Video game piracy

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Video game piracy is the unauthorized copying and distributing of video game software, and is a form of copyright infringement. It is often cited as a major problem that video game publishers face when distributing their products, due to the ease of being able to distribute games for free, via torrenting or websites offering direct download links. [1] Right holders generally attempt to counter piracy of their products by enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, though this has never been totally successful. [1] Digital distribution of pirated games has historically occurred on bulletin board systems (BBS), and more recently via decentralized peer-to-peer torrenting. [2] [3] In terms of physical distribution, China, Indonesia and Vietnam are known for major manufacturing and distribution centers for pirated game copies,[ citation needed ] while Hong Kong and Singapore are major importers. [4]

Contents

History and culture

As the personal computer rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s, so too did the tendency to copy video games onto floppy disks and cassette tapes, and share pirated copies by hand. [5] Piracy networks can be traced back to the mid-1980s, with infrastructure changes resulting from the Bell System breakup serving as a major catalyst. Video game trading circles began to emerge in the years following, with networks of computers, connected via modem to long-distance telephone lines, transmitting the contents of floppy discs. [2] These trading circles became colloquially known as the Warez scene, with the term "warez" being an informal bastardization of "software". [5]

In the 1980s, crack intros began appearing on pirated games. Preceding the booting of the actual game, these windows would contain the monikers of those who created the pirated copy, along with any messages they wanted to add. Beginning as simple text, the presentation of these crack intros gradually grew more complex, with windows featuring GIFs, music, and colorful designs. [5]

With the rise of bulletin board systems throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, the sharing of pirated video games took a centralized form. By connecting personal computers to telephone modems, and dialing a number to a dedicated server, members of the Warez scene could share their copies of video games. [2] Furthermore, because this system preceded the rise of the consumer-level internet, it could go relatively unnoticed. However, with the rise of peer-to-peer torrenting, and notably with the release of BitTorrent in 2001, this BBS format of video game piracy began to decline. [2] Nowadays, torrenting pirated games remains the popular choice among those who engage in piracy. Efforts to thwart illegal torrenting have historically failed, because its decentralized nature makes it effectively impossible to totally dismantle. [3]

Anti-piracy measures

A 2016 protest in Dhaka against DRM Anti DRM in dhaka-1.jpg
A 2016 protest in Dhaka against DRM

The use of copy protection has been a commonplace throughout the history of video games. Early copy protection measures for video games included Lenslok, code wheels, and special instructions that would require the player to own the manual. [6] [7] Several early copy protection measures have been criticized for both their ineffectiveness at preventing piracy, and their inconvenience to the player. [6] [7] One of the most typical means of copy protection is to assign a serial key to each legitimate copy of the game, so that it can only be activated by entering the serial. However, this is often circumvented via software cracking, or through the use of a keygen.

More recent attempts to hinder piracy have included Digital rights management tools. [3] A form of this is the sale of games on digital distribution platforms, such as the Epic Games Store, Blizzard's Battle.net, and Steam. Steam offers proprietary features such as accelerated downloads, cloud saves, automatic patching, and achievements that pirated copies do not have. The purpose of these features is to make piracy look less attractive, and to incentivize the legitimate purchase of games. Gabe Newell, creator of Steam, has stated that creating "service value" discourages piracy more than adding additional DRM. [8] Some games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV , use DRM that negatively alters gameplay, if it detects that the game is an illegitimate copy. In GTA IV's case, it disables the brakes on cars and gives the camera an amplified drunk effect, making gameplay much harder, thus creating an incentive to legitimately purchase the game. [9] [10]

Sometimes, games require online authentication or have always-on DRM. [1] A notable incident concerning always-on DRM took place in 2021, surrounding the Windows release of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time . Without a constant internet connection, the game's DRM disallows any play at all, even in single-player, which naturally drew ire. [11] However, the Warez scene cracked this DRM feature almost immediately. A cracked version of Crash Bandicoot 4, stripped of this DRM, began circulating online just one day after its official release. [12]

Emulation and piracy

Historically, video game companies have blamed video game emulators for piracy, despite the fact that anyone can create their own legal ROM image from the original media. [13] Concerning this demonization of emulators, video game historian Frank Cifaldi attributed it to the Connectix Virtual Game Station. Released in 1999, this commercial emulator enabled the play of Sony PlayStation games on Macintosh computers. However, it was easily cracked by hackers to play pirated ISO images of PlayStation games, leading to a lawsuit from Sony. Companies continued to fear that emulators would encourage piracy. [14] This has created a long-running debate over emulation, since many out-of-print video games can only be played via ROM, making emulators the only replacement for defunct video game consoles. Additionally, modern remasters and remakes can significantly alter a game, sometimes in a manner that changes the entire gameplay experience. [14] For example, Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy had a rewritten physics engine, requiring players to make more precise jumps. [15] Such gameplay changes give importance to emulators, which may be able to run the original game.

Some companies still consider emulators copyright-infringing. In 2017, Atlus attempted to take down the Patreon page of a PlayStation 3 emulator, RPCS3, arguing that the ability to play Persona 5 on it made it illegal software. However, Patreon disagreed with the company's stance, and allowed the page to remain, as long as references to Persona 5 were removed. [16] Furthermore, Nintendo has taken decisive action against the emulation of its games in recent years. In 2018, the company sued a handful of large ROM sites, forcing them to remove ROMs of their older console games, for what they called “brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo’s intellectual property rites". [17] The distribution of copied ROM files online is illegal, but this move by Nintendo was interpreted by the emulation scene as an attack on the emulation of older games. [18] In November 2020, Nintendo issued a cease and desist order to The Big House, an annual Super Smash Bros tournament. The Big House ran SSB games on the Dolphin emulator, and it was the addition of the mod Slippi, which enabled online play, that caught Nintendo's attention. [19]

Despite longstanding criticism of emulators in the game industry, companies themselves have used emulation to run commercial games. Nintendo operated the Virtual Console, which allowed people to buy and play certain games via emulation. [14] In 2017, the PlayStation 4 was found to contain a functioning internal PSP emulator. Hackers discovered that PaRappa the Rapper Remastered was actually the 2007 PSP version, running with upscaled textures. This emulator was later reverse-engineered and used to play other PSP games. [20] Additionally, Microsoft's Xbox One console uses a proprietary emulator in order to play games released for the original Xbox, and the Xbox 360. [21]

Console modding and piracy

The motherboard of an original Xbox, with a Xenium ICE modchip installed Xenium ICE in XBOX.JPG
The motherboard of an original Xbox, with a Xenium ICE modchip installed

Modded consoles have been cited as an avenue for video game piracy, both by allowing unauthorized copies to be played, and by circumventing DRM. Legal homebrew video games and backup copies can be played on modified systems, but the argument of piracy remains. A notable example of console modding is the original Microsoft Xbox, of which tutorials still exist to this day. By introducing softmod installation files via one of the four controller ports, players could overhaul the system UI, install and play games directly off the internal hard disc drive, and even play TV shows and movies on the console. [22] Some softmods even re-enable online play on the original Xbox, despite the first incarnation of Xbox Live having shut down in 2010. [22] [23] A handful of hardmod techniques also exist for the original Xbox, enabling hardware additions and upgrades to non-stock components. [24]

Companies such as Nintendo have coordinated with law enforcement agencies to track down and seize modchips for their consoles, such as in the 2007 Operation Tangled Web. [25] The same year, Nintendo also began a crackdown against merchants of R4 flash cartridges, which could be used to play pirated ROMs on the Nintendo DS. In 2009, the device was declared illegal to sell or import into Japan, among other countries. [26] In 2018, a man was arrested in the United Kingdom, for allegedly running a Nintendo Switch modding operation out of his house. [27] Furthermore, in 2020, two prominent members of the hacking group Team Xecuter were arrested and indicted by the Department of Justice. The indictment detailed their creation of modded consoles, which were "designed to be circumvention devices that had the purpose of allowing users to play pirated ROMs." [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

Modding is the act of modifying hardware, software, or anything else to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specification or appearance. The term is often used in reference to video game modding, particularly in regard to creating new or altered content and sharing that via the web. It may be applied to the overclocking of computers in order to increase the frequency at which the CPU operates. Case modding is a popular activity amongst many computer enthusiasts which involves the customization of a computer case or the installation of water cooling technology. In connection with automobiles, modding can connote engine tuning, remapping of a vehicle's engine control unit or customization of the coachwork.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ROM image</span> Data dump from a ROM chip

A ROM image, or ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory chip, often from a video game cartridge, or used to contain a computer's firmware, or from an arcade game's main board. The term is frequently used in the context of emulation, whereby older games or firmware are copied to ROM files on modern computers and can, using a piece of software known as an emulator, be run on a different device than which they were designed for. ROM burners are used to copy ROM images to hardware, such as ROM cartridges, or ROM chips, for debugging and QA testing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NESticle</span> Nintendo Entertainment System emulator

NESticle is a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator, which was written by Icer Addis of Bloodlust Software. Released on April 3, 1997, the widely popular program originally ran under MS-DOS and Windows 95. It was the first freeware NES emulator, and became commonly considered the NES emulator of choice for the 1990s. Initially offering few features and only supporting a handful of games, development proceeded rapidly and to expand usability such that NESticle is today credited with introducing the concept of recordable playthrough for emulation, as well as providing the capacity for users to create their own graphical hacks via an integrated graphics editor. In pioneering this heightened level of access for users, and providing the tools for fans to hack and remix familiar classics, NESticle has been credited by Spin as representing a milestone toward the development of video game music as a genre.

A softmod is a method of using software to modify the intended behavior of hardware, such as video cards, sound cards, or game consoles in a way that can overcome restrictions of the firmware, or install custom firmware.

Homebrew, when applied to video games, refers to software produced by hobbyists for proprietary video game consoles which are not intended to be user-programmable. The official documentation is often only available to licensed developers, and these systems may use storage formats that make distribution difficult, such as ROM cartridges or encrypted CD-ROMs. Many consoles have hardware restrictions to prevent unauthorized development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GD-ROM</span> Proprietary optical disc format used in the Dreamcast video game console

The GD-ROM is a proprietary optical disc format developed as a collaboration between Sega and Yamaha for the Dreamcast. A double-density format based on the CD-ROM that could hold up to 1 GB, it consists of a single-density track near the disc's center surrounded by a double-density track comprising much of the disc's capacity. The GD-ROM was created in response to developers exceeding the typical 650 MB storage capacity of the CD-ROM; while DVD-ROM would have addressed this limitation, implementing its then-new technology would have made console production cost prohibitive. Along with the format's general novelty, the extra capacity also had the theoretical benefit of curbing video game piracy, a major concern of CD-based consoles that was validated by its rampancy on the PlayStation.

Echelon is a warez group which specializes in the illegal release and distribution of copyrighted console games, such as Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 ISO images. They also created demos on both platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PlayStation Portable homebrew</span> Executing unsigned code on PlayStation Portable

PlayStation Portable homebrew refers to the process of using exploits and hacks to execute unsigned code on the PlayStation Portable (PSP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paradox (warez)</span> Warez–demogroup

PARADOX (PDX) is a warez–demogroup; an anonymous group of software engineers that devise ways to defeat software and video game licensing protections, a process known as cracking, which is illegal in most jurisdictions. They distribute cracks, keygens, and pre-cracked versions of entire programs. Over the years, distribution methods have changed, starting out with physically transported floppy disks and BBS distribution. Today most of their files reach the public over various peer-to-peer file networks.

Standards in the warez scene are defined by groups of people who have been involved in its activities for several years and have established connections to large groups. These people form a committee, which creates drafts for approval of the large groups. Outside the warez scene, often referred to as p2p, there are no global rules similar to the scene, although some groups and individuals could have their own internal guidelines they follow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retrogaming</span> Cultural activity with old video games

Retrogaming, also known as classic gaming and old school gaming, is the playing and collection of obsolete personal computers, consoles, and video games. Usually, retrogaming is based upon systems that are outmoded or discontinued, although ported retrogaming allows games to be played on modern hardware via ports or compilations. It is typically for nostalgia, preservation, or authenticity. A new game could be retro styled, such as an RPG with turn-based combat and pixel art in isometric camera perspective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video game console emulator</span> Program that reproduces video game consoles behavior

A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass limitations of the original hardware, such as broader controller compatibility, timescale control, easier access to memory modifications, and unlocking of gameplay features. Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrew demos and the creation of new games for older, discontinued, or rare consoles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenEmu</span> Multiple video games software

OpenEmu is an open-source multi-system video game emulator designed for macOS. It provides a plugin interface to emulate numerous consoles' hardware, such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Genesis, Game Boy, and many more. The architecture allows for other developers to add new cores to the base system without the need to account for specific macOS APIs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denuvo</span> Anti-tamper software

Denuvo Anti-Tamper is an anti-tamper and digital rights management (DRM) system developed by the Austrian company Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH. The company was formed from a management buyout of DigitalWorks, the developer of SecuROM, and began developing the software in 2014. It was introduced with FIFA 15 in September. In addition to Denuvo Anti-Tamper, Denuvo Software Solutions has developed the anti-cheat system Denuvo Anti-Cheat and Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, which attempts to prevent Nintendo Switch games from being emulated. The company was acquired by Irdeto in January 2018.

Custom firmware, also known as aftermarket firmware, is an unofficial new or modified version of firmware created by third parties on devices such as video game consoles, mobile phones, and various embedded device types to provide new features or to unlock hidden functionality. In the video game console community, the term is often written as custom firmware or simply CFW, referring to an altered version of the original system software inside a video game console such as the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita/PlayStation TV, PlayStation 4, Nintendo 3DS ,Wii U and Nintendo Switch. Installing custom firmware on some devices requires bootloader unlocking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video game preservation</span> Form of preservation in video gaming

Video game preservation is a form of preservation applied to the video game industry that includes, but is not limited to, digital preservation. Such preservation efforts include archiving development source code and art assets, digital copies of video games, emulation of video game hardware, maintenance and preservation of specialized video game hardware such as arcade games and video game consoles, and digitization of print video game magazines and books prior to the Digital Revolution.

Emulators of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo's current eighth-generation video game console, have been in development since 2017, less than a year after the console's release. Multiple emulators have been in development, the most well-known being the now-defunct Yuzu, and Ryujinx. Switch emulators have been widely noted by video games journalists for the swift and significant progress of their abilities to accurately emulate the console, as they are already able to run existing and new titles for the console in a playable state, sometimes within days of their release, as well as able to run on a variety of devices, including PCs running Microsoft Windows and Linux, and the Steam Deck.

Emuparadise is a website that hosted a large database of video game ROMs, translated games, and other gaming-related files. The website was founded in 2000 by MasJ. Emuparadise offered ROMs for a wide variety of gaming platforms, including consoles, handhelds, and arcade machines. Emuparadise had discontinued most of its libraries after legal action from Japanese video game company Nintendo.

Nintendo is one of the largest video game publishers in the world, producing both hardware and software. Since the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, the company has generally been proactive to assure its intellectual property in both hardware and software is legally protected. Nintendo's protection of its properties began as early as the arcade release of Donkey Kong which was widely cloned on other platforms, a practice common to the most popular arcade games of the era. Nintendo did seek legal action to try to stop release of these unauthorized clones, but estimated they still lost $100 million in potential sales to these clones. Nintendo also fought off a claim in 1983 by Universal Pictures that Donkey Kong was a derivative element of their King Kong in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.; notably, Nintendo's lawyer, John Kirby, became the namesake of Kirby in honor of the successful defense.

References

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