Saw a list of games where certain events trigger when the game detects the game is pirated and wondering how this is detected. Ex: Earthbound
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In the specific case of those old console games, there were a few ways. The biggest one was save memory on the cartridge. Pirate cartridges had writable data instead of the regular ROM chips for the game itself, and a very large chunk of save RAM for your savegames. Earthbound, among other things, would check to see how much save RAM is actually present on the cartridge. The real retail games ships with a lot less. If more save space is available than expected, it’s pirated.
The other thing was to check the game code itself, but delay the checks. Examine the code that does anti-piracy and make sure it’s intact, but you don’t check it until the first boss fight or something. Thus someone trying to break the anti-piracy code thinks the game is fine, unless they tested it that far into the game. Then they realize their job is a lot more complicated and long.
Earthbound famously had a final boss anti-piracy check that, if failed, would crash the game after wiping the savegame slots. Harsh.
The game developer first puts in some obvious checks that disable the game if you don’t have whatever it is you’re using for authentication. The people that crack the game reverse engineer enough of that to bypass those checks and get the game running, but there can be code in a completely different place that checks if that authorization code ran correctly, possibly only triggering hours into the game.
It’s sort of like locking the door, but also putting a tiny piece of clear tape near the floor. Someone can pick the lock, but they don’t notice the tape because it didn’t stop them from getting in. You can then check that tape to see if anyone broke in.
The whole thing is a cat and mouse game, game developers with new tricks, pirates figuring it out and working around it.
It can be as simple as checking the CRC of their own files and refusing to run if any has been modified.
Playstation had an i trresting approch.
They put a “wobbly” track onto the disk. While their drive could measure that wobble, normal drives would just compensate it. So burned disks might have the exact data written to them, but because that track would be “perfect”, the Playstation could detect that it was a illegitimate copy.
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