this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023

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148

Rockstar is selling Cracked Game Copies on Steam (twitter.com)

submitted 1 year ago by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works

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[–] donuts@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's pretty crazy. One would think it's not hard to put your own game on Steam.

[+] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works -34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

GOG does this too they will sell you cracked games and the money goes to whoever currently owns the IP, there is almost no point giving money to GOG at that point since they don't do anything and the IP holder didn't do anything either. Actually GOG might steal mods and claim they made them like with system shock.

[–] iegod@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This honestly sounds like the perfect distribution model. You get the game, IP holder gets paid, no one is bothered by DRM. If you don't want to pay because you don't want to pay, well that's up to you.

Like I'm kind of confused by the premise of your argument and excuse me if I got it wrong but certainly you're not saying if you pay, it better have some kind of DRM?

[–] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Look if i'm going to buy torrented and cracked files owned by whatever billion dollar company has vacuumed up a 1000 ip's in a go I at least want to know 0 effort has been put into packaging the game and that all I'm doing is buying a pirated version of the game with other peoples stuff resold without credit or reimbursement. Like cracks and mods they package into these releases.

[–] SSUPII@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

It's not GOG that does that. A lot of developers that publish there having lost the source code or the tools and knowledge to build it upload cracked or patched releases themselves. And it's not a GOG thing either, as for example Sam & Max: Hit the Road is just the cracked DOS game bundled inside a ScummVM runner on both Steam and GOG releases.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How else would copy protection get removed if the original source code was lost?

If mods are licensed in a way redistribution is allowed, it's not stealing either.

I don't get your outrage.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think this is about removing copy protection to sell it.

It is more about that the crack they are now selling officially has been seen as illegal by the publisher/game developer itself. People have worked on this for no monetary compensation and therefore provided free labour to remove DRM. Now the publisher is banking on this free work, pretty much legitimising the crack. But none of the money actually goes to anyone who cracked the game, since that was still illegal.

If the publisher had just removed DRM themselves and sold those copies, no one would be outraged. But they exploit the work of people they keep condeming for cracking their games.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, if someone spray painted the door of my car without my permission, it's vandalism but still my car. If it later turns out that it was done by Banxie and that "vandalism" is worth millions, I can still sell my car however I like and owe Banxie nothing.

Btw, freeware is a thing. Did those cracks ever get released without the permission to freely distribute? If not, those cracks may be used by the rights holder however they like. That's not the problem. Releasing broken shit is the problem.

[+] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de -9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Seriously... a car analogy. Wow. And a pretty bad one at that.

But I will help you fix that analogy for free, since I feel nice today. A crack for DRM isn't like adding artwork to a car to make it worth more.

If anything this is about a car that has certain defects that make it work less well than it should. E.g. you cannot switch into gear 5. It runs slower than it could. So people go and fix that, for free. Now the automobile maker takes that free fix and sells all new cars with it. Is that ok? There, still a crap analogy but arguably better than yours.

You ask if the cracks are released with permission to freely distribute? Actually no, they are not. Because they are marked illegal by the law. They should not be distributed since thats against the law. But its of course convenient for the publisher to use that work and distribute themselves. They are technically breaking the law themselves since they are applying illegal cracks to their own software. So thats ok then?

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

So people go and fix that, for free. Now the automobile maker takes that free fix and sells all new cars with it. Is that ok? There, still a crap analogy but arguably better than yours.

OK, cool. Too bad you forgot that in modern jurisdiction buying a game is merely like leasing a car. So yeah, if a workshop fixes the car for free the actual owner of the car can make use of those fixes however he likes.

Maybe target your energy at the actual shitty thing Rockstar does: Selling broken games. The means how they removed Securom is irrelevant. The fact that the games are broken garbage is not.

[–] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is outrage because I posted about another company doing the same thing as the in post?

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't GOG actually patch the old games and add fixes to make it work on modern systems?

[–] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works -3 points 1 year ago

Well with system shock 2 they just downloaded mods and fixes and added it to the game and then claimed they worked on them. Given that one would think that's basically all they do.

[–] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here's a link to the thread on nitter in case anyone can't view Twitter.

But holy cow, that's uh... I'm not even sure what to say about that.

Edit: Apparently the link breaks for some mobile users and Kbin users due to the underscores, [https://nitter.net/__silent_/status/1698345924840296801](I believe this one should do the trick).

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure the crack doesn't even work either.

[–] Eh_I@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Can I upload cracked rockstar games to steam? $100 right?

[–] all-knight-party@kbin.cafe 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don't quite understand, provided that's true... Why would they do that?

[–] RS888@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The video linked in the Twitter thread explains it near the end but I'll summarize.

Rockstar used securom for the original disc release
Razor (an infamous piracy group) cracked the game shortly after release but only for Windows XP (Vista didn't exist yet)
Rockstar released the game on Steam "without securom" but in reality is just using Razor's crack
Fans eventually (like a decade later) realize there's Razor signatures in the executable on Steam
Rockstar pushes an update with a new executable, however this wasn't properly tested and is broken due to how the anti-piracy acts.

The game launches but similar to Arkham Asylum's "broken" grappling hook or Serious Sam's invincible scorpion enemies it messes with the player and doesn't function correctly on purpose.

Really interesting video and once again brings up the ethics of stealing from pirates' works as other comments have mentioned.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 4 points 1 year ago

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https://piped.video/watch?v=e91q5BtlxK0

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

The ethics are about releasing broken games and then not fixing them while still taking money.

[–] Nighed@sffa.community 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Either lost the source code, or didn't have the expertise/time to fix it properly.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm pretty sure they just don't care. This was easy and made money.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

Low effort so they don’t need to bypass the ancient DRM and still sell it

[–] vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nintendo did the same thing. I don't remember the exact details, but they took a pirated copy of NES Super Mario Bros and were reselling it on another platform. As much as a dislike Nintendo and Take-Two/Rockstar for their business practices I can understand that it's probably easier to just take back "stolen" and modified code and use it for themselves instead of repeating the process of getting around old copyright BS in order to resell the game.

It's scummy, but I get it.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

No, Nintendo didn't.

Tldr: Nintendo outsourced the work for dumping NES ROMs and developing a NES emulator for GameCube and that contractor added the standard headers to dumps they made from original cartridges provided by Nintendo. Someone saw the headers and drew conclusions.

Long read: https://www.resetera.com/threads/tomohiro-kawase-mightve-been-hired-by-nintendo-to-put-rom-headers-into-vc-updated-dec-1-2018.64755/#post-13593223

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

You wouldn't sell a downloaded car ™

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Stealing from pirates?