Anti-Piracy: the Fake, the Creepy, and the Downright Malicious | Tech Rules

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:10 Overview & "Feelies"
5:02 The Real & The Fake
12:53 Everyday Anti-Piracy
15:50 The Malicious Ones
18:07 My Favorite Anti-Piracy Measure

Videos Used, in Order of Appearance:

(The YouTuber responsible for the two videos above has other great anti-piracy demonstrations, and they just recently returned to YouTube. Show their channel some love!)
Rabi-Ribi Speedrun by IIvgmll at SGDQ 2020:

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[TechRules]

Hey everyone! So, for clarification: This video was being worked on right about when that Mario Party DS video was gaining traction, before the fake anti-piracy trend even kicked off. That's why I talk about it like some strange, foreign thing that magically appeared one day. (Which, let's be honest, it kind of is.) Thankfully, I opted not to make it a big focus in the video, so the finished product still holds up just fine! If anything, it might even be more relevant!

Also, big news: The first ever Tech Rules livestream will be happening this month, on the 15th! We'll be doing some sort of randomizer. I have a few good ones in mind, and I'm gonna make a poll for which game we'll do a day or two after this video's release. If you want to weigh in on that, keep an eye on the community tab! The stream itself should start some time in the evening. Well, evening in the Eastern time zone. Hope to see you there!

EDIT: Okay, so it's not technically correction time yet (although I'm sure you all will find SOMETHING I screwed up on) a lot of people are mentioning that the "unused" Cuphead track actually plays in the game's bad ending. That's...partially true. While the unused track starts the same way, I'm pretty sure it goes on for a bit longer, and there aren't any hidden images in it. My bad, should've mentioned that!

Also, it seems a lot of you are missing the original Tech Rules title card animation? I figured I would just try shortening it a bit, since I'm working on making my videos a little less bulky. If everyone wants it back, though, I'll bring it back. Just let me know!

[theblackestcat]

Yeah, I accidentally triggered the Super Mario World anti piracy. I tried to boot it up, and suddenly Mario came out of the Tv, screamed something about serious crimes and punched me in the face. Then he ate everything in our house and jumped back in the tv while showing us the middle finger.

[MikeyForrester]

I pirated yoshi island and in the middle of the game Yoshi turned to the camera and stated my full name, my social security number, and my deepest fear

[sebYB]

Rumor has it Doki Doki Literature Club's anti-piracy removes all the horror and turns it into a normal visual novel

[orange_turtle]

Fun fact. The PIRATA sound effect actually took up more storage space than the game itself.

Think about that. The anti piracy protection was a bigger file size than the game itself.

[silasbrookhaven]

That last anti-piracy thing reminds me of the story I heard about the guy who pirated Shovel Knight and later met the devs at a con and just straight up gave them 20 bucks

[TacBans]

"GTA 4 turns you into dangerous alcoholic with a unstoppable need for speed"

nah that's just normal gameplay

[kruemmelbande]

A dusty cardridge could trigger an anti piracy. Maybe the dirty pins cause it to write to the wrong adress in sram, wich would cause it to actually work.

[Nickumtoo]

My personal favorite example of anti-piracy was a pirated version of BeamNG Drive. Upon starting the game I was greeted with "Ahoy there matey, we hope you enjoy your time with our game and support the official release when you can!" Affer playing for a few hours and absolutely loving it, I purchased it just a few days later.

[saadmeliti]

Anti piracy screens are like when you are watching Cartoon Network as a kid and adult swim starts

[TheAweDude]

Here's another reason why so few games include creepy/disturbing anti-piracy measures: creepy/disturbing anti-piracy measures are interesting, and would actually encourage people to pirate the game. If a game developer is going to put time and effort into designing something truly bizarre and creepy to "punish" pirates, they might as well put that time and effort into actually developing the game.

[CHKNSkratch]

Gmods antipiracy was skipped over entirely, so I will comment it here: when the game detected you were pirating the game, it would give you an error (failed to shade polygons or sumt like that) that you could not get due to an actual error, so the people who pirated the game would post the error code and ask for a fix, thus exposing themselves as pirates

[Shry]

I think another reason it feels so scary is that As a kid the idea of being accused of something you didn’t do is part of what makes it so terrifying too…

Almost everyone has had some experience with a parent or teacher punishing you for something you didn’t do but being helpless to defend yourself. Imagine that but it’s yo

[billyblood]

Fun fact: If you pirate Wii Sports Resort, Matt comes to your house and curb stomps you

[DeliciousHotShmoze]

That last one is so freaking wholesome. No judgement, no halting progress, no malice. Just the dev kindly making a simple request that even ends with him still saying “you are the best.”

[suicune]

"Why a giant portion of my viewers are suddenly REALLY REALLY interested in Mario party D.S."

That's extremely funny for some reason

[conair]

Before this, I was watching compilations of fake anti-piracy screens and it slowly evolved into nothing but cheap scares. Most of the Mario ones end with Mario screaming and it got really REALLY annoying. After watching this video and seeing the Just Shapes and Beats anti-piracy, it felt very satisfying.

[DingoOverlord]

The Pokemon character who said “Buy it or die!” Wasn’t an anti-piracy NPC, he was just from New Hampshire!

[niphfm]

My favourite anti-piracy isn't even really anti-piracy. In each game of the Rhythm Heaven series, the developers leave a message in the "Read Something" section of the cafe, saying something like "Hi, thank you for buying Rhythm Heaven, we hope you enjoy" and it fills my heart with sadness and guilt knowing that their gratitude is being wasted on a pirate.

[Kerrmunism]

The JSaB one is really wholesome actually, as much as I get a kick out of the creepy stuff, that was cool to see.