Digital Decay Of 2000's PC Game DRM 

Go to: www.stopkillinggames.com/ Accursed Farms: www.youtube.com/@Accursed_Farms

I will always say it. If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft or wrong.

"Don't pirate our games!" "Okay then let us play it" "No!"

If Piracy is theft Then blocking access to games you've purchased should be equally criminal.

Thanks a bunch for the mention! For the record, everything we're doing would cover any DRM that requires internet access also. It wouldn't end DRM in itself, but make it so it would be a legal liability to the company if it needing to dial out made the game unplayable when support ended. The advantage of focusing on international consumer law is the reasons WHY companies make your game stop working don't actually matter much, just that they did it to titles you bought from them. The more attention this gets, this better!

Piracy is preservation

"You'll own nothing, and you'll like it" "No, I don't think I will"

Only 11% of films from the Silent Era survive intact. They were stored on a physically volatile media and their artistic significance was unknown. A hundred years later, with the advantage of historical hindsight and digital storage, its estimated that only 13% of all videogames are playable without resorting to piracy. This number will only shrink with dying mobile games and games only hosted on official servers. Game. Piracy. Is. Art. Preservation.

IMO, every online game that shuts down should take the Club Penguin Island route. Not only did they release an offline mode, they also included a debug mode, that encourages the users to find a way to bring back the game via private servers

The irony of the "official patches" released by some game studios to bypass DRM is that a lot of them weren't even produced by the studio, they just took cracks from the warez community and slapped an "official" label on it...

and again the only ones not suffering from all this crap are pirates.

AAA executive: "You're still playing old stuff? You're not playing this brand new thing we just made?"

If buying isn't owning, than piracy isn't stealing

Whenever it reaches this point, piracy becomes saving and rescuing.

recently i asked on the steam subreddit about how to make games like half life 2 work on a windows XP mashine now that the support has been dropped my post was promtly removed and i was swiftly banned from the subreddit for "promoting piracy" merely for asking if there is a way to make these games work on the hardware that they came out on Edit: please stop telling me about Linux, you are missing the point so hard it hurts my brain

The issues raised in the video aren't exclusive to games, but software as a whole. I appreciate efforts to raise awareness on these issues.

Another example of this happened to me recently. I bought a copy of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS only to find out it wouldn't work. From what I read, it seems a system update made it where the game would no longer work on the system. I ended up returning the game to the store. 20-25 years ago we didn't have to worry about consoles and handhelds requiring system updates. All the games just work on those systems.

I think it should be a requirement to make the Server Tools accessible once the official server service gets shut down

This is the end result when you let copyright holders dictate how protected works are preserved. I consider it *literal theft* in a way that copyright infringement can never be. It's theft from the eventual public domain that all works are supposed to enter.

My lord. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an intense blast of nostalgia as when you showed Sim Theme Park. I haven’t thought about that for at least 20 years. And then you showed Red Faction Guerrilla as well? You have good taste my friend.

I want single player, offline games with no DRM and no online activation. Miss out any one of these and it's a deal breaker. I have more than enough old games that still work to entertain me for the rest of my life

I remember a time when you'd go to an arcade and your favorite game was simply replaced by a new one. Sometimes you'd never see the game again. That was something you had to live with it, until emulation brought them all back from the oblivion. And now we're reliving this nightmare.

It would be great if similar to books, where a publisher has to send copies of the book to the Library of Congress, publishers of software had to put a copy of each release without DRM into a public library archive that is opened to the public after, say, 20 or 30 years. That wouldn't be a full solution to digital decay but it would prevent a whole section of history from being effectively deleted.

Nailed it, man! I agree 100% about the decline of games and how corporate greed has greatly affected the quality of the user experience.

In the grand scheme of things, gaming subscription fees are basically a gaming tax.

“Don’t ask questions. Just consume product and then get excited about next product” Jay Bauman Red Letter Media

The destruction of ownership of personal media is by design.

I have photos of me finding a copy of the Sims Online being sold on a physical shelf, unsold, as of 2022. They finally removed it during renovations, or somehow sold it when I returned in 2023. the game died in 2008. I used to shop there all the time as a child for games, as it was the only place in the entire town that sold them there. I saw that copy of the game sitting there from 2005 till 2022, they also had a copy of Zoo Tycoon 2 there until around 2023,

Thank God piracy exists.

The future of gaming looks dark but the past has never looked brighter. You are exactly right when you mentioned that there is more than a lifetime's worth of classic games we can spend our time on.

"Torture for Windows Live" is a much better name

I loved how pausing didn’t take you to a menu, but actually pulled your character into a sanctuary where you could walk around, rearm, and observe your treasury.

Great video! Thank you for that! I am greatly appreciate the effort and level of clarity of your speach and arguments.

This is why I love buying older PC games on GOG as they remove DRM on majority of titles available & even allows you to download offline installers for the games you purchased through GOG.

Modern gaming is a sham - but do not lose hope. We have more games behind us than we could play in a hundred lifetimes.

This video made me sub to your channel, you said the same thinng I told my friends for years, they all were saying "why do you have games on disks when can get them online and why aren't you OK with internet connection requirement because almost everyone has internet".

Also thank you for talking about this topic so literally and level headed. Most people make it come across like gaming is completely ruined but its just preserving them at this current time thats impossible

"Breaks social contract, acts indignant when folks go pirate", is indeed the Propellerheads/Reason labs way.

It is not only a problem of computer games, but rather whole computer software.

Legally questionable third party tools from sketchy websites are my favourite kind of party tools.

What an excellent video! Thank you for taking the time to collate all these examples and resources.

Thank God for cracking scene

Lost Planet 2 was “de-listed” (page still exists but can’t be purchased) from Steam years ago because of GFWL, and Capcom just outright abandoned it. While it’s still perfectly playable on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One (and probably PlayStation), it’s been unplayable for years on PC. They claim they’ll keep us informed about their investigation about GFWL causing issues, but instead they left us in the dark and abandoned it. Such a shame…

This is one of the best videos I have seen on this issue. you break it down nicely for those that may not realise just how much of a problem this really is.

0:19 Shelby, I LOVE how, in this follow-up video, you show the flux layout on the disk itself from HxC, AND how you say "extremely difficult" to duplicate, instead of impossible to duplicate...well said! We will be celebrating (and yes, duplicating!) this very flux layout on future disks thanks to YOUR work here!

Without piracy, i would literally only have experienced %10 of the games I've ever played either due to scarcity, DRM, or region locking. Ive never understood why people have such moral qualms about pirating games that have not been in circulation for 10+ years, and publishers knowingly remove without giving a us legal way to experience them. Regular people “pirating” games and making them available to the public again have done more for preservation than companies ever can or will. Shout out to magipack games and my abandonware ;)

RIP The Chronicles of Riddick. A single player AMAZING action stealth game with DRM servers shut down in 2015.

The algorithm has blessed me with this fine channel this night in May. I shall look forward to watching more

OMG. Your credits sequence is GENIUS!

Another issue are Steam games that only run on older versions of Windows. Since Steam no longer supports older Windows versions, these games (that you can still buy now) are completely unplayable legally.

As an active PC player in the 90s and 2000s, I was warning people of this shit as soon as it started being rolled out, but nobody cared back then.

People collecting Retro classic consoles and you my guy has collection of Retro PC of generations such of awesomeness and greatness, it's so rare to see someone make these kind of Lovely videos ❤ Thank you so much i hope you have a good day always!

So much nostalgia and frustration in one video, excellent work!

I almost forgot about product keys. I remember losing the product key for some of my games, but fortunately those didn't actually use a central server but rather just had a list of valid keys, so you could just use random keys from the internet. I also had a disk that was damaged and could no longer install, but would still validate the DRM. So I pirated a copy and just didn't download a crack.

One of the first RU-vid videos I watched was LGR’s review of Darkspore, a single-player ARPG spin-off of Spore. Since it’s was EA, they structured it like an MMO, so it was never “patched” by fans and I never got to play it because I didn’t have Internet until it was already offline. There’s a reason teenagers are actively moving towards retro games. I do want to shout out Cyan Worlds, the guys who made Myst. They had an MMO-puzzle game called Uru Online in the 2000s, and after they had to take it offline they open sourced the servers and game for anyone to run their own servers. Incredibly cool of a developer to do, and anyone can still spin up an instance and play Uru Online today, along with making new content.

Perfectly said. Thanks for bringing the issue to light

great video, i was so bummed when the quake3 servers went away

Agreed. Not only should this be illegal, this should even be criminal. This is theft. This is fraud. And it's disgusting. So happy to see you put light on this issue that has bothered me for quite some time. And it's not just video games. It's software. It's hardware peripherals. It's happening to physical goods too, not just software. WE DON'T OWN ANYTHING ANYMORE, even after straight buying them.

Great video. You bring up some very important points. We need to advocate for better laws to protect the consumer.

Congratulations for the video man! That was really elucidating

Pirates: Not stealing Publishers: Blatantly stealing Legal system: Help people who are stealing, threaten people who aren't stealing

It's insane that guild wars released in 2005, with no sub fee's and you can still play that original trilogy on those exact same original accounts.

So Wise , Thank You . Now to check my collection

I am so glad I clicked on this video. I still have my Antec Super Lanboy case! It is currently where my home Linux server lives. Though, I did cut the blue LEDs out from the front fan.

Having fully set-up ready to go multiple period correct machines on dedicated space is so cool.

I agree 110% with everything you said. As a kid growing up in the late 90's/early 00's I've witnessed the sheer amount of greed in the games industry and witnessed the slow decline and death of gaming, but it's even worse, it's also music and movies/TV. Only difference is you can copy music/movies and TV, But without a risky, potentially malicious crack you cannot play or copy your games. And like you said as soon as those games went to online only they were running on borrowed time, with a guaranteed death sentence. Modern gaming is a disgrace. Not only do you lose your games and you don't get a box, manual, disc, etc.. but now games also release completely broken or unfinished with the promise of being better in the future... After you pay more money. That would've been inconceivable in the previous decades! No one would've bought the damn game if it came in a buggy, unfinished state. People would've returned it instantly or sued. In the previous decades buying a game meant you bought a fully-functional, fully playable, fully ownable game, that you could enjoy as long as you lived and it could even outlive you. Now some games are lucky to survive even a year! Insane to think about. We truly live in the generation of "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy" how dystopian and 1984 of us... And the bigger problem is that younger generations born into this can't be F*cked to care because they've been slowly taught to accept this and that it's normal. We don't know how good we had it, but we do know how absolutely warped and greedy the industry has become. It's truly heartbreaking to bear witness to.

Thank you for talking about this very important issue!

Thank you for spreading this message!

Switched from Win7 to Linux last summer when Big Steam forced my hand and suddenly discovered built in emulation support for every generation in the packaged software manager. I went from barely being able to run PSX on windows to running PS3 discs in the drive on Linux with the same hardware. Suddenly my online libraries started looking a lot smaller and more restrictive compared to my extensive physical library of dump-able carts and discs.

Crack these single player games. That is the ONLY solution. Or find a solution to be able to sue the game companies because they have stolen money from the people buying them.

Fantastic video. Definetely didn't know about this.

im glad someone is starting to point this out. most new games have some aspect of it online and will be unplayable after they stop carrying them.

That's also why I buy games on GOG. No DRM is awesome, I can archive games as I want. Sadly, GOG library doesnJt contain all games.

One of the DRMs is documented to kill CD/DVD drives, the company denies it of course, but my DVD drive died after playing that game. The problem was attempting to read sector 0, if I remember correctly.

Cheers dude. Been worried about this for ages. I understand why they have DRM but my Switch collection is gonna have problems in ten to twenty years time.

An amazing rundown of digital restrictions management!

The most hilarious part of DRM in the 2000s to me? The fact that many steam releases of these games are taken directly from pirates who cracked the originals. DRM is such a hassle that even the original publishers can't be bothered to pay devs to remove it.

It should be illegal to define purchasing a game as purchasing a temporary license.

Thanks for reminding me how much I loved the big boxes PC games used to come in

Great video, I recently started collecting Xbox games again that are FPS boosted and playable on disc on series X. This DRM stuff is a racket. If it has Denuvo or other DRM like EA or Ubisoft I just get a copy on Xbox or PlayStation at this point. I don’t know when exactly it happened, but my EA client was refusing to work and I got fed up enough to just start collecting on console again. Unfortunately though, no games are on disc anymore so if I buy anything modern physically it’s kind of pointless as it’s effectively a digital copy. My physical collection is 10 to 1 old versus modern for that reason. I’m convinced at this point that it will take a major crash of the industry to change anything about this and how things are currently run (especially on PC)

Tech tangents really living up to the name on this one. You’re right, the way modern games and even games consoles become obsolete because they can’t phone home is crap.

The gaming version of 'You Will Own Nothing, And Like It.'

I am very glad you helped, this video is a huge boost for the campaign. We are all in this together. I am following Mister Scott Ross for years. Also, I too share the love for Game Dungeons, by far the most favourite of his work, yet, do not like the recent featuring of modern video games. Note to reader: Please share his campaign. Also what is fun is how you acquired his behaviour, way of speaking, stance. Image of him you made yourself familiar with. It is just default human nature; with each-other we tend to be indifferent. Just evolution.

Shoutout to Capcom for their mobile game Mega Man X Dive which ran on free-to-play and when they eventually shut down, they rereleased it as a separate paid purchase that runs entirely offline. It is the best way to save it? Probably not at all, but its an effort that was made at all and at this point, its more than a lot of others are doing.

I love video games as an experience, but I respect them as a massive collection of human effort. There is something disgusting about taking the distillation of years of peoples lives and tossing it in the bin for the sake of profit

15:40 - I've been living this life since 2000. Three retro PCs, a Genesis and a NES at home. Thousands of hours of entertainment so long as I can keep the hardware going.

Thank you for adding some fuel to Ross's fire, I hope this collective effort makes a difference in game preservation.

there's also something to be said about games with such obscure DRM code that they ONLY work on the OS it was released for. Scrapland is one notable example, the DRM was so obscure and intricate that it only works on Windows XP, unless you can manage to track down the community patch that removes the DRM check then it will work just fine even on win 11

well said. Gaming has always been the centermost aspect in my life. I live in a place far from a town in the middle of the mountains and my only internet options are dial-up and satellite. I tried satellite but not once ever got my computer to connect. I don't even get cell service at my house. I've been nearly completely ostracized from my favorite hobby. It takes a lot of time for me to take my desktop somewhere an hour away, to set it back up again, install games that I purchased, and set it back up at my house, only to be unable to play them because I need to connect to a server to boot up. Even after I launched the game where there was internet so it could read the keys, suddenly I can't anymore.

This has been happening for years in the mobile game space too. So many old iOS and Android games delisted, or their CDN/auth servers indefinitely shut down with zero recourse.

Fantastic video, i have been trying to preserve my PC gaming collection i have gathered over the years and the amount of bullshit i have had to deal with when it comes to Safedisc, Securom, Starforce etc just to back up my discs has been a headache. Video game preservation when it comes to the PC platform is in a horrible state.

I can't imagine how hard it would be trying to build a 90s 2000s computer

This one hit pretty hard. As a teenager I was a rampant pirate, spending what little money I had on the hardware. once I had a "Proper Job", I was quite happy to go and get a physical game. the current hotness was GTA IV. I spent a whole afternoon trying to get it working. It was current, all the servers were up, I paid full price, with a physical copy in hand, and I just could not get it to authenticate. I finally gave up, went and found a torrent with a crack, and was into the game in about 30s. Strangely enough, thats about when I gave up on PC gaming. I found the sweet spot to be targeting consoles that were 2-3 generations behind, old enough to be stupidly cheap yet plentiful, but not so far to be 'nostalgic retro' expensive. I lucked out and started collecting Xbox 360 titles about a month before Covid lockdowns hit, the going rate for a game was about $3. during lockdown prices skyrocketed, but I had a big box full by then. I went through more AA batterys then than when a gameboy was my main gaming platform...

That's why I buy games only on GOG since more than 10 years, or so. If you don't collect physical games, that's ok not to buy those, but if it is digital, than I want to be able to archive it and play in 20 years. The point is, that those games need to be archived for the case, that GOG shuts down the download services.

Dang. Well first...I am a big fan of Ross Scott and Accursed Farms (I remember even watching him when he did Freemans Mind on Machinima) And I am so fucking happy that more people, like you talk about this stuff. Great Video! I mean...yeah the topic is really depressing...but at least there are some good people who try everything to stop them killing games :)

Great video, very informative. Though, I'm going to be real with you, chief-- I would really like to know where i can get one of those hats.

The original Bioshock has the same issue, activation servers which are no longer online. Thankfully workarounds exist, as well as a DRM free version from Humble Bundle. But my steel book copy is essentially a glorified paper weight.

And old teacher told me once. "The past dies when it isn't no longer recorded, or when the records are lost." he said that in reference to the fact that if the Library of Alaxandra was never burned down. We wouldn't look at the pyramids with such wonder. There will come a time in the future, where gaming will be a Mystery solely due to DRM.

Always Online DRM was called out at its inception. The publishers claiming that "No one is losing access to their games" was a flat out lie and we should never have stopped fighting it. We also shouldn't stop fighting for physical releases of games. Download only games were called out with the release of the PS3 and Xbox360 and were soundly defeated for a time. Now, whole physical game support is being dropped at the retail level.

The Antec LanBoy is an AWESOME case! Though it is peroid correct for XP, I'm using it for my high-98se rig.