Digital Decay Of 2000's PC Game DRM

[@TechTangents]

Go to: www.stopkillinggames.com/ Accursed Farms: www.youtube.com/@Accursed_Farms

[@samsulummasamsulumma6898]

Will do.

[@megan_alnico]

Hey man, I love the idea but it looks like there really isn't much for me to do... I don't own the crew 2.

[@kevinerbs2778]

@ 2:58 your claim online DRM is the single worst thing to happen to PC gaming. Everyone that uses steam will wholly disagree with you & claim that steam which is a DRM/platform saved PC gaming. No one will accept the truth that *Steam is arguably the second worst thing to happen to PC gaming* By Monopolizing pc gaming with steam being the only way to get an absolutely high amount of certain PC games. Next Steam has been around for 20 years now, & I'm sure there a plenty of games that no longer work with Steam because they've already stopped supporting older OS's Not mention they have habit of removing/delisting/editing games. They will take away games & then give you the crappy updated buggy RE-mastered version that you didn't ask for nor did you probably want in the first place. It is nothing more than bribe to keep you happy after they've taken away what you owned in the first place.

[@hardwire666too]

Yeah. As someone else said would love to add my name but I don't own The Crew 2, however as this video points out this problem reaches far beyond just that game. Wish there were more that I could do other than just tweet a link of this video to the FTC.

[@g0nz0li0]

Kudos for boosting Ross' message. Great to see the community come together. In my country, Ross and his network have organised a petition for those who didn't buy The Crew 2 and can't directly dispute the closure of the game. So highly encourage everyone to check the site out and see if there's anything they can do at all, no matter how small.

[@BouncingZeus]

I will always say it. If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft or wrong.

[@0_1_2]

The federal Bureau of investigation would like to know your location

[@PhobosTK]

piracy can't be theft by definition

[@matthewrease2376]

Came here to say this. You literally haven't stolen anything. ​@@PhobosTK

[@EpicTyphlosionTV]

Only issue is you can be thrown in jail for doing so. Ross is trying to change that so nobody has to rely on piracy.

[@daskampffredchen]

It isnt even by law. It is only Copyright infringement

[@Mrqwerty2109]

"Don't pirate our games!" "Okay then let us play it" "No!"

[@Kyle_Riel]

Remember all those PC Master Race memes now lmao later suckaaa, you guys were played by your own egos. My offline PS2 and PS3 games will always rock!

[@overclocker3164]

Nintendo is like that

[@wakcedout]

@@Kyle_Rielhoists the skull and crossbones flag. We can still pirate the old games to keep them alive. Running them on our new hardware. Eventually your consoles will become irreparable.

[@AbsentQuack]

@@Kyle_Rielemulator goes brrr

[@AkaSora96]

​​@@Kyle_Riel Yeah emulating PS2 and PS3 games in 4k on my PC sure is tough 😢

[@SomeMorganSomewhere]

The irony of the "official patches" released by some game studios to bypass DRM is that a lot of them weren't even produced by the studio, they just took cracks from the warez community and slapped an "official" label on it...

[@JukoYT]

Like how rockstar did that for manhunt 2, but they tripped their own copy protection, which causes the game to activste a bunch of troll anty piracy mesures. This makes the official still for sale Steam copy unplayable, unless you install a proper crack

[@Twiddle_things]

​@@JukoYT anty is spelled anti and mesure is spelled measures :] English is hard as hell but I hope this helps!

[@tristanraine]

​@@JukoYTit's actually just the first manhunt game, and the crack worked originally, same with Max Payne 3, but they changed it after they were caught, and didn't fix Manhunt after.

[@JukoYT]

@@tristanraine oh

[@ayyyyph2797]

​@@tristanrainewoof, perchance is the original bootlegged anti-DRM executable for MP3 still around?

[@NeverlandSystemZor]

DRM is nothing more than "you're a pirate and criminal first, a customer second" thinking by companies.

[@deathbunny3048]

Ironically turning people into pirates through this commercial ABUSE.... I DON'T BUY GAME ANYMORE, I OWN GAMES.

[@fearlesswee5036]

Exactly, it'd be like walking into a store, and they have armed guards pointing rifles to your head every step you took, with security cameras everywhere, and then they give you a full-cavity search before you leave to make sure you didn't steal anything. And then the company wonders why people don't come back to their store, and just buy their groceries somewhere else.

[@HusbandOfManyWives1776]

What does DRM really do to the game?

[@deathbunny3048]

@@HusbandOfManyWives1776 Mainly causes performance issues that shouldn't be there, I'm having the issue that ever since Rockstar started using their own launcher and social club DRM platform, I can no longer play GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2 and so on, cuz the platform didn't link to my steam account correctly, the only way to play these games now is either BUY THEM AGAIN ON THEIR OWN STORE FRONT (70 BUCKS A PIECE) or PIRATE THEM, I chose to PIRATE THEM, cuz support just ignores me and tells me they can't do anything about it. That's what DRM can do to a game.

[@fearlesswee5036]

@@HusbandOfManyWives1776 -Affects game performance negatively -Requires online authentication even for singleplayer games; if you watched the video you can see cases where this rendered copies of games unplayable after the servers shut down, the entire point of said video. -Can present a major security risk, depending on how the DRM works. (If it's kernel-level, like Denuvo, this can SERIOUSLY mess your system up if Denuvo ever has a security breach. There are also cases in the past of shoddy early 2000's DRM bricking systems.) -Some DRM can arbitrarily limit how many times you can install a game. Imagine you move systems, or uninstall the game for room, and reinstall it later, only to find it denies you entry because "Install limit reached!" The most offensive part of this is pirates don't deal with any of this; only legitimate paying customers do. In my example, it'd be like the store owner getting angry people are going to the store across the street, and just increases the armed guards and cavity searches in his own store as if it affects those people whatsoever; it only negatively affects the people walking into his store and does literally nothing to the people across the street.

[@denvera1g1]

If Piracy is theft Then blocking access to games you've purchased should be equally criminal.

[@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket]

Piracy is unauthorized duplication of a copy written product. The law dates back to the 70's a long while before the internet became a thing and even longer before it became plausible to share music or videos. It was written to deal with bootleg VHS makers selling unauthorized copies for a profit often without the consumer even knowing. It's not illegal to download something from what I understand but I'm no lawyer and this isn't advise lol. It is illegal to upload, it's a tort to download though so you can be sued. The thing is most companies that try get so much backlash it just isn't worth it for them. Not to mention it can be difficult with VPN's and blocklists (cough or so I'm told). However SELLING something then bait and switching the sale for a lease is in my opinion wrongful enrichment which is also a tort. We should be allowed to class action compel them to release a patch once they shut off the DRM. Because by shutting off the DRM they are admitting to withdrawing their commercial stake anyway. They should be required to pay attorney fee's and a fee for the time we spend deprived of the goods we purchased. A firm slap on the wrist plus force them to make it right. It's not like you can't pirate literally every video game within a year. Forcing customers to use such tools to regain access should be some sort of government action by the attorney generals or FTC IDK.

[@denvera1g1]

@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket it is illegal to download On the subject of VHS tapes, it is not illegal to record a broadcast TV show or movie, its not even illegal to share it this is called time shifting, it is however illegal to mail it to someone, re-broadcast it, or make a profit from the recorded media in any way, weather it be through trading the media itself, or charging admission (this would also be illegal for live broadcast) The re-broadcast and mail portions are the two parts of the court case that would apply to dowload and upload. Now what is not technically illegal, but breaking contract law, is recording something from a cable, satellite, or streaming provider, because as part of your usage agreement there will be a section covering recordings, time shifting, and format shifting, Generally only allowed on authorized devices if at all. Also of note, if you need to break encryption, even for over the air broadcast, that IS illegal and why everyone should lobby hard against ATSC 3.0

[@Vanpotheosis]

This is literally what NFTs were invented for. Then these monkey idiots had to completely corrupt the plan. Now we're delayed, possibly forever, from accessing this incredible solution. I hate it.

[@JohnL_S17]

Fight fire with fire

[@thesenamesaretaken]

Going to need to work on that argument tbh. Depriving somebody of something they own is theft. Piracy is never theft. If you circumvent copy protection in order to access something you paid for then that's literally the opposite of theft.

[@eileennono5039]

Back in the day, I worked at a music store in the era when pirated MP3 downloading was rampant but iTunes and streaming platforms like Spotify didn't exist. We'd have customers come in all the time saying the CDs they bought didn't work. Turns out the DRM on the CDs (that pirates easily sidestepped) prevented people from using them on certain players, mostly commonly car based ones. The only people DRM actually punished were the people who paid real money for their physical product.

[@BoxiesAU]

Yep, I was a 14 year old and realised I could copy the cds and sell them to friends at school. I'd buy the DRM cd at retail, copy it, and take it back saying it didn't work in my cd player.

[@CanonessEllinor]

I remember I had this one damn CD that couldn’t be played on my discman because of DRM. I think it was Shakira.

[@squ1r7y]

In 1998 I bought a diamond Rio pmp. It was the size of a deck of cards, had 16mb of storage, and connected to the computer with a 16 pin serial port I was riding on the bus and some guy tapped my knee getting my attention. He asks, what are you listening on? I said it's an mp3 player. He responds wtf is a mp3 It cost me $300 canadian and some kid in my high school bricked it after 2 weeks. It took 50mins to fill the 16mb storage

[@XenithShadow]

@@BoxiesAU You did the actually illegal piracy that could net you $250000 fine. While using pirated software makes companys annoyed they struggle to actually convict on that. Suing for breaching copy protection and selling pirated software is alot easier and more lucrative. Im pretty sure there the case of some kid in australia getting bankrupted by nintendo for leaking the rom of a game or something.

[@hufficag]

@@squ1r7y I was 14 and bought a Casio Cassiopeia, listening to MP3s, it could play Doom, I typed my essays on it. I told a girl at school I'll email you an MP3 and she said I don't have email and what's MP3

[@daskampffredchen]

I think it should be a requirement to make the Server Tools accessible once the official server service gets shut down

[@daynester]

That would satisfy what many of the complaints.

[@YTKeepsDeletingAllMyComments]

Personally I hate the move from player owned servers to matchmaking. Like my friend a few years ago installed Battlefield 1942 and while it didn't have a lot of players or servers you were still able to find a game. Plus with dedicated Servers it was always nice finding one where you had a good connection, with cool people on it, making friends and becoming a regular. The move to matchmaking has just made people more toxic, they don't need to worry about an admin kicking or banning them.

[@TRDiscordian]

@@YTKeepsDeletingAllMyComments100%, Ive never liked matchmaking. Loved finding a few servers with good vibes and frequenting them.

[@YTKeepsDeletingAllMyComments]

@@TRDiscordian Yeah. I tried to go back to Team Fortress 2 and it just wasn't the same. I only played on a custom map server that had friendly fire enabled (sounds hectic but it helped improve my aim so much). We also had certain nights where we would all go sniper and have to take a shot if you got a headshot. I miss it, miss finding a cool server and becoming a regular on it.

[@mayflowwy]

@@YTKeepsDeletingAllMyComments heyyy my dad still plays battlefield 1942 regularly!!

[@Volkaer]

GTA4 is another one. Not only are the activation servers no longer working, they changed their activation methods and servers something like 3 times during the early days of the game's lifetime. So yeah, piracy saved me from getting outright scammed when my original in-the-box software doesn't work.

[@fatfurie]

this is a reason i started rebuying xbox 360 games again. i wanted to go back and play/beat some old games and it was easier and cheaper to buy games like dark souls or gta on the 360 than get "remasters"

[@GTAbestplayer123]

But at least on Steam, they patched out the online a ctiv ation check, but you need to in sta ll rockstar's own lousy launcher for GTA 4 to work so people just ended up downgrading their copy of GTA 4 back to the original disc version with a you know what installed. 😂

[@dantepizza6310]

​@@fatfurieRPCS3 and Xenia both work pretty damn well at the momwnt

[@MIKEY777_]

Hot coffee?​@@GTAbestplayer123

[@The-Singularity-X01]

@@fatfurie You could easily do it free if you just used an emulator. Only problem is for games 'that' old, torrents sometimes just don't work because nobody is acting as a seeder.

[@Citadel_Of_My_Thoughts]

Piracy is preservation

[@LocalAitch]

Always has been

[@rommix0]

@@LocalAitch (picture of that astronaut pointing the gun at the other astronaut. the meme of 2020)

[@ryanyoder7573]

Nope

[@rommix0]

@@ryanyoder7573 What do ya mean "Nope?" Would you care to write a more intelligent comment on why?

[@64fanatic]

Yeah but we can't pirate always online game servers if there's never a leak or any intention of giving the public the files.

[@Space_Reptile]

recently i asked on the steam subreddit about how to make games like half life 2 work on a windows XP mashine now that the support has been dropped my post was promtly removed and i was swiftly banned from the subreddit for "promoting piracy" merely for asking if there is a way to make these games work on the hardware that they came out on Edit: please stop telling me about Linux, you are missing the point so hard it hurts my brain

[@kevinerbs2778]

I think G.O.G frequently does this for some games. They usually make them playable on new OS's too.

[@olnnn]

It is at least doable for HL2 and other source engine games, more of a worry for less popular and newer stuff on steam that may end up getting orphaned without the same workarounds and continued support

[@belstar1128]

its a reddit moment they just assume things about you

[@moth.monster]

That's just Reddit moderators

[@LagrangePoint0]

They probably assumed you voted for Trump.

[@LJW1912]

"You'll own nothing, and you'll like it" "No, I don't think I will"

[@-my4skinwastakeninasickjew426]

We are not Goyim. We are humans that deserve respect.

[@JS-bf9dw]

same here, sir, same here

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

They just changed it to "You'll own nothing".

[@Survivalist-of-war]

I hear this term thrown around all the time but do you kniw who said this?

[@thestig007]

You beat me to it lol.

[@kaba9926]

Newly accounced Call of Duty requires a permanent connection in order to "Stream textures". Game size oon the drive : 320Gb...

[@MatterMadeMoot]

Activision, sorry Activision -Blizzard, will never get my money again.

[@rockomcdagger6364]

I for the life of me could never understand why people still buy CoD games.

[@Staravora]

They've gone full clown mode with that series The games are just temporary shopping malls that feature gameplay as a bonus

[@Bhodisattiva]

So you can’t play offline?

[@qounqer]

Been down hill since world at war……..

[@Accursed_Farms]

Thanks a bunch for the mention! For the record, everything we're doing would cover any DRM that requires internet access also. It wouldn't end DRM in itself, but make it so it would be a legal liability to the company if it needing to dial out made the game unplayable when support ended. The advantage of focusing on international consumer law is the reasons WHY companies make your game stop working don't actually matter much, just that they did it to titles you bought from them. The more attention this gets, this better!

[@gkan1042]

You're doing good work mate. First it's games then this week extend to computer software and who knows where it'll end? Maybe they'll shut down your car or household appliances after 10 years. Your rights don't disappear overnight, they're usually eroded away over time...

[@Omenhachi]

Respect for what you're doing

[@newyorktechworld6492]

The Crew Motorfest is currently getting review bombed on steam for requiring an anti consumer always online internet connection 😂 Lol. People are tired of this.

[@siralexander3359]

hi ross

[@unholy7324]

Well allow me to drive down this rabbit hole

[@affsteak3530]

Only 11% of films from the Silent Era survive intact. They were stored on a physically volatile media and their artistic significance was unknown. A hundred years later, with the advantage of historical hindsight and digital storage, its estimated that only 13% of all videogames are playable without resorting to piracy. This number will only shrink with dying mobile games and games only hosted on official servers. Game. Piracy. Is. Art. Preservation.

[@iecasper]

And after industry leaders keep pushing to kill off x86 architecture it will be worse after mainstream desktops becomes ARM.

[@last8exile]

@@iecasper But you can run x86 apps and whole OSes on ARM. Apple Silicon (M series) also support that.

[@iecasper]

@@last8exile through emulation. And most classic games suck in emulation.

[@TheUmbraSol]

There's even private servers kept up by dedicated fans for some multiplayer games. Games should really be open source after a certain time.

[@iecasper]

@@TheUmbraSol maybe a published Game should become public after 20 years.

[@LocalAitch]

This is the end result when you let copyright holders dictate how protected works are preserved. I consider it *literal theft* in a way that copyright infringement can never be. It's theft from the eventual public domain that all works are supposed to enter.

[@Falsechicken]

Yeah. I refuse to play by their rules to be able to participate in our own damn culture. Everything is derivative. Everyone's ideas are tacked onto a previous idea someone else had. It's like they are using a ladder made of everyone else's cultural contributions then pull it up behind them.

[@piercebros]

lmao

[@jarlsparkley]

Anyone who wants a copyright to commercialize a work that’s based on ideas from the public domain should in my opinion have to pay a licensing fee to the public for as long as they want to keep the privilege.

[@massgrave8x]

@@piercebros riveting and thought-provoking response bro

[@supereldinho]

And the most deliciously ironic part? By committing literal theft, as you so adequately put it, these corporations are doing the very thing they accuse the pirates of doing. This is literally scorched earth levels of pettiness.

[@greevar]

Piracy is morally justified. You paid for it. You're owed what you paid for.

[@dwinges]

Adding DRM to their games is costing these companies money because they must buy DRM software. Why are they even adding that to their games?

[@orzeleo]

@@dwinges because its secure the game for first months after release.

[@templeofdelusion]

You paid for garbage, you get garbage.

[@you_tube6733]

i pirate games im never gona buy

[@NicEeEe843]

Wait but I literally downloaded a Nintendo game for free, how did I ever pay for it? I never paid for Mario and the thousand year door, I could have bought the remaster but I stole it so Nintendo clearly lost money… how was what I did justified? 😂

[@ThatOneFriendoneoneseven]

IMO, every online game that shuts down should take the Club Penguin Island route. Not only did they release an offline mode, they also included a debug mode, that encourages the users to find a way to bring back the game via private servers

[@cadjebushey6524]

Unless the Goddamn company gets fussy and demands the fan project shutdown . 😤

[@ThatOneFriendoneoneseven]

@@cadjebushey6524 OG CPPS dont get shut down as much, and a CPI CPPS never got shut down by disney afaik

[@camwha5904]

Need something like that for webkniz before they shut down too

[@ThatOneFriendoneoneseven]

@@camwha5904 yeah, but its probably a good idea for the community to make their own backups of the games files, because while Club Penguin Island got an offline mode, OG CP wasn’t so lucky and is still around thanks to fan back ups

[@scaper12123]

Won't happen in this corporate age, what with publishers with copyright ownership willing to kill or sit on beloved IPs forever just so we'll be forced to consume the next product.

[@superiorone2061]

This is why I love buying older PC games on GOG as they remove DRM on majority of titles available & even allows you to download offline installers for the games you purchased through GOG.

[@kylespevak6781]

GOG is the GOAT

[@superiorone2061]

@kylespevak6781 Sometimes, their sales can be even better than the ones Steam has!

[@classicpctinker5070]

GOG is cool but their service only supports modern computers. It's a crapshoot if any updates they may have had to apply to fix things for modern computers don't break it on computers the game was originally targeting. Similarly, this ever shifting support puts the XP/ Vista/ Win7 computers I purchased my early GOG games on in a precarious position. I'm starting to wish I had kept multiple releases of my GOG installers instead of updating them over time. Only the latest installers are available for download. :(

[@selfhelp9685]

GOG's business model definitely highlights the full potential of digital ownership. Being able to update your game and put it right back onto external storage. So it doesn't matter much if the game was released in a broken state. The games are truly repairable.

[@SolDizZo]

I'm not sure if it was my bank or GOG but years ago when I tried GOG the transaction failed when absolutely nothing should have been amiss and I've just never looked back. Is GOG really worth my wallet?

[@EdwinSteiner]

It would be great if similar to books, where a publisher has to send copies of the book to the Library of Congress, publishers of software had to put a copy of each release without DRM into a public library archive that is opened to the public after, say, 20 or 30 years. That wouldn't be a full solution to digital decay but it would prevent a whole section of history from being effectively deleted.

[@daskampffredchen]

Or force them to release a patch and to release their server software if it is a Multiplayer game

[@samsulummasamsulumma6898]

I know that piracy is wrong, but piracy is the reason why hundreds of video games have been preserved over the years. Ironic, isn't it?

[@LucasCunhaRocha]

They should all do what Carmack did with Doom and Quake and release the source code for the engines of games that became "old tech", and also design games that are not dependent on some service from the publisher. You can still play the quake3 multiplayer on the dreamcast to this day because Carmack knew how to futureproof the game.

[@EdwinSteiner]

I think we agree on what they *should* do but we cannot expect all publishers to do that. Our legislators need to codify a reasonable minimum of what software publishers *must* do.

[@WilliamHostman]

Unfortunately, Software is deemed copyright covered, not patent protected, and it's author's life+20 to some minumum years at present in the US, where much of the software is copyrighted. We're now facing the consequences of capitalism + software as copyright. And even if the copyright law changed today, nothing already copyrighted would be affected.

[@zinxderobo]

This was the first presentation of yours I've watched. Very nice work friend! It's obvious that you're one of the good ones who truly care. Thanks!

[@ogre706]

The future of gaming looks dark but the past has never looked brighter. You are exactly right when you mentioned that there is more than a lifetime's worth of classic games we can spend our time on.

[@persona83]

Exactly my thought. It's like cinema: you can simply stop watching new movies and have a lifetime of enjoyment watching amazing past films, specially 90s ones.

[@jaykelley103]

​@@persona83just watched Total Recall(1990) the other day. It was a fucking masterpiece. There really is a treasure trove of dope old school stuff

[@persona83]

@@jaykelley103 Cool! Keep diggin' you'll find really great stuff.

[@celeridad6972]

I think the same but the golden age to me is 2000-2015 games and movies are just hard to get used to with outdated graphics and visual quality.

[@christaylor86]

Last modern game I played was Elden Ring. Other than that, yeah, it's all been past releases. The future of gaming doesn't interest nor worry me at all.

[@bruce_just_]

“Don’t ask questions. Just consume product and then get excited about next product” Jay Bauman Red Letter Media

[@pudznerath6532]

Your entire identity is based on consuming this specific product tho, its just the distribution method is whats in scrutiny.

[@bruce_just_]

@@pudznerath6532 the distribution method being scrutinised doesn’t exist in isolation though? Customers *are* still willing to pay, despite the gotchas and fine print details about withdrawal of service in the future. RLM are not wrong in this context.

[@Abumustard6364]

@@pudznerath6532 Damn you don't get it

[@StereoBucket]

My pet peeve surrounding discussions with all the bad things around gaming is the people who plug their ears and repeat "I'm having fun though!" and "let people have fun!". Seen a few of those weird individuals show up to defend blizzard after OW1 was killed off and OW2 was pushed with terrible microtransactions and battlepasses. Like woah alright, go have your short-term fun at the expense of everything and let us talk about how horrible the publishers are. I'll never understand it. I guess maybe they feel as if pushback against shitty practices will somehow ruin their fun, which just makes zero fucking sense.

[@blad...]

@@StereoBucket Those are the same people who don't care about throwing away money, and these often overlap with people who don't pay for stuff AKA teenagers who live with their parents still.

[@jacewarbeck9684]

Modern gaming is a sham - but do not lose hope. We have more games behind us than we could play in a hundred lifetimes.

[@rps215]

In a tech seminar on a local university here in Indonesia, a professor said that there are exabytes worth of entertainment content today that you will not be able to consume them all even if you can stay awake for 100 years non-stop. That was 5 or 6 years ago.

[@JohnsonTheReal]

@@rps215forgets to mention most of them are garbage

[@SqualidsargeStudios]

Let’s be fair here, companies themselves always violate their own terms of service. So why should’t the consumer do the exact same, publishers treat customers like trash. Then we are allowed to do the exact same.

[@phunkym8]

and again the only ones not suffering from all this crap are pirates.

[@mjc0961]

Just like the xkcd comic "Steal This Comic", except replace music with video games.

[@64fanatic]

I don't think we have any solution for pirating always online stuff like The Crew.

[@TheBackyardChemist]

@@64fanatic WoW private servers are a thing so technically it would be possible, just not feasible

[@Toleich]

@@TheBackyardChemist Or desirable. Some games just aren't worth the effort.

[@testytesteberger6397]

You mean intelligent people?

[@norielgames4765]

Whenever it reaches this point, piracy becomes saving and rescuing.

[@rahulshah1408]

It’s not piracy if it is abandoned. Totally agree with you.

[@Odinsday]

If a company goes out of it's way to prevent you playing a game that you PAID FOR with YOUR money, it is your moral obligation to preserve it

[@norielgames4765]

@@Odinsday this is my case with many games by FX Interactive such as the entire Imperivm Anthology and the Drakensang games. I paid hard money for those games and now their shop and the entire company is out. How can I play my games if it isn't by pirating them? I refuse to just buy them a second time from someone who just happens to have a digital copy.

[@theviniso]

So much of videogame history would be lost already if it weren't for piracy. It's not only justified in many cases, it's also crucial for media preservation.

[@norielgames4765]

@@theviniso it's not just history because unlike with history, because unlike with history, you can still live these. Yesterday I played RtCW and I had a blast. You can't just say hi to Caesar

[@EpicTyphlosionTV]

"Torture for Windows Live" is a much better name

[@JJop123]

GFWL still works fine. Use it all the time for my achievement hunting. The service wasn't that bad, the pc community just likes to complain way too much

[@belstar1128]

windows live more like George Orwell live

[@JadeLockpicker]

oh gods. I remember GfWL. Fallout 3 was buggy, true. But finding out a good half of it's performance issues was GfWL's achievement system still makes me sigh and laugh. ANd cry.

[@Reploid-dj9jc]

@@JJop123 ok , try to play Dirt 2 , try to play Need for speed Pro street or literally in the video Fable 3 . and there are many other games broken cause of it .

[@dabigbadwolf5081]

​@@JJop123well, try and play the gfwl version of GTA4 then.

[@corriedotdev]

As a developer. I'm actually struggling archiving my older released titles to android or apple. Steam DRM has been super convenient allowing me to build a DRM free build at the same time. As for my older android games which are some of the best I've ever made, they are no longer supported by android >29. Actually, Google removes them all officially tomorrow due to changes in their requirements nearly a decade after the games original releases. They are offline games. Tragic. Having to rebuild the games honestly to keep them alive. Will take years as prioritise my next VR release. Which leads me to the concern of Quest VR. How in the heck is that gonna be, I bet they will play the same thing as Google play did.

[@countzero1136]

I want single player, offline games with no DRM and no online activation. Miss out any one of these and it's a deal breaker. I have more than enough old games that still work to entertain me for the rest of my life

[@Kenionatus]

GOG also sells DRM free games afaik.

[@xostler]

This.

[@CoalCoalJames]

GOG + an good quality external hard drive/s / burnt Blu-ray's ect~ to provide redundancy

[@APunishedManNamed2]

@@CoalCoalJames why would you want to play on intentionally limited consoles? A PC does it all & piracy on modern consoles is non-existant

[@chrish4439]

​​@@APunishedManNamed2GOG is a site to buy PC games and piracy on modern consoles 100% exists. You just have to mod the console, the exact same way you always had to in order to play pirated games. Do a two second google search before spouting about shit you know literally nothing about lmaooo

[@drwhothehell]

Lost Planet 2 was “de-listed” (page still exists but can’t be purchased) from Steam years ago because of GFWL, and Capcom just outright abandoned it. While it’s still perfectly playable on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One (and probably PlayStation), it’s been unplayable for years on PC. They claim they’ll keep us informed about their investigation about GFWL causing issues, but instead they left us in the dark and abandoned it. Such a shame…

[@edstar83]

Scene groups released cracks for that game.

[@comradecommissar1945]

@@edstar83 did any of them ever fix the game not running on 6 and 8 core cpu's?

[@ImGonnaFudgeThatFish]

This is not entirely correct. It is still possible to install and play Lost Planet 2 if you already own it on steam. .. HOWEVER... it is extremely fucky trying to install it and then play it if you're new to this. You have to manage installing GFWL on 2024, then make sure you have less than 9 physical cores active on your PC (yup, disable in bios!) Or it simply won't launch. And then when the game starts, you need to have already created a Microsoft account to sign into the gfwl window because you can't create a gfwl account through the game anymore. THEN you have to wait several minutes for it to update because the progress bar is broken and will not display. Then you have to restart the game 2 or 3 times for the patches to download and install. FINALLY you can get into the game and saving will work, however if your Xbox account has ever changed its username from the original one you've had, you can no longer have working private lobby invites! Fantastic.

[@Primus1243]

I still got it working. There is an actual patch you find in pcgamingwiki, where you just drop in a single file and it works. As for GFWL, Microsoft went about it an interesting way. If you still have the game in your library and run it, it needs the service. However, Microsoft turned the 'DRM' system into more of a peer to peer system. So instead of servers like it did back then and instead of relying on Steam servers or Steamworks, it uses peer to peer connection. So whoever is the host is the server. There are literally guides on how to get set up, using Microsoft's official downloads of the program. Their literal last download of the program is the peer to peer version. They kept a server alive just for authentication reasons, but that's it and they are Microsoft. As long as Windows exist, that server exists. It contains all the GFWL games that needs keys. It would even take repeat keys as I installed Lost Planet 2 many times and used the same key that Steam gave me. So yes, if you bought Lost Planet 2 on steam before they took it off buying it, you are lucky in that regard and I still enjoy playing it and it's nutso story that I have a guilty pleasure enjoying.

[@Primus1243]

Oh, and to set up GFWL, download, run, sign in once, once you are at the 'empty' library page, exit, run game, sign into game with your xbox account or Microsoft account, enter key, authenticate, play.

[@hamoodhabibi8254]

Without piracy, i would literally only have experienced %10 of the games I've ever played either due to scarcity, DRM, or region locking. Ive never understood why people have such moral qualms about pirating games that have not been in circulation for 10+ years, and publishers knowingly remove without giving a us legal way to experience them. Regular people “pirating” games and making them available to the public again have done more for preservation than companies ever can or will. Shout out to magipack games and my abandonware ;)

[@Sentralkontrol]

I used to pirate games aggressively as a kid because we were poor. Years later, I’ve gone back and bought copies of games at full retail directly from the developers to make up for it. Piracy isn’t an issue of people wanting to steal, but being unable to obtain the game legitimately

[@relo999]

@@Sentralkontrol The big issue is that loads of people do want to steal or simply think "yea, I can use my money elsewhere if I get a pirated copy". Quite a lot of games see a noticeable drop in sales when a pirated copy is released, even if it's a poor scene release. And the same happens with pre-orders when leaked copies get leaked, the drop and a notable number are cancelled. I think the thought mistake a lot of "ludophiles" make is that the average consumer is like themselves, most of them aren't. The average consumers buys a shit load of microtransaction stuff, a lot of "ludophiles" don't. Same with piracy, the "ludophiles" often has no issue with purchasing a copy (though even there you get into murky "what ifs" but the average consumer doesn't. And are they buying all games they pirated? Probably not. Piracy was famously a giant issue on the DS for that reason, for the average consumer the options where "buy game for 40" or "buy R4 with SD card for 40 and download a bunch of games". And one option has a significantly higher bang for your buck. Same with music, do you think that every kid with a 500MB MP3 player full of music fresh from Limewire in the mid 2000's bought all the music they regularly listened to? Realistically speaking, unless they became some audiophile, they more than likely never did. (more than likely they just ended up buying a subscription to spotify, at the cost of around 2 songs in the mid 2000's (1 song if you adjust for inflation) a month while in the modern era music piracy is significantly harder for the average consumer)

[@Zontar82]

Craptendo has its ass so strict about playing 30+ years games on emulators that you would need a crowbar to pry open that ass

[@Zontar82]

@@Sentralkontrol i used to do the same, now that i am a grown up and i have a job, i can afford to buy a game once in a while, but if the game in question is only single player and yet requires me to be online all the time, and everything unlockable is already on disc but requires me to pay, then to the high seas it will be

[@thelakeman2538]

​@@relo999but the other consideration is whether they'd have bought that piece of software to begin with. I'm sure there are lost sales but assuming every pirate was even a potential sale to begin with is a big assumption, some were and some weren't, estimating potential losses due to piracy is very murky territory. Though as far as lost sales are considered even publishers are only interested in preventing piracy in the launch window and in the weeks or months following it, more or less that financial quarter and at best that financial year, at least that's how companies like denuvo originally marketed themselves (first 100 days or whatever), I doubt removing the copy protection after that would impact their sales that much. It'd be great if there were some studies looking into drm free releases (gog release) and whether it increases piracy vs just having a drm riddled release.

[@implozia1360]

Thank you for this video! As a game dev that also into retro gaming on the Nintendo DS and 3DS, who grew up on flash games that no longer exist or barely do on Flashpoint, this is a video many need to hear! Thank you for your service, sir!

[@brnrds]

"Breaks social contract, acts indignant when folks go pirate", is indeed the Propellerheads/Reason labs way.

[@JohnDoe-zx9ul]

"violates TOS, wonders why they're being sued" big brains on you, my guy.

[@freshdoug]

AAA executive: "You're still playing old stuff? You're not playing this brand new thing we just made?"

[@fireworkstarter]

You should try making fun games again then i will give it a shot

[@pianoman7753]

​@@fireworkstarterexactly, Im playing diablo 2 classic, im using my wii u to play virtual console games, AND ive still got all my old hardware, snes to wii. Ps1-ps2, xbox, xbox 360. The last of the genuine greats.

[@rps215]

That sounds funny but also a serious issue. Another guy made a video on that, forgot who that was, as in why a publisher wants you to stop playing Shooterman 2 and move on to Shooterman 3.

[@elijahhernandez906]

Man, I hate it when "they" scrutinize the old stuff just because it boosts thier ego. I remember doing the same thing with my folks old games, untill I swallowed my pride. Now my favorite classic game of all time is Dig-Dug. I still have Battlefield 1942, Iron Maiden Ed hunter, & Star Wars Battlefront (SWB for both pc & ps2). Hell, I remember my mom telling me " if it weren't for X, Y wouldn't exists. ( replace the letters with any "old vs new" cliche & you get the idea.

[@webbopwork6054]

@@fireworkstarter and not charge 60+ € not including the microtransactions, or the countless subscription services.

[@piratebear3126]

One of the first KZbin videos I watched was LGR’s review of Darkspore, a single-player ARPG spin-off of Spore. Since it’s was EA, they structured it like an MMO, so it was never “patched” by fans and I never got to play it because I didn’t have Internet until it was already offline. There’s a reason teenagers are actively moving towards retro games. I do want to shout out Cyan Worlds, the guys who made Myst. They had an MMO-puzzle game called Uru Online in the 2000s, and after they had to take it offline they open sourced the servers and game for anyone to run their own servers. Incredibly cool of a developer to do, and anyone can still spin up an instance and play Uru Online today, along with making new content.

[@doltBmB]

the game looked shit but the art style and soundtrack was amazing, would be worth playing again just for that.

[@JosephDavies]

Minor correction: Cyan Worlds has never open-sourced the server (and due to licensing, likely never will). They did open-source the client, but the servers are all written by us fans, and were made by reverse-engineering the protocol before the open-sourced client was even released. Cyan runs an official server themselves, kept running by fan donations, and the client running on that server is now based on the Open Source client with improvements and new content submitted by fans. There are also numerous fan servers as well. It is a great example of a company not letting the game die after their publisher pulled the plug on it.

[@LoremIpsum1919]

"teenagers are actively moving towards retro games." This is false.

[@StillthatguyJake]

This is so glaringly true and frustrating. I actually found an old box just yesterday full of old pc games. I tried every single one on an old laptop an old pc and not a single one worked for the exact reasons you pointed out. I remember being frustrated back then because I didn't have reliable internet so it sucked to try to play games tied to servers (especially frustrating with single player titles)...and then just as internet became more prevalent, the servers shut down or game support stopped. And you're right. I'm sitting here staring at my steam library...and the number of titles that are already "dead" is surprising. I think my PC knew I needed to see your video today. lol Thanks for always making awesome content!

[@CJinMono]

The issues raised in the video aren't exclusive to games, but software as a whole. I appreciate efforts to raise awareness on these issues.

[@JohnDoe-zx9ul]

here's the solution: stop living in the past.

[@gabsnandes7818]

​@JohnDoe-zx9ul you will own nothing and you will be happy

[@JohnDoe-zx9ul]

@@gabsnandes7818 it's better that way

[@CJinMono]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul You're either a corporate troll or incredibly naive

[@angelsballad9715]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul Unlike most commenters, I actually agree with you to some extent. The examples this guy provides rely on him holding onto some heavily outdated software, and in some cases being completely isolated with no internet access. It's simply ridiculous at this point in time of the world to expect companies to give any care towards someone who can't even get internet access. If you are in a place totally locked off from the internet, you probably don't even make enough to consider buying a PC or PS5, so why would any company or developer care to implement that stuff.

[@persona83]

I remember a time when you'd go to an arcade and your favorite game was simply replaced by a new one. Sometimes you'd never see the game again. That was something you had to live with it, until emulation brought them all back from the oblivion. And now we're reliving this nightmare.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Only a problem if you don't have a crack

[@BologneyT]

Interesting observation. 🧐 *nods*

[@1stCallipostle]

You speak of emulation as though it's some new phenomenon. It's been pretty common for oh say... 20 years now?

[@ThePainkiller9995]

lmao nightmare chill

[@DanceDanceNorth]

Arcades are quite fascinating. It's possible to switch between many different game versions on one cabinet. When an entire machine is removed, though, it's often very sad, because that game can't be played there any more.

[@TzOk]

It is not only a problem of computer games, but rather whole computer software.

[@computernerd8157]

One of the many reason I learned to code.

[@MahalGC]

It's also a problem of principles, "Why offer support for ancient software if I can just retool it later and resell it?"

[@BrentRWong242]

@@computernerd8157 I am seriously considering the same.

[@BrentRWong242]

Starting to feel a bit like James Halliday ...

[@Solitaire001]

I think one difference between the old days and modern days is that in the old days they didn't release unfinalized versions of software. Usually, they'd release a .0 version of the software and then a .1 version which fixes the discovered flaws in the .0 version and that was it. That's what they did with Wordperfect 5.1, and with Windows 98 Second Edition. Now, they release software that will regularly have to new patches applied (so you end up with Patch 1, Patch 2, and so on). No more one update and done like in the old days. I've read it described that we are all Beta Testers now.

[@veerkillerx]

I really appreciate you classic gamers using your oldschool hardware.

[@2Plus2isChicken2013]

Another example of this happened to me recently. I bought a copy of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS only to find out it wouldn't work. From what I read, it seems a system update made it where the game would no longer work on the system. I ended up returning the game to the store. 20-25 years ago we didn't have to worry about consoles and handhelds requiring system updates. All the games just work on those systems.

[@hereniho]

If you go back far enough to when DOS, Amiga, ZX Spectrum were relevant, it could and still can be a headache to get them to work at all. Modern games at least fixed those issues mostly. But hey, the oldies are all still playable, while it's a dice toss for modern games.

[@Bustermachine]

@@hereniho The issue is that today, the problem is invented rather than product of an industry in its infancy.

[@smalltime0]

In fairness to Games for Windows live, it barely worked when the authentication servers were online. So you're really getting the authentic experience.

[@frumsmcnoodles323]

GFWL was terrible, needing to be connected to Steam, or other services in addition to GFWL was not a user friendly experience. DOW2 is a good example... you had to be logged into both GFWL and Steam, in addition to having the disc inserted or it wouldn't launch. Pair that with Steam and GFWL not liking to communicate with one another directly, and needing to invite friends via GFW, but also needing them to accept on Steam etc.

[@cellulanus]

I almost forgot about product keys. I remember losing the product key for some of my games, but fortunately those didn't actually use a central server but rather just had a list of valid keys, so you could just use random keys from the internet. I also had a disk that was damaged and could no longer install, but would still validate the DRM. So I pirated a copy and just didn't download a crack.

[@yeskaitlyn8029]

haha i loved buying pre-owned sims expansion packs and finding product keys on yahoo answers 🙏🏽

[@JonnyCrackers]

Very well said! It's a shame how greedy publishers and developers have gotten over the last 15 or so years. The part about Gran Turismo 7 perfectly encapsulates everything I despise about modern AAA games. Gaming has become too corporate. Instead of the goal being to make something great that people will remember fondly(and revisit) for decades, it's about squeezing as much money out of people as possible with microtransactions and addictive dopamine loops that give constant "rewards" that should have just been available to you in the first place. They rely on the temporary nature of online only experiences, encouraging people to buy their games out of fear of missing out. So many games are dead already and many many more will be dead in only a few years time. It's predatory business.

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

Agreed. Not only should this be illegal, this should even be criminal. This is theft. This is fraud. And it's disgusting. So happy to see you put light on this issue that has bothered me for quite some time. And it's not just video games. It's software. It's hardware peripherals. It's happening to physical goods too, not just software. WE DON'T OWN ANYTHING ANYMORE, even after straight buying them.

[@adrianocs4]

They know it is theft, sony is refunding "The crew" whenever asked after ubsoft delisted the game, just to escape the legal backlash that is coming.

[@hi-friaudioman]

I agree 110% with everything you said. As a kid growing up in the late 90's/early 00's I've witnessed the sheer amount of greed in the games industry and witnessed the slow decline and death of gaming, but it's even worse, it's also music and movies/TV. Only difference is you can copy music/movies and TV, But without a risky, potentially malicious crack you cannot play or copy your games. And like you said as soon as those games went to online only they were running on borrowed time, with a guaranteed death sentence. Modern gaming is a disgrace. Not only do you lose your games and you don't get a box, manual, disc, etc.. but now games also release completely broken or unfinished with the promise of being better in the future... After you pay more money. That would've been inconceivable in the previous decades! No one would've bought the damn game if it came in a buggy, unfinished state. People would've returned it instantly or sued. In the previous decades buying a game meant you bought a fully-functional, fully playable, fully ownable game, that you could enjoy as long as you lived and it could even outlive you. Now some games are lucky to survive even a year! Insane to think about. We truly live in the generation of "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy" how dystopian and 1984 of us... And the bigger problem is that younger generations born into this can't be F*cked to care because they've been slowly taught to accept this and that it's normal. We don't know how good we had it, but we do know how absolutely warped and greedy the industry has become. It's truly heartbreaking to bear witness to.

[@Blackadder75]

you are right, except in the 1990s ms-dos and windows games were already buggy at launch very often. I have a bookcase full of old PC and Amiga magazines from those years where the reviewers complain about the unplayable state of tons of games. So you are bit too optimistic here. However, if you bought the game a few months later you would usually get a working version, as the publishers had to update it fast or risk not selling much , from bad reviews, these magazines were the only source of info for most gamers , before the internet

[@classicpctinker5070]

I'm sorry, I can't resist, but... Daggerfall. Good ol' Daggerfraud. True DOS gaming classic. Buggiest game I ever loved. First one I played with mountains of essential patches, and those were not practical to get without internet.

[@ichrismoku]

Well said man. I've felt this way for at least a decade. I'm literally stuck on 360 / ps3 / old PC games because I plain refuse to shovel my hard earned money into black holes like games as a service such as these. There's just no love from the developers any more, it's pure toxic greed and I'm done with it.

[@wumi2419]

Well, games degrading to online only subscription/microtransaction based service is a logical conclusion of making games for profit, as that is currently the "best" (highest ROI) way to monetize games. Also, I don't know how widespread it was, but you likely heard of a horror from 00s: starforce. Modern DRMs just can't compare, and to be frank, good riddance.

[@Olivia-W]

Support GOG. All GOG games are DRM free.

[@stevenduhaime1484]

Tech tangents really living up to the name on this one. You’re right, the way modern games and even games consoles become obsolete because they can’t phone home is crap.

[@crestofhonor2349]

As he said it's been an issue since the 2000s. One game I love, Dirt 2, is impossible to play outside of Piracy just because of Windows For Live

[@digital_17]

At this point pirates have better experiences than people that pay.

[@superniger4822]

Yes. Yes I do🫡

[@dylanherron3963]

RIP The Chronicles of Riddick. A single player AMAZING action stealth game with DRM servers shut down in 2015.

[@CuriousChronicles82275]

Yup I'm still playing it today and assault of dark athena on PC. This is GoG by the way.

[@Nomadmandude]

There is a crack. I'm replaying it recently.

[@ArtisChronicles]

Now I wish I had been able to play it. Sounds like my cup of tea

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@Nomadmandude Good news on that at least

[@SammEater]

You can still play it, mate. But you have to sail the seven seas for that, savvy?

[@alann346]

The fact is: of companies star again to sell physical products, they will have to launch it when it's ready, not 1 year before to grab some money and then proceed to keep updating the game until it's done.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

I, for one, would not mind going back to that world...

[@futuza]

They could just mail out patched versions of the physical products, though the idea of them actually doing that is pretty comical.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@futuza nah, what happened back in the early days of the web was that you just downloaded the patch from their website. If they wanted to sell physical copies today, the updater would be built into the game, like they already do with regular software. It would contact their server to check for updates and offer the player the option to install them.

[@Fransenn]

and since cd is pretty much obsolete today. there are usb sticks large enough for buying it physical.

[@DavidPereiraLima123]

Having fully set-up ready to go multiple period correct machines on dedicated space is so cool.

[@BrentRWong242]

Agreed.

[@theTF2sniper]

Pretty sure you would love my retro game room, got pretty much every popular console from 1977-2001 hooked up to a big widescreen CRT, few switches to flick and your ready to play whatever.

[@BrentRWong242]

@@theTF2sniper You're right. In the meantime, I will be at a local retro-gamer event on May 5th. Keep preserving the game culture!

[@JohnDoe-zx9ul]

waste of space, money and horrible for the environment.

[@theTF2sniper]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul thanks for sharing your opinion

[@djclassiccut4480]

As of this video, you’re now my favorite vintage computer KZbinr. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your video on digital media companies tampering with our games. It’s so frustrating not getting what we paid for, and your message really resonates with me. Keep up the great work rallying the community-together, we can make a difference

[@HonoluluBoy]

I just sent my report on The Crew to the fraud reporting website. Thank you for making this video and keeping us informed.

[@JohnDoe-zx9ul]

wrong. you agreed to their TOS. you have no case whatsoever. hold this L.

[@SpeakerWiggin49]

​@@JohnDoe-zx9ulIt's going to be in public domain eventually. What if it becomes an unusable work?

[@K31TH3R]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul At least in the US, no, that's not how the law works. In order for a TOS to be legally binding a company must be able to provide irrefutable evidence of a clear offer, a consideration, and an acceptance of terms. A TOS is not a standard presentation of a legally binding contract, so they are very refutable and easily challenged in court for a plethora of reasons. With the way the TOS is presented in most games from large studios, chances are better than not that it's not actually a legally enforceable agreement for either party. One example: Maybe when I launched that game, my display driver wasn't functioning correctly, and I could not read what was on the screen, and the button I thought said "Start" was actually a button that said "Agree". If that situation occurred, then that TOS cannot be a legally binding contract because the company could only demonstrate there was an offer and agreement to the terms, but they could not provide irrefutable evidence that a consideration was ever made by the end user. Ubisoft has most definitely opened up the possibility of a court case if they do not at the least offer a refund. If it can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that enough people purchased The Crew with the belief that they owned a copy of the game and could play it at anytime in the future, whatever TOS they haphazardly agreed to without reading is entirely irrelevant and not a legally binding contract.

[@bot-h2h]

​@@JohnDoe-zx9ulTOS doesn't means anything if it is illegal.

[@josephbin8580]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul i never agreed to their tos because i never bought it

[@zack5623]

well said. Gaming has always been the centermost aspect in my life. I live in a place far from a town in the middle of the mountains and my only internet options are dial-up and satellite. I tried satellite but not once ever got my computer to connect. I don't even get cell service at my house. I've been nearly completely ostracized from my favorite hobby. It takes a lot of time for me to take my desktop somewhere an hour away, to set it back up again, install games that I purchased, and set it back up at my house, only to be unable to play them because I need to connect to a server to boot up. Even after I launched the game where there was internet so it could read the keys, suddenly I can't anymore.

[@becker990]

I know you probably tried, but Starlink is amazing

[@netherworldfiend]

....Was it a struggle to watch this video? Genuine question

[@zack5623]

@@netherworldfiend I use my phone to watch KZbin when I'm in service.

[@zack5623]

@@netherworldfiend I use my phone to watch KZbin when I'm in service.

[@zack5623]

@user-vm7tw2ro2k Oh yeah, there's a lot more to do. I chose to live so far away for the quiet and nature. I like to fish and camp as well, but there's just something about games that attracted me more than movies.

[@reucrion]

I have photos of me finding a copy of the Sims Online being sold on a physical shelf, unsold, as of 2022. They finally removed it during renovations, or somehow sold it when I returned in 2023. the game died in 2008. I used to shop there all the time as a child for games, as it was the only place in the entire town that sold them there. I saw that copy of the game sitting there from 2005 till 2022, they also had a copy of Zoo Tycoon 2 there until around 2023,

[@hoodsims9965]

“The PC version of Fable 3 isn’t playable, at all!” Me: “Wanna bet?”

[@vojtechadame5860]

That's also why I buy games on GOG. No DRM is awesome, I can archive games as I want. Sadly, GOG library doesnJt contain all games.

[@blue_pingu]

I wish gog did something with its offline installers and made them easier to download. Having to download 20 4GB binary files to install cyberpunk is tedious. I think Galaxy can queue them but I use linux and thus have to use solutions not made by cdpr (Lutris allows me to queue and install offline installers)

[@jshowao]

GOG still tries to force you thru the launcher system, makes features such as multiplayer unplayable without it, and many of the games in GOGs library are, as the name implies, old games that can already be bought second hand. The offline versions are often stuck at versions that dont have updates to fix bugs either. They should just go back to the way things were. Release the physical game and online patches.

[@ChadVulpes]

@@jshowao You missed a huge point in the video. Games being physical changes nothing because they can still contain an online DRM. Also, for all its faults, GOG is still the best option we have and is still measurably better for game preservation on PC than any other storefront currently available.

[@jshowao]

@@ChadVulpes I didnt miss a huge point at all. That is pretty much what I said. What is the point of preserving a buggy, unpatched version? Yeah its better, but it suffers from the same problems. Digital storefronts are the problem. Physical actually changes a lot because it prevents publishers from forcing you to buy a game at a certain place and it gives you a fighting chance to revive the game because all the files are on the media in theory.

[@DavidPereiraLima123]

@@jshowao GOG can't solve the issue for all IPs, some copyright holders are just cancer. Go easy on GOG.

[@TexasExotic]

Nailed it, man! I agree 100% about the decline of games and how corporate greed has greatly affected the quality of the user experience.

[@GenericSweetener]

I love video games as an experience, but I respect them as a massive collection of human effort. There is something disgusting about taking the distillation of years of peoples lives and tossing it in the bin for the sake of profit

[@rolandexclusive6306]

its mind boggling that game companies expect us not to pirate games when these companies are literally stealing from their customers by stopping us from being able to play our purchases.

[@NoToeLong]

Another issue are Steam games that only run on older versions of Windows. Since Steam no longer supports older Windows versions, these games (that you can still buy now) are completely unplayable legally.

[@yalldrinktea]

I hear that compatibility layers on Linux maintain functionality even for some 16-bit applications

[@DreamyAbaddon]

@@yalldrinktea Yeah, cause Linux Proton will preserve even the oldest games. It's the future.

[@gogereaver349]

@@yalldrinktea the wine 16/32 bit stack can be installed on windows machines to. look up wined3d.

[@kaden-sd6vb]

What are some games like this?

[@vicroc4]

​@@DreamyAbaddonExcept that Proton doesn't work with my setup. Spent hours troubleshooting it and I can't even get games to launch. WINE sometimes works, but God help you if you have a game that wasn't particularly popular, because it's going to be an unplayable mess.

[@mr.vidjagamez9896]

As an active PC player in the 90s and 2000s, I was warning people of this shit as soon as it started being rolled out, but nobody cared back then.

[@Flyon86]

Unfortunately a lot of people that play games only care about newer releases. Once the new shiny thing comes out they completely forget about the stuff that came before.

[@jeromethiel4323]

A lot of people cared, there just wasn't anything you could do about it, except not to buy. And that was never really an option.

[@waverazor]

They still wouldn't care now, too many people only care about now. And want to just play now, then maybe they'll care about preservation later

[@mpalmer22]

Maybe wearing the sandwich board with the doom of DRM spelled out, and running up to random people, waving your hands and yelling in their face was not the right way to do it.

[@computernerd8157]

I did the same but I was told get with the time grandpa. We get the industry that the mass deserve.

[@crescentfreshsongs]

This is exactly why I'm glad that I grew up with DOS/Win9x games... it can be a bit of work making them run sometimes, but they work. Outside of very rare and unique situations, I've not found a 90s PC game that I can't make run today on a modern PC (even if it requires a VM). I feel bad for younger folks who might want to revisit their 00s or later games that they grew up with and find that those games may simply not exist anymore, or are so broken now that they may as well not exist. To me, half of the joy of gaming is revisiting the stuff you played as a kid.

[@breadcat1055]

6:00 Hyperscape. I felt that one to my soul, fam. You earned the sub. This has got to stop these corporations are choosing what we are allowed to enjoy and it's sickening.

[@Astronomikat]

The destruction of ownership of personal media is by design.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Can play any game overblown fear, internet keeps everything alive more or less.

[@SammEater]

That is why piracy is good. No matter what some middle class american say.

[@babykata-dt3ys]

​@@southcoastinventors6583 currently. Who knows what will happen if the copyright hoarders get their way.

[@borginburkes1819]

@@SammEaterwhat’s funny is that “middle class” Americans will fight tooth and nail to defend their billionaire overlords.

[@RootVegetabIe]

​​@@southcoastinventors6583OK cool go play Overwatch 1. Go play any previous version of "live service" games. I'll wait

[@ora2j251]

Also one thing to consider with patches. Those are not going to last either. As digital downloads, they can get them offline whenever, and if nobody could / was prevented from archiving them, they're moot too, even if they came from the game developpers.

[@NinjaRunningWild]

Wayback Machine.

[@arahman56]

@@NinjaRunningWild That also requires manual action, if nobody bothered, you're SOL.

[@JessieProductions]

torrents?

[@StuffJason437]

Some games are easy to patch via hex editor.

[@ora2j251]

​@@JessieProductionsyea for sure. But official patches will be gone, and piracy is not something everybody wants to dip their toes in.

[@andrasszabo7386]

World of Warcraft does not need online servers to run. One can make his/her offline server and run it at home. If they want to try it. My father ran one (LAN only)for the whole building we lived in. 256 homes. About 50 people playing. But he passed away 6 years ago, so his server was shut down.

[@erxer1]

But it does require tremendous effort to get the server to be accurate to the original experience. Most older expansions have really good open source server cores now but I'd say anything after wrath of the lich king is pretty hit or miss (other than in closed source private servers).

[@andrasszabo7386]

@@erxer1 my father was a programmer and he was a professional server maker, too. He tweaked and played the server day and night to make it work flawlessly.

[@Notevenmad955]

This would enter the "legally questionable 3rd party software from sketchy sources" territory. Unless Blizzard releases the server source code/binaries which as far as I know they didn't. Yes it would be reverse engineering which is legal, but the point is that the companies would rather have their games die with them or have the option to kill them at will than allow existing customers to keep using them even out of support

[@gogereaver349]

thats becouse people have managed to code there own servers for warcraft. some games do live on that way but other the makers will shut you down for trying. city of heros is a good example. it was not untill this year 2024 ncsoft finnly let a server be a thing again. a game that died in 2012.

[@andrasszabo7386]

@@gogereaver349 our server was not public. Only in our house between the friends and family. About 50 players.

[@Imaninternetuser]

When you can no longer own and use what you paid for, piracy is no longer stealing.

[@gregoryberrycone]

I know its not the most fun topic to cover when compared with fun retro hardware or revisiting favorite games, but i think this is one of your most important videos by far. To me this is one of the biggest problems facing PC gaming as a platform (not that it isn't a risk for consoles going forward as well), it really feels like long term preservation was/isn't even a consideration for most game developers and publishers. and i feel the same way about only really buying old games for the most part nowadays, but don't write off new games completely. There's stuff like pathologic 2, the system shock remake (i know its a remake but still well worth playing) and jagged alliance 3 that are keeping the spirit of old school pc gaming alive and well

[@Illegiblescream]

I loved how pausing didn’t take you to a menu, but actually pulled your character into a sanctuary where you could walk around, rearm, and observe your treasury.

[@andrasszabo7386]

Crack these single player games. That is the ONLY solution. Or find a solution to be able to sue the game companies because they have stolen money from the people buying them.

[@gogereaver349]

they settle pay everyone 2$ and keep doing it.

[@OzzyTheGiant]

Sorry but you agreed to the terms upon purchase. Read the fine print! Yes they are sucky terms but law is law. That's not holding up in court

[@DreamyAbaddon]

@@OzzyTheGiant Laws can change tho.

[@KonglomeratYT]

@@DreamyAbaddon And they should change the law, but hearing someone complain about something they agreed is like hearing a child throw a tantrum. It's hypocritical to both buy a game and agree to these terms, and then throw a fit about the terms. I don't understand how parents failed to correct this behavior at an early age. None of these complainers would ever survive my mother.

[@dotgone]

@@KonglomeratYT You should probably keep up with the times. Check out all of the work Louis Rossman does showing how frequently corporations are pushing updates bricking software/hardware if you refuse to accept the new terms. So you buy a product -> use product -> there's an update that says you can't sue them or they can sell all of your data > you say no > you no longer have product. And if you were to buy said product, you wouldn't even be able to see those terms before opening the box and setting things up and installing. You're choosing the wrong hill to well actually people on, the future is looking real bad right now.

[@Waltkat]

This "F"ing sucks because I have a ton of games that I bought in the 80's and 90's. Normally I'm against piracy, but this changes everything. Thanks for a very informative video, even if it is depressing.

[@GameAW1]

Shoutout to Capcom for their mobile game Mega Man X Dive which ran on free-to-play and when they eventually shut down, they rereleased it as a separate paid purchase that runs entirely offline. It is the best way to save it? Probably not at all, but its an effort that was made at all and at this point, its more than a lot of others are doing.

[@Crabunderscore]

The same Capcom that retroactively added Anti-mod drm to all of their steam catalog earlier this year, making their games not only shorter in lifespan due to less access to mods but also running worse for everyone with a legitimate copy. Ah yeah, it also degrades hardware faster

[@fearlesswee5036]

I wish more game companies did this when they end service for their online-only games. I.e. Fallout 76; just make it so all the atom shop content is obtainable as loot drops in the wasteland, make it run offline, and then repackage it as some sort of "Fallout 76 Ultimate Edition" and offer it as a new purchase with a steep discount for existing owners.

[@HusbandOfManyWives1776]

Is it true that when ff14 ends they will turn it into offline singleplayer?

[@AdrianGrave]

@@HusbandOfManyWives1776 I don't think it'll end..

[@necro_ware]

That's why I buy games only on GOG since more than 10 years, or so. If you don't collect physical games, that's ok not to buy those, but if it is digital, than I want to be able to archive it and play in 20 years. The point is, that those games need to be archived for the case, that GOG shuts down the download services.

[@martin_soerensen]

I also generally only buy games off GOG and I keep a local copy of all my GOG games. As decent as GOG seems to be, they are not going to stick around forever or new management may decide to mess it up somehow.

[@jshowao]

Problem is the archived versions are often not updated versions unless you tie the game to the launcher.

[@epiphaner]

@@jshowao that's no different from how it used to be right? Two decades ago you had to download the patches from the site of the publisher. Just like how you can now download the patch files from GOG if you wish to update. No launcher needed.

[@epiphaner]

​@@jshowao There are patches available for download on GOG to update any games you install without the launcher. The same as games distributed on physical media are updated through patches you manually download from the website of the publisher. The launcher comes with the bonus of being able to update the games automatically.

[@epiphaner]

@@jshowao There are patches available for download on GOG to update any games you install without the launcher. The same as games distributed on physical media are updated through patches you manually download from the website of the publisher. The launcher comes with the bonus of being able to update the games automatically.

[@TheSliderW]

This is the same with other software than games. A lot of professional software is subscription only nowadays. For no valid reason. Some allow off-line use, others require internet to be able to launch... Infuriating.

[@thechugg4372]

The reason is that people keep paying for it, if everyone switched to open source they would have to lower prices, or remove subscriptions entirely to compete.

[@TheSliderW]

@@thechugg4372 I wish. We need a paradigm shift in schools. Follow the crumbs. Those big shots achieved the high grounds years ago and flipped the switch to online when they peaked. No free software can compete feature wise and it's more profitable to keep using them because all schools and students start with it ... Ask any 10+ employees company to switch, almost impossible, nobody used alternatives before and switching would kill their productivity.

[@TheSliderW]

@@thechugg4372 people would still buy if it wasn't subscription. That wasn't the point. The point was that companies do this as it increases profit while growth is more predictable. On the consumer perspective it's not making it worthwhile and can even on the contrary be a hassle to manage. There are no benefits for paying a monthly/yearly fee for a piece of software that barely changes in the course of a decade. The Photoshop of today for examples is pretty much identical to the one of 10 years ago. So, as I was saying, there are no valid reasons for consumers to pay as much for less. That being said, your statement is also true.

[@MrFunreal]

I still have Grand Theft Auto 4 on disk. The instruction book still explains how the windows live multiplayer mode works. Only usable thing in that box is the poster now, considering how windows live is dead too.

[@ForgottenMachines]

0:19 Shelby, I LOVE how, in this follow-up video, you show the flux layout on the disk itself from HxC, AND how you say "extremely difficult" to duplicate, instead of impossible to duplicate...well said! We will be celebrating (and yes, duplicating!) this very flux layout on future disks thanks to YOUR work here!

[@EXbobomb]

Legally questionable third party tools from sketchy websites are my favourite kind of party tools.

[@the_kombinator]

15:40 - I've been living this life since 2000. Three retro PCs, a Genesis and a NES at home. Thousands of hours of entertainment so long as I can keep the hardware going.

[@JonasWEBnorge]

I have never seen a dead NES (seen hundreds, i own 7)😊 they will live longer than us

[@jonesy7650]

@@JonasWEBnorge They last a long time true, but not forever. Silicon does degrade over time, takes decades, but there will be a day when the last working nes dies, same thing with the game carts. Same with games on CD, you have "disk rot". Over time the disk layers degrade and become un-readable, its already starting to happen to games from the PS1/Sega Saturn era. Of course the upside to that is CD images are easy to make, so old games like that are all over the internet and can be used in emulators or just burned to a new disk to be played again.

[@JonasWEBnorge]

@@jonesy7650 I actually think that it can be preserved by encapsulating the boards in epoxy. Anyway, it will for shore outlive any online service

[@ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

Who cares about the original hardware dying… we have endless preservation with flashcarts coupled with roms and Analogue systems that kick out widescreen perfection for almost all of the major retro systems. They’re working on the N64 atm, and that only leaves the Saturn and the Dreamcast left to be redone. The NES, SNES, Genny, SMS, GBA (all three of ‘em), and the TG 16/PC Engine have been redone. Retro will never die.

[@the_kombinator]

@@ghfjfghjasdfasdf That's not the retro experience - putting in the carts repeatedly, the feel of the original gamepad - what you're promoting is a lightweight alternative, an incomplete substitute to the full experience. You can have your spam and decaf, that's on you, I'll take the bacon and arabica beans.

[@PaulHindt]

This is why I pretty much only play old games via emulators, older consoles and arcade boards where the games do still work as long as I have a working PC or can continue to maintain the physical hardware. The last new game I bought was Elden Ring and fortunately From Software has been good about allowing their console releases to work even when offline.

[@squeeeb]

The original Bioshock has the same issue, activation servers which are no longer online. Thankfully workarounds exist, as well as a DRM free version from Humble Bundle. But my steel book copy is essentially a glorified paper weight.

[@QuintusCunctator]

Thanks for your insight on the matter! My event horizon was Yakuza 8, I game I bought a couple months ago only to discover the difficulty selection is locked beyond DLC. As a long-time fan of the series, I resolved never to buy one of their games again.

[@tehpanda64]

The most hilarious part of DRM in the 2000s to me? The fact that many steam releases of these games are taken directly from pirates who cracked the originals. DRM is such a hassle that even the original publishers can't be bothered to pay devs to remove it.

[@medromard]

Is that why there's a release of Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 on steam? I still have the disc version but I was so happy to see it on steam I actually paid full price for it.

[@10th_Doctor]

AT the price of games these days I won't lie. I "try" every game before I buy it. If I like it I will actually buy it, but if it is crap, and there is a LOT of crap out, I delete it. I've saved thousands of dollars over the years by not paying for crap "AAA" games.

[@HusbandOfManyWives1776]

I respect a pirate that does this. Games barely have demos anymore. I remember playing the heck out of God of War 1's demo

[@luke2806]

the price is just based off of some arbitrary number from back in the day when they had to put games on cartridges for consoles so they had to put it on a board and make a chipset or whatever for each copy i get it being expensive in that situation. but they haven't had to do that in literal decades but the prices are still around the same... nonsense.

[@10th_Doctor]

@@luke2806 TBH games are nearly the same price they were in the 80s. In 1980 a video game cost about $20-$30. Converting $20 1980 dollars to today is $76 and $30 is now $114 so if anything games are cheaper than they were then. Hell, if you don't go for AAA titles you pay even less.

[@giusepperesponte8077]

My lord. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an intense blast of nostalgia as when you showed Sim Theme Park. I haven’t thought about that for at least 20 years. And then you showed Red Faction Guerrilla as well? You have good taste my friend.

[@anonanon1604]

Pirates: Not stealing Publishers: Blatantly stealing Legal system: Help people who are stealing, threaten people who aren't stealing

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Depends on the publisher and gaming has never been cheaper so only problem for people who buy playable beta new games.

[@RageJ]

It's insane that guild wars released in 2005, with no sub fee's and you can still play that original trilogy on those exact same original accounts.

[@Lowlightt]

Fuck them. NCsoft closed down city of heroes to get an extra couple of servers for Guildwars 2.

[@thenothinguploader]

im still playing that game! i no longer have my old account but bought the trilogy over steam last year and that worked out great

[@BigFrakkinOgre]

LF Runner to Droks Good times

[@thoronirgros188]

I'm still sad I got my account pirated in 2010. Lots of good memories of GW.

[@vaniog29]

Well... Guild wars 2 is paying for that. If by chance that GW2 dies or GW3 ends up not as successful I'd start worrying.

[@dr.paradox]

You are morally obligated to pirate all games with DRM until they stop using it. They'll complain that "Users will just pirate if we don't use DRM" but they're already pirating your games and are better off for it. DRM, specifically Denuvo, is awful, and has been anecdotally shown to lower performance of the games. GOG made a whole business model on games without DRM. It's still a digital storefront, but that will probably never change. I think the time of physical media is gone, and now we're stuck to the whims of the digital storefront.

[@minowilovemypet]

i mean even physical media has problem similar to digital one just very different people who buy and collect all the existing copies and sell it at higher price or keep it and never intend to sell it i mean we already see this with ps1 one games and earlier so really we kinda need to use both of the world or else we will be consumed by both disadvantages of both medias

[@jessedoherty5072]

Also thank you for talking about this topic so literally and level headed. Most people make it come across like gaming is completely ruined but its just preserving them at this current time thats impossible

[@hereniho]

It's also revoking access to the games for paying customers. It's like if you put in quarters at an arcade machine then the owner pulls the plug before you can start. Repeat for millions of players.

[@kraosdadafusfus8034]

I can see kids in the 2050s wondering about the big hole of unplayable games that came between the late 2010s and the 2030s. And their parents will tell them about the dark age, which brought ruin to gaming, and eventually a crash that laid low most if not all of the so-called AAA.

[@Gael32]

Always Online DRM was called out at its inception. The publishers claiming that "No one is losing access to their games" was a flat out lie and we should never have stopped fighting it. We also shouldn't stop fighting for physical releases of games. Download only games were called out with the release of the PS3 and Xbox360 and were soundly defeated for a time. Now, whole physical game support is being dropped at the retail level.

[@wnbagotnext7251]

Why not fight for more important things in life? Why just fight for physical video games??? Man y'all weirdos fr

[@slowyourroll1146]

@@wnbagotnext7251 I know it sounds crazy to you but preservation is very important. It doesn't become less important just because we're talking about games.

[@OrbObserver]

​@@wnbagotnext7251What's weirder is entering a comments section where people are there to talk about a specific issue and telling them to stop caring about that issue. Get a better hobby.

[@zorthlong-mc4ii]

@@wnbagotnext7251 what do you fight for and what actions do you take to do so?

[@boxxyallday7024]

I would consider that aspect just a small episode of the general problem that online dependency has created in life. Is it the most important, no. But why exclude it just because it's not the biggest?

[@Verdi13]

Just wanna say, those authentic period accurate retro built PC’s are amazing, definitely jealous and you’ve inspired my next project!

[@obsoletebutneat]

The gaming version of 'You Will Own Nothing, And Like It.'

[@lucasrem]

All my old EA, Steam and Rockstar games, Bethesda, are in the cloud now, same key ! This guy ?

[@TheMsr47gaming]

​@@lucasrem😢 I am that you chose to do hard drugs, CAUSE WTF DID YOU EVEN TYPE?

[@balsalmalberto8086]

@@lucasrem You need to get checked for brain damage

[@VRixxo123]

If buying isn't owning, than piracy isn't stealing

[@raynortownly7098]

Omg, how are you everywhere..

[@JohnDoe-zx9ul]

it is and you'll be prosecuted as such. play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[@Madara8989]

​@@JohnDoe-zx9ul Companies don't actually go after individual users who pirate content anymore; they only go after the people hosting them. But your comment is beyond stupid & pedantic. Yes, technically, it's theft because the people who make the laws deemed it a crime without consulting the general public on whether it should be or not. The companies making the content have way too much power & control over the industry itself, often refusing what the consumers actually want to strongarm anti-consumer policies & practices with no one who can actively step in and tell them to knock off the predatory behavior. The person you were replying to, however, was speaking of legal definitions - they're talking about the philosophy of the problem and making a moral statement about where they fall in the debate.

[@quillclock]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul no one has ever been charged with just pirating games... what are you on about? the only time ppl ever get charged is when they get busted with a car full of pirated Disks. i think there was only 1 case and that was back in the Nabster days they threw the book at some rich kid to make an example of him. hey jay waling is illegal too do you only use crosswalks i will break the law any time its covenant to do so. I smoke weed in an illegal state, I jay walk, I pirate and I have never even been questioned by the police (unless I was a witness). some laws are dumb and meant to be broken. ;D

[@aouyiu]

@@JohnDoe-zx9ul I guess you don't know what a VPN is. individual companies do not have the resources or means to bypass a VPN, especially if it's only for downloaders. As for LEOs they only go after those hosting the illict software.

[@arjovenzia]

This one hit pretty hard. As a teenager I was a rampant pirate, spending what little money I had on the hardware. once I had a "Proper Job", I was quite happy to go and get a physical game. the current hotness was GTA IV. I spent a whole afternoon trying to get it working. It was current, all the servers were up, I paid full price, with a physical copy in hand, and I just could not get it to authenticate. I finally gave up, went and found a torrent with a crack, and was into the game in about 30s. Strangely enough, thats about when I gave up on PC gaming. I found the sweet spot to be targeting consoles that were 2-3 generations behind, old enough to be stupidly cheap yet plentiful, but not so far to be 'nostalgic retro' expensive. I lucked out and started collecting Xbox 360 titles about a month before Covid lockdowns hit, the going rate for a game was about $3. during lockdown prices skyrocketed, but I had a big box full by then. I went through more AA batterys then than when a gameboy was my main gaming platform...

[@GeneralChangFromDanang]

That's funny because Rockstar games are what ruined PC gaming for me too. They always seemed flaky and hit and miss if they would even run.

[@classicpctinker5070]

Xbox 360 was truly one of the last great offline friendly consoles. As a long time PC gamer, it's kind of interesting to have one in the collection now. It stole so much AAA developer attention from the PC.

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

I gave a hacked PS3 to my cousins around the same time, they absolutely loved it! The only modern games they seem to like are Fortnite and Minecraft, both run on phones now anyway.

[@edaumaysol]

not being able to play games offline legitimately is one of the most backwards ass insane shit ive ever had to witness in my gaming lifetime.

[@rickeymh]

I purchased Bioshock2 10 years ago, I played it once and shelved it. I recently retired and now have the time to play video games, but Bioshock2 had issues with the licensing. Thank you for explaining this issue.

[@ChristopherBushman]

Some notes of my recent experiences with this: - I was able to activate Halo 2 on a system running Windows Vista without modification. Not aure how its activation differs from other Games for Windows Live titles - My cd-key for Spore activated without issue on the new EA App - I had to ping Nitro to get a workong copy of East India Company, a game that used to use Paradox for activation, but since went back to Nitro (Nitro are good folks and hooked me up) - I had to do some support contact silliness to have a license for Sins of a Solar Empire attached to a Stardock account of mine

[@StuffJason437]

I activated Halo: Combat Evolved & Halo 2 on Windows XP & Windows 10 without any problems.

[@TheDoomsdayzoner]

Me, a man who knows how sailing the seven seas works: -"Yes you can. That useless protection was cracked back in 2004."