this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 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 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Eh_I 7 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] woelkchen 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=WfDg7BidsY4&

https://piped.video/oA0wuw7zsYA?t=364

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

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 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 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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Stealing from pirates?

[–] warmaster 2 points 1 year ago

You wouldn't sell a downloaded car ™