about piracy.
Rockstar also used the Razor crack in the Steam version of Manhunt