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WilliamWatts on 17 February 2010
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Katilian said:
WilliamWatts said:

I have seen cracks take out copy protection but I have never seen a crack put features back in. Its far easier to rip something down, like for instance an HD -> Wii conversion than it is to build it back up. The best I can think of is spoofing the pirate save server but if it requires a unique key then its the same situation as any online authenticated game.

Look up Teknogods site. They dedicate themselves to adding local/VPN play back into PC games that require matchmaking systems or other rubbish and also removing player limits and other nice things like that. While spoofing servers isn't as easy as removing local copyprotection, it can still be done with a bit of time and motivation.

Also, WoW has pirate servers available (though due to the lack of players on these servers, I imagine the experience is somewhat lacking for an MMO). Here is a game which is dependent on its own ecosystem, yet it still has an option available to pirates.

Spoofing save game functionality is probably quite trival compared to some of the exploits I've seen out there.

Only the biggest games warrant the level of investment of time/effort into developing effective cracking sollutions, games like WOW do, games like Settlers 7 don't. So what this means is that smaller releases may never be fully cracked open as they are simply not worth the time/effort to do so. In addition to this, it means that the PC releases for large games may get even a window as small as 2 weeks in which to sell without competing with pirated releases which is quite significant as interest from genuine purchases tends to outlast a fleeting interest from the piracy community.