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[Muz]

Viruses in pirated content was a lot more common in the days of Kazaa and napster, but it still happens. Nowadays, what with most good torrent trackers allowing users to post comments and give thumbs up/down or rep, it's a lot easier to weed out fake content even for newbie pirates.

Heck sometimes it is the developers themselves who did this. Planting bad copies often did better to prevent pirating then actually trying to do so legally.

They don't put in viruses. Virus uploaders will get red flagged by pirate communities.

They put in versions of games that crashed when you get near the last levels. Most people don't realize it days after opening, so they give it a thumbs up, vouch, or whatever. And by the time they realize it, the pirate forgets who uploaded that version.

[Neonivek]

EA once released a version of The Sims 3 that actually lacked a buy and build menu. Making the game effectively unplayable.

Mind you I assume that is what they did.

[Scelly9]

What I would do is put a clause in the EULA during install allowing the game to wipe your harddrive if the game was pirated. Then, upload tons of versions that wipe your hard drive. Or, that is what I would do if I was a total ass.

[Neonivek]

What I would do is put a clause in the EULA during install allowing the game to wipe your harddrive if the game was pirated. Then, upload tons of versions that wipe your hard drive. Or, that is what I would do if I was a total ass.

Usually you don't want to leak that you did that...

MIND YOU... EULAs that pretty much state they can do whatever the heck they want with your computers arn't that uncommon.

No honestly READ YOUR EULAS! They do everything short of making you sell your soul over.

[Cthulhu]

From what I've heard, EULAs usually don't fare well in court.  It's just that if you took it to court you'd end up in a war of attrition against a company with millions to spend on legal fees.  Something that overt would probably get rough in court.  Plus if you pirate you don't accept the EULA.

[itisnotlogical]

If I recall, there was a hentai game of some kind that had inventive DRM. It would essentially take screenshots of the player's screen and upload them to some sort of website where they would be publically viewable, and a surprisingly large number of pirate players were caught looking at some kind of plant fetish porn. I believe I read about this on TVTropes and also Cracked.com, although I've forgotten the original articles.

[Cthulhu]

Tricks like that are funny but they just delay things (Though, that's the real point of DRM.  Try to delay the crackers long enough to make sales quotas).  I know there was at least one game that  never got cracked.  I think it was a Splinter Cell game.

[itisnotlogical]

Tricks like that are funny but they just delay things (Though, that's the real point of DRM.  Try to delay the crackers long enough to make sales quotas).  I know there was at least one game that  never got cracked.  I think it was a Splinter Cell game.

I wasn't making any statement about it's effectiveness; I just think it's kind of neat when a relatively unique kind of DRM turns up

[Geen]

Or Serious Sam's invinciscorpion DRM.

[NobodyPro]

I remember when I first tried to use a scriptloader in GTA4 and the anti-piracy measures kicked in. Niko Bellic shouting and flooring it while swerving in every direction was a huge surprise and a massively entertaining take on DRM (It's just a pity it was packaged with SecuROM too.)

[Scelly9]

That's wonderful.

[MrWillsauce]

If Dwarf Fortress ever released commercially, a good DRM measure would be to force the player to play elves if the copy was unregistered.

[Cassandra]

No. It would disable booze.

[MrWillsauce]

No. It would disable booze.

Are you kidding? Depriving dwarves of booze is loads of fun.

[Cassandra]

* Urist McDwarf has canceled drinking: Cheap Overseer.