Why did people crack games?

[Mounty]

Originally Posted by brainwalker

How Galahad, WayneK and others explained it, so it worked in the 80s, 90s and nowadays. Everyone in a Warez Team has different reasons why he does what he does. Some do it for the money, some for the thrill, some for pretending to be the best. Technology has changed over the years, but the motivation for the why, always stayed the same.

-= E.vil N.ever D.ies =-

I should imagine a good motivation is immortality. Those "cracktros" will be around forever, and in a hundred years people will still be seeing those names.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

You don't think groups put addresses in their releases so they could send people their cracks for free do you?

well the thing about cracked games, is that you can just copy them yourself.

that's what we all did. by "we" i mean everyone i knew at school.

[TMR]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

You don't think groups put addresses in their releases so they could send people their cracks for free do you?

The addresses in releases were mostly there for swappers from other groups to get in touch.

[Photon]

Don't forget that if you made a crack, the group it was released for used it to reach/stay at the top echelon (c) Fry by means of swapping for other hot releases, i.e. for free.

I never witnessed this paying for cracks myself though naturally I know even some big groups offered to sell to anyone by mail, as famously in Cebit 90. But those are the exceptions, normally addresses were for swappers deemed "elite enough". If you had cracked a games, you were.

I just clicked past such addresses since I wasn't really keen on sending disks and money abroad. Plus, I knew a swapper from day one. ;P For the most part the trickle-down via swappers worked well and I could check out what's new and later buy the games I liked. To be perfectly honest, there wasn't much buying, even of the games I liked, until I got my own money. Basically you could get 3 albums for the price of one game, and with allowances being just around that sum a game would have to good enough for you not to have anything left to spend on anything else that month. That's a tough challenge to meet for any game developer.

That's not an excuse, or at least not a valid one if you adhere to the spirit and letter of applicable laws. I just think game companies were (in hindsight) naïve to more than double the price of games and expect not to discourage, nay eliminate the lion share of their market. Because unlike the music industry doubling the price for the same-thing-on-plastic-disc and C64 game disk versions, they didn't have a fallback market for their products for the non-rich kids. That said, non-rich kids are pretty good at nagging, so it should be possible to produce a curve of sales that looked fine until prices hit some pain threshold, like 25 GBP. But this wasn't 1982. As knowledge, software, and cartridges spread, people found out how to not even accept 15 GBP for a game if they could help it - and they could help it. That of course affected # originals made and thereby raised the price to cover costs. But this had been an ongoing trend since the heyday of C64/Spectrum etc.

It was common back in the days, that people paid for cracks and board access (leech accounts). Even groups paid sometimes for cracking. The people that paid for cracks are not the school kids that you swapped with on the playground. They saw it more like a business. Even groups paid for cracks to get them faster, so they could build their status faster. Scene was and is not so romantic, as you maybe have it in memories

-= E.vil N.ever D.ies =-

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by happymondays

In the 80s and early 90s in Hungary there was no real option to purchase original software

So much this.
People in western Europe and the US take this for granted.

In my country, this was also the case. The ONLY way to acquire software for your computer, was through copying. You would go to a computer shop and they would charge you for a copy of what you wanted. They in place acquired teh software by buying packs from euro/us pirate group distributors or stuff like that.

There was NO other way. There were NO originals.
The perspective from Europe is so really different and tiny compared to the global scale.
Of course in northern Europe copyparties happened and software was mostly distributed for free, but it was a different thing in 3rd world countries like mine.

[alewis]

Originally Posted by edd_jedi

Loving all the comments on here by idiots who can't be bothered to use Google. Before you call me stupid, maybe get your facts straight. Here's the first hit on Google for those too lazy to do any research before throwing around insults:

http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/

I never said musicians don't make money, I said they make a lot less money from music sales than they used to, and these days make most money from live performance. That's a fact, choose to plead ignorance to it again if you please.

Anyway, back on topic. Thanks for the replies, especially from those that were part of the scene. So it looks like most people were in it mainly for the challenge and for a little bit of recognition too, seems there was virtually no money in it. This surprises me because obviously counterfeiting is big business, so I assumed the main motive would have been money. Very interesting.

Son, you need to learn to separate issues before posting. Cracked/pirated disks (and th selling of) is wholly different to counterfeiting, both in substance and law.

Second, the link you posted is simply figures - assertions - with nothing to substantiate they. I recognise a couple, and they are based on a flawed number produced over a decade ago, and since been shown to be rubbish.

Your earlier link, regarding pandora, is wholly unrelated. It is a gripe at a figure a publisher is paying for plays, and nothing to do with sales.

Why do 70s stars seem to earn a lot more than today's stars? Because if your name is Slade you have been getting a big royalty cheque every Xmas since 19seventy-something. CD sales are down for the same reason vinyl sales decreased in the 90s; consumers had moved on from the format.

Would go into FAF more detail if I wasn't on the iPad.

Edit: loving the comment others not being able to use Google, by someone who plainly can't use Google as a research tool himself. Have a look at the piracy rebuttals on TheRegister or ArsTechnica, which comprehensively rip apart the RIA, MPAA, IPFA, Fast, etc piracy 'figures'.

[B14ck W01f]

I don't see why scene groups crack games even if the games themselves are not password-protected. As far as I'm concerned, they do it to remove any intros or hack the title screen. What a waste of time.

[ElectroBlaster]

Well I will be honest! My 16bit entry was born from the fact stuff was so readily available. I was given an Atari STE one christmas and shortly after that had a huge software collection.

Then a mate of mine got an Amiga 500, he's sat there playing Assassin and I am blown away. More so because most of his collection was cracked stuff. The descision was made and I jumped ship to the Amiga at that point due to the strong music capabilities of the machine.

Fast forward and im sat here with bucket loads of stuff, still have every single disk dotted about somewhere. The wife looks at me like a kid that never grew up lol.

Back in the old days I was skint! Did every crap job to get money. Spent nearly all of it on blank disks to copy stuff. You could say I was that Wanker kid in the playground, hawking copies with his mates. This did not stop me buying originals mind! Those that stood out deserved the attention and got my saved up money. Still have those originals btw

Nowadays... well! My son has a PS3 and PS4. Which are Locked down solid, he routinely wants games which demand £40 or £60 a pop! They seem to be a tad crap as well, always demanding expansion packs for some lame update. Im no fan that is for sure. But such is life I guess lol.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by B14ck W01f

I don't see why scene groups crack games even if the games themselves are not password-protected. As far as I'm concerned, they do it to remove any intros or hack the title screen. What a waste of time.

When would you like to collect your trophy for single most uninformed post in this thread?

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

When would you like to collect your trophy for single most uninformed post in this thread?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Jurassic Park is still not cracked to this day, do you think it could be a candidate ?

see here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=75887

[Mark Wright]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

it seems like you are the one who is offended that no-one is convinced by your theory.

there may be a grain of truth in it somewhere but it seems to me like you've come to far too strong a conclusion based on circumstantial and anecdotal evidence.

it's true that i never knew any actual crackers, but there was never any single person who supplied everyone with cracks and certainly nobody ever charged any money for it, cracked games just spread through the social web like a disease.

Daring to raise my head above the parapet for a moment - please don't shoot at it... I wholly accept that no-one here shares my personal experiences. I said in my original post that, having raised the same points previously elsewhere, they've always gone down like a lead balloon full of cold sick. Nevertheless, I'm sure you'll appreciate my using anecdotes and arguments in an effort to illustrate my contribution to the discussion, rather than just flinging half-cocked hooey around the place, devoid of any conviction.

That said, having now re-read my posts, I can see what a clumsy, ham-fisted job I made of trying to state my case. I won't go through it all again (!) but please - set to the scraping sound of me trying to claw back some credibility - allow me to clarify that I merely intended to provide a different angle/insight in answering the original question. It's a topic that fascinates me and, as a veteran Amiga scener since 1988 having been a member of Crystal/Mag Fields/Silents/others, I hoped my memories would be of interest.

Instead, my posts read like they're written by a demented troll, playing a particularly antagonistic game of Devil's Advocate (100% +++).

Sorry about that.

I'll skulk back to my rocking chair now and wait for full-blown dementia to take me ... (rocks) ... "Is that you, Splatt?" ... (rocks) ... "yes, I've got Super Hedgehog Brothers here - it's on forty disks and AGA only" ... (rocks) ... "you'll give me HOW much!?" ... (rocks) ... "ay up, it's Bob from Automation - call me back!" ... (rocks) ... "first there was Exact..."

I didnt have any money when i was a kid/teenager, getting a new game for serious Finnish marks was unrealistic. Sometimes we bought cassette games or diskette games with some handful of friends and copied the game to our own small posse. that kind of died after we got friends who were running bbs's and/or could swap disks at school and so on.

[willbloke]

I haven't read the whole of this thread , but what was the local Amiga games store , back in the day,"rented" games out for a week at a time , and sold the X-copy dongles and software (or whatever it was called )

Make of that what you will !

Most of the pirated games I had , I would never have bought anyway !

[Shatterhand]

What I was going to say here was said by Akira.

I had an MSX then an Amiga here in Brazil.

With both computers, the only way to have games was by copying. You would go to a store with blank disks and they would charge you per game copied (In the Amiga case, per disk copied).

The MSX was way more popular than Amiga here (It certainly was the most popular computer system ever before the PCs taking off), and there was actually a smal scene of developers trying to make applications and games and make "honest" money out of it... problem is that they had to sell their software through the same channels people used to buy pirated stuff, so their software ended up being heavily pirated anyway.

And in the Amiga scene, like Akira said, we had a few guys who would have connections with european groups, and those would ending up distributing the games around here. People bought copies of games from those guys so they could sell copies to other people.

[lesta_smsc]

I had lots of originals but I still tried to hold of cracked versions of the games I owned purely for Trainers as I'm rubbish at completing the games without them! My bad... but grateful for those who are looking for a challenge to crack the code! lol.

Also to add - if a game was enjoyable to play and I did not have it, I would actually buy it to support the developers in hoping a sequel would follow! Monkey Island is an example - though I don't think my contribution was the reason for the sequels lol.

[psygnosis]

If it wasnt for the crackers i wouldnt have the memories i have today

[Subzero]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Primarily it was done for the challenge, secondly for a rather hidden type of fame.

Hidden? OK, lets clarify that. Why did some cracktros have PO Box addresses in them? Because no-one was stupid enough to put their real address (unless it was in demos to say no swapping games but everything else!). Yes, I and others had 'fame', but it was hidden, because I can assure you, other than people being able to rattle off a list of what groups I had been in, they sure as hell didn't know who I was, and that was the same for every other cracker, rarely did we publicise who we really were.

I nearly got caught out twice, the first time was cracking a piece of productivity software where the software company concerned were very eager to find me (and it wasn't to offer me a job either!), and the second time I was actually outed, but there was some code (feeble as it was) that meant it didn't spread much from the copy party I went to. I was pictured in Amiga Action or one of the big magazines with the rest of Binary Emotions (Speris Legacy, Minskies Furrballs) and some bright spark figured out which one was me.

No cracker or group was afraid of getting bust by FAST, but we sure as fuck wouldn't voluntarily make their life easier, we had more to worry about using AT&T Calling Cards.

Sure, when I went to college, a few blokes thought it was cool I was in Fairlight, the girls however, it impressed them not one bit!

But the primary reason was the challenge, not just of cracking it, it was the whole process.

1). Waiting until 10am for the original supplier to let you know if your services were needed that day.
2). Being told "Yes, we've got X and X coming, do you want to do them?"
3). Waiting for the original supplier to get back and ready to upload.
4). Him asking you want do you want him to do..... "chuck it through X-Copy quickly" would be the usual answer.
5). And then from then on, get the bootblock, build an imager if it was an MFM game (errors on every track), or if it was simply Copylock or a derivative (1 error'd track), image the entire disk minus the track (7/10 you didn't need the Copylock track to get the serial key if it was implemented by a moron!).
6). crack the game, having to constantly answer the phone from the original supplier to find out if its ready or not, whilst he gets modem traders ready and gets the sysop of the WHQ ready to kick off non-FLT members so all the FLT modem traders can sit on a node and wait for the release.
7). Do an intro, playtest, and upload.

And then the hard work begins. The entire time you're doing that, Paradox, Quartex, Prestige, and any others might well be doing the exact same thing you're doing.

Upload to original supplier, who is also connected to the WHQ and is ready to upload immediately, doing the FILE_ID.DIZ (an ascii descriptor file so people can see what it is as the filenames must respect the 8:3 file format of MS-DOS).

Once its upped to the FLT secret conference on the WHQ, modem traders download, a couple of them hit every FLT board in order of importance, and the others then go and hit every rival groups WHQ of importance. So Paradox, Prestige, Quartex, in fact any group that was a worth rival and had the boards to match, they'd get blitzed as fast as possible.

The Sysop of the WHQ would copy the file to the main index so its live to everyone else, nodes freed up for other people.

If you can get your release on all your boards and all rival boards of note within 3 hours of release, you've won, because it will then be so spread from there on in, no other group has a chance.

Cracking? Pah, that was one aspect, the whole race was the thrill, waiting for a poxy page to update, whilst you're uploading, someone from Prestige might have a faster modem and already got their version in the listing ahead of yours.

Good times...... the best of times

haha , all very well explained, that was the way things have been done back then!... and that was the Fun about it all.

ps: imagine, having an top titel in yer hands, and knowing no other one can have , this is un-explainable , believe me!. not many peeps in the world have had that.

ps2: it was kinda the same before the Modem Times, just with post swapping originals to the cracker (or using train to get him the stuff he needs...)

[kneehighspy]

back in the early 80s i did apple ][ cracking, my best friend did c64 then we both moved to amiga 1000 in 87.

back then to us it was like a crossword puzzle or seek n find to others, we did it for the challenge, it was fun to come across different protection schemes and then apply our combined knowledge for the tough stuff.

no fame or glory, or free software, we purchased alot of what we cracked, we only really purchased for the challenge, not the software.