Countering pirates can be expressed in different forms. Whether it is DRM, a limited number of activations or a popular requirement of constant Internet connection at one time. In this blog, I would like to consider several examples of how the game developers flashed with a creative in an attempt to dump users from using unlicensed products. I divided all cases I like into categories by the degree of stiffness of punishment.

Category "Finnish Humor"

Games: Alan Wake, Quantum Break
During loading screens in Alan Wake A message will appear with a request to purchase a license version of the game.
Good developers from "Remedy" They did not hardly limit the game experience of irresponsible players. They just displayed the pirate mark on the model of the protagonist. It is made in the form of a bandage by eye with a cheerful Roger.
However, it can appear in other cases. So you just need to leave Windows Store before starting Quantum Break, So that the system considers that you are cheating and gave you this punishment.

Category "you will not go further!"

Owners of pirate versions were allowed to fan in the game exactly until a certain point. These are all sorts of gameplay restrictions that ultimately led to a loss.

1) Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Here you should recall the old and time -tested classics RTS. You were given just anything to play a spiral copy. 30 seconds after the start of the match, your base and all available units simply self -destroyed. The funny thing is that periodically the same fate could comprehend the owners of legal copies.

2) Mirror’s edge (2009)
IN Mirror’s Edge The developers endowed the pirate feather with a fear of heights. Instead of, so that, as if it should be accelerated, to fade from one skyscraper to another, the girl reduced the pace, and then stopped at all before the edge. That’s the whole parkour.

3) Crysis: Warhead
In this game, all weapons began to shoot chicken. Zero damage from the trunks simply did not allow to advance on the plot.

4) Batman: Arkham asylum
Pirate copies of the adventures of the human mouse were passable to exactly one plot moment. In it, Batman needed to overcome the hall filled with gas. Before that, at least somehow it was possible to do without the possibility of flight. However, here a non -working cloak led to the death of a superhero. So out of horror flying on the wings of the night, Batman turned into a chicken tobacco.

The response of one of the support service employees deserves special attention "Eidos" To the question posted on the forum games. This quote has already become a standard answer to such questions on Western Internet. This is what he wrote before closing the topic.

The problem you have encountered is a trap of copy protection to convict people downloading free hacking versions.
This is not a defect in the game code, this is a defect in your moral code.

5) The Talos Principle
https://modafexpertde.com />This is a first-person voil game developed by the Fathers of the “Sur Authority”-Croats from the Croats from "Croteam". When the player successfully got to the 2nd floor in the tower, all the elevators immediately stopped working. Let me remind you that the elevators in this game are designed to transport a player from one level to another. Only in pirate copies the elevator suddenly stopped halfway. The player was locked up like an animal in a cage or a pirate in a prison cell. AND “Adjip the miny of Bazholst!" It won’t work here: D Leave the game, the elevator does not go further.

The category "something with my eyes has become"

The Sims 4
You know, when one of the Sims begins to piquant classes (like taking a shower or visit to the toilet), censorship squares appear in the field of causal places. So, in the pirate versions of the game, having appeared once, these same squares do not disappear, but begin to gradually grow, filling out the entire screen space. Fans of pixel games and minecraft will definitely like it

Operation Flashpoint series Arma
To punish the pirates, Czech developers have introduced a whole system called Degrade. It all started with a gradual deterioration in the accuracy of the weapon. Then the transport began to alode. Then the player began to grab trips. And in the end, he turned into a seagull and flew. The inscription appeared on the screen: “Good Birds Do Not Fly Away from This Game, You have only Yourself to Blame”.

“Real birds do not fly away from this game, you just have to blame yourself."

Far Cry 4
In the game about the overthrow of King Keigan Paygan Min, the developers deliberately installed a very uncomfortable angle of view (FOV). Everyone who purchased the game in a legal way later received a patch of the first day, which added a switch of viewing angle (FOV Slider). And the pirates remained with the nose.

Grand Theft Auto IV
Perhaps the most famous of the listed game jokes.
Surely, in the process of studying the interactivity of the GTA IV world, each player experimented with the number of Nico alcohol drunk. Now imagine the level of challenge to go through the whole game in an alcohol fucker. And this is how the case was in the pirate copies of the "great car carrier". And there were craftsmen

Category "Prepare your Anus"

Dark Souls
This concerned mostly too impatient players. Those daredevils who decided to try Dark Souls before the official date of launching servers, an unpleasant surprise awaited. Black phantoms were started to hunt, not bounced at the very indoor (145th level, 1900hp and all skills for 99).

Serious Sam 3: Bfe
Another game from the Croatian company already mentioned above "Croteam".
A reduced version of the adult arachnoid (one of the bosses of the game) is an immortal red archizla scorpion, moving much faster than the player’s speed. And even if you manage to deal with it with the help of cheats, he will still return over and over until you go to the next level.

But this was only the beginning At the fifth level, the game will begin to emulate the clicks of the keys responsible for the commands to "look up" and "turn". At the same time, the player will receive more damage from enemies. Well, in the end, the game will fly out every 5 minutes.

Category "There is no way out"

You thought that removal of saves is all untruth and horror stories? But no! I will give several examples of games that punished the pirates with the removal of all the progress preserved before that.

Earthbound (1995)
Known in narrow circles JRPG, released in 1994 for SNES. In the pirate, the number of enemies was increased. But the most interesting lovers of such a hardcore were waiting at the end of the game. Before the battle with the final boss, the game tightly hung. Then she rebooted, and the entire progress of the player disappeared.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon
This is the third part of the adventure of the dragon released on the first curling in 2000. The developers performed "Insomniac Games", now famous software Spider-Man (2018) For PS4. So at one point the fairy will tell the dragon and the player that he plays a unlicensed copy of the game. If the player will skip all messages and reaches the final boss, here he will be very disappointed. As soon as the player strikes the first boss, the process of removing the saves will start. And when trying to load them, it turns out that the memory card is empty.

In general, I would like to note that a very cunning and extensive protection system is implemented in the game. Something like a house-lovushki, each of which activates an unpredictable effect. But this is a topic for a separate conversation.

Category "Trolling of the 80th level"

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
The Witcher 2 takes a well -deserved second place in this rating.
All erotic cartoons ended in the pirates completely different from how they would like that. Young and elastic bodies were replaced by the textures of Mama Loodo, which we met in the plot, when we made our way to him at night. CD Projekt Red Two days were transported to realize this jerk.

Game Dev Tycoon (2013)
First place from me The highest quality irony.
In the free versions of the Gamdev simulator, players at a certain stage faced the fact that their company incurred huge losses due to the illegal spread of their products: trollface:
In the end, they received the following message:

Boss, it seems that when many players Play OUR New Game, They Steal it Downloading by Cracked Rather Buying It Legally.
IF Players don Buy the Games They Like, We Will Sooner Or Go Bankrup.

Boss, it seems, despite the popularity of our game among users, they are much more willing to download the grunted version (hacked image) than acquire the game in a legal way.
Since players do not buy the games they like, so sooner or later we will go bankrupt.

Afterword

Of course, pirates in a timely manner rolled out fixes and patches to the games hacked by them. Therefore, many players did not even know about these development of developers. Nevertheless, in Steam and on other sites now and then, topics with questions pop up on how to get rid of a particular “problem”. And these cases are very simple I hope that my blog raised your mood at least a little.