eli5: If game console CDs just tell the game console “yeah they own this game” what was stopping people from just copying the data to other CDs and giving it to people?

Question

(besides legally)

In: 6

Answer 1

Firstly, that’s not all CDs do (usually).

Older systems read the game straight from the cd. If you didn’t have the cd the computer couldn’t read anything to play.

More modern systems often download the game from the cd to the console (or sometimes from the internet to the console), and it uses the cd as a kind of permission. So you still need the cd in the first place. After that, you’re right it could technically be replaced, but there is all sorts of piracy protection.

For a start modern consoles don’t use cd, they use discs with a different storage technology that both allows for much more data (GBs compared to a cd with 700mb) and is more difficult (expensive) to replicate. Then on top of just the expense of replicating there’s almost certainly various encryption systems that the console needs to authorise making it more difficult.

If you can bypass those encryption systems then by all means you can write your own discs. That’s generally known as piracy and is frowned upon with varying intensities depending on who you are.