Rockstar Used Myth DRM Crack For Max Payne 2?
Looks like Rockstar saved time by applying a no-CD crack to its popular PC game.
A Steam member who recently purchased a digital copy of Max Payne 2 discovered that Rockstar uploaded a version modified by the pirating outfit Myth. The discovery was made after loading up the game's executable with a HEX editor and finding Myth's ASCII logo inserted into the code. The group was once notorious for supplying no-CD cracks for PC games before it was dismantled by the FBI's "Operation site Shutdown" back in 2005.
"Seems Rockstar got a little lazy and used this crack instead of recompilling their executable without DRM," reads this forum post. The observation is quite possible, alleviating some of the work in getting the game to fit within Valve's online closed environment. Then again, where does the law come into play? Are consumers purchasing an illegal copy even though it's supplied by Rockstar?
Two years ago games publisher Ubisoft pulled the same stunt. Consumers who purchased a digital copy of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 on IGN's Direct2Drive couldn't install the latest patch (v1.03) outside the service. The patch offered considerable changes to the game, even adding new play modes, thus fans really wanted it installed quick--and before D2D could get around to converting the patch to its format. One Ubisoft employee offered a quick and simple solution: to install a patch that got around the patch's original DRM. Eventually it was discovered that the Ubisoft "fix" was actually a no-CD crack supplied by Scene group RELOADED.
Now it appears that Rockstar has used a similar method. Does it matter that the company implemented a no-CD crack into one of its digital titles? It begs to question, especially when developers and publishers are standing on their soap boxes, shouting that piracy is bad, bad, bad.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Lets face it, pirating is great for the developers. And can sometimes lead to sales that would have never happened in the first place.
I think there shouldn't be drm in the first place though, it just satisfies a part of the corporate guys feelings.
It's likely that a lot of the games on GOG use cracks. I doubt that GOG are putting them in there, it's just that the publishers find this easier than removing the DRM themselves. In many cases they probably don't have the source for many older games, most of which require DRM removal to work as downloadable titles.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm choking to death on the irony and need medical assistance.
I.E. Discover a company is using "your" crack in order to make profit from a their game. You then "reactivate" the DRM through some "hack" in your original crack.
I'd just find it a little humorous if something like this happened. Reverse cracking a game.
I'm pretty ........ that companies are starting to do this.
now if somone's house is raided byt the police like that guy from Gizmodo and charged with piracy, he'll be laughed at when trying to excuse himself
- "but, it's the producers of the game that put the crack in it, it wasn't me!"
-"Hahahah, yeah right, kid. You think we were born yesterday?"
-"But, but..."
-"Shut up, you're under arrest"
-"Help! I'm inside a Kafkian process! Help!"
as far as a company using a nocd crack for their digitally distributed game... that's the reason i buy games this way... O_o
Unless you're referring to the fact that Rockstar games most likely did not pay Myth for their software?
it was their code that was used...
lawsuit?????