Boulder Dash ROM will not be released

[+Lathe26]

"Surely you cant be serious?"

"I am...and dont call me Shirley"

First to name the movie gets a prize! (free shipping for US residents only)

 

Naked Gun

 

Edit: nope, it was Airplane. I posted quickly and from memory hoping the prior guesses were wrong (instead of me). Oh well.

[freewheel]

 

Not what I said. There are no pirated copies of 2600 Boulder Dash being passed around on the dark web.

I was making the point that a claim that a cart can't be dumped because of hardware protection isn't really that believable.

 

*Changing topics from the personal insults*

 

(As I'm sure you're well aware) There is no such thing as an "undumpable" cart, or for that matter "uncopyable" digital media. There have been many attempts, and some wickedly clever - with suicide chips, battery end-of-lives, you name it. And yet I can't think of a single ROM-released piece of software that remains undumped (beyond the odd prototype that the owner hasn't let anyone try to dump). The only undumpable mass-release ROM would be one so shitty that no one *wants* to bother dumping it. I suppose that could be considered an accomplishment...

 

Which is why DRM is not only pointless, but an insult to your customer. Essentially you're selling a product that only works on a specific piece of hardware - and by intentional crippling, not because of some hardware-enabled feature like extra RAM or something. You're basically telling your customers that you think they're criminals and you do not trust them. So you spend (some amount of) time and money on something that actually makes a product *worse*, AND providing a slap in the face to the people who are paying you for the privilege. All for a goal that has been mathematically (and more important technologically) proven to be impossible. And if it WERE possible, you're dooming your product to obscurity once the original media dies.

 

In order for me to play it, you have to hand me the lock AND the key. It may take some effort and some skill, but you've given me the tools to open it.

 

I'm always a little perplexed to see people surprised at the backlash against DRM. My retired parents don't know about it, but damn near anyone who is involved with digital content surely has heard about this before. It's been in the news aplenty, even the mainstream media from time to time.

[AtariBrian]

 

Naked Gun

 

Edit: nope, it was Airplane. I posted quickly and from memory hoping the prior guesses were wrong (instead of me). Oh well.

I am surely the winner of this and don't call me Shirley

[Kiwi]

"Surely you cant be serious?"

"I am...and dont call me Shirley"

First to name the movie gets a prize! (free shipping for US residents only)

Airplane!

Don't forget the exclamation mark.

[Mord]

 

In order for me to play it, you have to hand me the lock AND the key. It may take some effort and some skill, but you've given me the tools to open it.

 

That's the reason DRM fails by it's very existence, and why every form of DRM is breakable. It's locking up the product but giving the customer the key (in one way or another) to actually unlock it - otherwise they wouldn't be able to use what they paid for. The question simply becomes if anyone cares enough to bother. (And given that there are people who will bother simply because the DRM is claimed to be unbeatable...)

[Thomas Jentzsch]

There are two factors which may make using DRM more understandable (though I really dislike it too):

• the license owner demands it
• people pirating the game and selling copies (not sure if that's the case for Intellivision too)

An alternative would be individually watermarking each cart's ROM and tracking each customer. So when a copy shows up, the original customer providing the watermarked ROM could get into all kinds of problems. Watermarks, if done right are much harder to remove completely than a protection. And the pirate can never be 100% sure that he was successful.

 

But then, tracking your customers and making them responsible to continue the tracking chain when selling a cart seems a bit over the top, IMO.

[Intymike]

Looks like you ran out of Halo boxes today.

 

Yep, it seems I bought the last one.

 

At least the last one before the pages were merged.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Intymike

[Keatah]

I tend to prefer the watermarking method along with a scary explanation of what its purpose is.

 

 

That's the reason DRM fails by it's very existence, and why every form of DRM is breakable. It's locking up the product but giving the customer the key (in one way or another) to actually unlock it - otherwise they wouldn't be able to use what they paid for. The question simply becomes if anyone cares enough to bother. (And given that there are people who will bother simply because the DRM is claimed to be unbeatable...)

 

That was the basis of a lot of pirating in the early Apple II scene. The kids didn't care how the game played, or if it was good or bad. It was all about removing the copy-protection. An unspoken and long-standing "joke" was that you always got 2 games for the price of one. The original game, and then the 2nd game which challenged you to make a copy. It was even stated many times that breaking the DRM (we didn't call it that back in the day) was more fun than the actual game.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Same for the C64 which I owned back then. The whole demo scene evolved from those crackers.

 

IIRC, I only cracked one game myself (Thrust of course), for the fun of doing it and to reduce loading times.

[Crazy Climber]

I meant airplane

 

 

 

Naked Gun

 

Edit: nope, it was Airplane. I posted quickly and from memory hoping the prior guesses were wrong (instead of me). Oh well.

 

 

Airplane!

Don't forget the exclamation mark.

 

AtariBrian is the winner!!

 

Yeah, I could say "technically" he did not use an exclamation mark...but meh, close enough

PM me so I can get your address for your prize~!

[Mord]

I tend to prefer the watermarking method along with a scary explanation of what its purpose is.

 

I tend to avoid watermarked stuff as well due to what it's trying to do. It's calling your customer a thief just as loudly as DRM, and it points fingers at you even if you weren't responsible. For instance, in the case of music, what if your mp3 player got lost while it had a collection of watermarked mp3s and the person that managed to find it decided to share. Tough luck for you eh? (And I say this as someone who indeed has lost an mp3 player before.) What if you had a watermarked homebrew and you decided to sell it at some point. What if it was stolen. What if someone ELSE dumped it, knew about the watermarking, and altered their copy - and it ended up looking like yours? (This would require the watermarking to be pretty simple I guess. But in that case it means a lazy implementation by the dev is now going to have the dev at your throat for something you haven't done, etc.)

 

And so, I personally would avoid watermarking just as readily as normal DRMed stuff for mostly the same reasons.

[+DZ-Jay]

I tend to avoid watermarked stuff as well due to what it's trying to do. It's calling your customer a thief just as loudly as DRM, and it points fingers at you even if you weren't responsible. For instance, in the case of music, what if your mp3 player got lost while it had a collection of watermarked mp3s and the person that managed to find it decided to share. Tough luck for you eh? (And I say this as someone who indeed has lost an mp3 player before.) What if you had a watermarked homebrew and you decided to sell it at some point. What if it was stolen. What if someone ELSE dumped it, knew about the watermarking, and altered their copy - and it ended up looking like yours? (This would require the watermarking to be pretty simple I guess. But in that case it means a lazy implementation by the dev is now going to have the dev at your throat for something you haven't done, etc.)

 

And so, I personally would avoid watermarking just as readily as normal DRMed stuff for mostly the same reasons.

You know what would be even easier to implement? Not releasing the game at all!

 

I'll bet you anything that if you don't release the game, it won't ever be pirated. 100% protection and peace of mind.

 

Of course, nobody will play your game, but hey! them's the breaks if you want to really protect your investment.

[Mord]

You know what would be even easier to implement? Not releasing the game at all!

 

I'll bet you anything that if you don't release the game, it won't ever be pirated. 100% protection and peace of mind.

 

Of course, nobody will play your game, but hey! them's the breaks if you want to really protect your investment.

 

Feh, that runs against all the times I've read about big name games/albums/etc hitting the pirate bay before the street date. You gotta do more than not release it, you have to not start it. I've got a story that's been in my head for 10 years now that I haven't had the time or ability to really put to paper. Sure enough it's still not floating about the web!

[+DZ-Jay]

Feh, that runs against all the times I've read about big name games/albums/etc hitting the pirate bay before the street date. You gotta do more than not release it, you have to not start it. I've got a story that's been in my head for 10 years now that I haven't had the time or ability to really put to paper. Sure enough it's still not floating about the web!

Wow! Now all you need to do is charge for it and... PROFIT! Another DRM success story.

[Keatah]

DRM is kinda like kids not sharing their toys.. And not releasing a ROM is like hoarding or hiding your toys. Eventually it is forgotten by all others except for the creator - in whose mind it swells to imaginary greatness that's out of proportion with reality.

 

You know.. It's the programmers that make their stuff available that I remember and discuss in casual conversation. The ones that do not are forgotten or simply not thought of - like the kid that doesn't share toys.

 

Anyways, with the homebrewer thing - I've always broken it down into 3 categories since the beginning of the 8-bit era. It goes like this:

 

1- Genuine/original games, made by the same company that makes the console. Atari, Mattel, Coleco.

2- 3rd party games, these are made by someone else other than the original maker, but still a corporation. Imagic, Acitivision, 20th Century Fox.

3- Homebrews, typically made by one or two people working out of the home in a non-corporate environment. Like a hobby, spare time, or hacking. SpaceRocks, StayFrosty2, and going back in time, most Apple II games which were programmed in a basement or attic by one guy.

 

It doesn't matter where the games originated, there are bad ones and good ones from each type of source.

[Utopia]

 

 

 

 

 

AtariBrian is the winner!!

 

Yeah, I could say "technically" he did not use an exclamation mark...but meh, close enough

PM me so I can get your address for your prize~!

Airplane has always been known as "Flying High" in Australia.

[IntellivisionDude]

I usually stay out of these conversations lol. But the way i see this community is, if a rom was available all the regular collectors who actually want the rom would probably buy the rom instead of getting it another way. This community is small. The person who would try to get it a different way wouldn't buy it in the first place. That person would probably just go without if that was his only option.

 

I hear this argument on the music side that a lot of people who download mp3's illegally end up buying the cd anyway.

[freewheel]

The person who would try to get it a different way wouldn't buy it in the first place. That person would probably just go without if that was his only option.

 

I sure as hell would never have played Spiker if it weren't for easy ROM availability, lemme tell you!

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I tend to avoid watermarked stuff as well due to what it's trying to do. It's calling your customer a thief just as loudly as DRM, and it points fingers at you even if you weren't responsible. For instance, in the case of music, what if your mp3 player got lost while it had a collection of watermarked mp3s and the person that managed to find it decided to share. Tough luck for you eh? (And I say this as someone who indeed has lost an mp3 player before.) What if you had a watermarked homebrew and you decided to sell it at some point. What if it was stolen. What if someone ELSE dumped it, knew about the watermarking, and altered their copy - and it ended up looking like yours? (This would require the watermarking to be pretty simple I guess. But in that case it means a lazy implementation by the dev is now going to have the dev at your throat for something you haven't done, etc.)

 

And so, I personally would avoid watermarking just as readily as normal DRMed stuff for mostly the same reasons.

Watermarked mp3s... There exist tools that strip the id3 tags. Easy to use. Scan an entire directory of 1000s of mp3s or m4a music files, and it will strip the tags off every file found, but still leave useful stuff like artist, album, track info. Back up your data.

 

Somebody steals your ipod/hacks your pc and torrents your entire media library? No sweat; they can't trace you.

Edited July 16, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I tend to avoid watermarked stuff as well due to what it's trying to do. It's calling your customer a thief just as loudly as DRM,...

That! I am sure quite a lot of customers would not like it (incl. me). Even though (unlike DRM) they could easily still dump it and give copies to their friends.

 

What if you had a watermarked homebrew and you decided to sell it at some point.

And that! This is IMO much more critical, since you cannot freely trade them anymore. Both, seller and buyer would have to know and fully trust each other. Or a complicated registration process would have to be implemented and followed by both parties.

 

What if someone ELSE dumped it, knew about the watermarking, and altered their copy - and it ended up looking like yours? (This would require the watermarking to be pretty simple I guess. But in that case it means a lazy implementation by the dev is now going to have the dev at your throat for something you haven't done, etc.)

From a solely technical perspective, that's an interesting challenge. But even for a simple console like the 2600 you can create a solid unique ROM watermark which cannot be faked by anyone. Been there, done that. Just for the fun of it or course.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Watermarked mp3s... There exist tools that strip the id3 tags.

The watermarks are embedded into the content (= music data), else they could be removed way too easy. Don't expect to hide your traces by only removing the id-tags!

 

Maybe reencoding the mp3 helps, but I probably not even this is fully sufficient. People have invested a lot of thought into these.

 

 

 

Watermarking is designed to survived even if the audio is re-encoded, re-processed or undergo any means of MP3 tag editing and audio processing. In other words, once the watermarking has been embedded with your MP3 audio; it is now permanent and irreversible.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Mr SQL]

I released all of my company's software about 15 years ago except for this DRM protected game, because I couldn't get the protection off!

 

The DRM kit we used was appropriately called "Piratector" and scrambled certain sectors with an oblique algorithm.

 

As the 80's progressed DRM became a requirement to stay solvent in a saturated marketplace; we no longer had the overhead for pirates and they had gotten increasingly out of hand since the early days of Altair BASIC.

 

Maybe I'll post it on ebay for fun but not actually sell it, since it's an awesome party game and my only remaining release copy

 

 

Notice there is no label on the disc itself? I don't put labels on game Tapes either, it didn't stop the 5 star reviews then or now. But if you're a homebrewer, then you'd better up your packaging - you can more than make up for the time by using the modern development tools that homebrewers use.

 

With enough packaging, many collectors won't even notice the game

 

[+Lathe26]

....

 

With enough packaging, many collectors won't even notice the game

 

LOL!

[Andromeda Stardust]

I released all of my company's software about 15 years ago except for this DRM protected game, because I couldn't get the protection off!

 

The DRM kit we used was appropriately called "Piratector" and scrambled certain sectors with an oblique algorithm.

 

As the 80's progressed DRM became a requirement to stay solvent in a saturated marketplace; we no longer had the overhead for pirates and they had gotten increasingly out of hand since the early days of Altair BASIC.

 

Maybe I'll post it on ebay for fun but not actually sell it, since it's an awesome party game and my only remaining release copy

 

Astro FT release copy.jpg

 

Notice there is no label on the disc itself? I don't put labels on game Tapes either, it didn't stop the 5 star reviews then or now. But if you're a homebrewer, then you'd better up your packaging - you can more than make up for the time by using the modern development tools that homebrewers use.

 

With enough packaging, many collectors won't even notice the game

 

A vid of this lost game would be cool? Is it not possible to block copy the disk including scrambled or invalid sectors? I'm assuming the bits are still intact, but designed to produce read errors when read.

[108 Stars]

It is never easy to tell wether DRM makes sense or not. For Pier Solar we had copy protection, and it was pretty effective; for a while I think sites with cracking guides etc were even taken down.

But everything will eventually be cracked. As Long as there is People interested in it, that is.

 

With the DRM for ROMs, I am against it because I am generally no a friend of the limitations of digital goods.

Digital goods are more than anything else a way for companies to take away some rights that customers had had since the dawn of time. Specifically, lending your games to someone else and selling them. It totally goes against what I feel are my legitimate rights as a paying customer.

 

The planned DRM for BD as a ROM would have been so much worse than a copy protection for the cart for this reason. For me, it is customer-unfriendly to not let them choose whether they want to Keep the game they purchased or sell it. Selling the entire flashcart is not really a viable option. I know the fine print on games, that the Software is still property of the Publisher, and all you buy is the medium and the license to use it... this was originally meant to clarify that because you bought a copy of some creative work, you are not entitled to any rights making a Business with it. Because you own a copy of Detective Comics #27, you are not allowed to Reprint and sell it. It was not meant as a way to forbid People to sell their copy of the book. But that's exactly how it is used These days.

 

The dangers are very low for the Intellivision Scene imo. All there is is a very small, dedicated fanbase. The actual sales numbers are already inflated artificially by fans buying mutliple copies of every release to support the system. Should be more than enough to make up for a Hand full of people who would purchase a cart only if a free ROM was not available.