I am getting so sick of this thorn-in-the-side, supposed copy-protection program. I really really wish software producers would not be so lazy about copy protection and find a better way rather than schluffing it off to this inept third party program.

In the last few months I have had troubles with Command and Conquer 3 in that you can’t use a Microsoft application called Process Explorer at any time before running it. If you HAVE, it will give you an error when trying to start the game, until you reboot. There is no other way to clear the error except to reboot, and not run the legitimate Microsoft application again.

I would think Microsoft would be pissed off about this. I am pissed off enough for the both of us. I hate having to reboot, especially for this arbitrariness.

This isn’t the only error, I get random other ones from Securom all the time. Either balking at other system utilities I run, or about virtual drives, or network drives, or wearing yellow feathers in a purple cap while dancing a jig.

Now I try to play the demo of Overlord, and I get the same damn message.

Googling Securom and Process Explorer shows that they’ve pissed off thousands of other people.

Please, game producers, I hate to break it to ya, but your games and apps are being copied and played despite Securom. The only thing this program does is piss off people that actually legitimately pay for these games. Even before you release your precious software, the net floods with replacement executables which are stripped of any copy protection you so diligently paid for. Oh, how do I know, you say? Because I have to use these stripped executables TO BE ABLE TO PLAY THE DAMN GAME I PAID FOR WITHOUT JUMPING THROUGH FRICKIN HOOPS!

update: While searching a bit more, I found out that a dutiful member of the Sysinternals forum (the software group that originally made Process Explorer and were bought out by Microsoft) whipped a “hider” program for Process Explorer’s services. I’ll admit I was surprised Process Explorer left a residual driver after running, which is what is detected by Securom. This worked perfectly with the Overlord demo. Thanks, throx!

Continuing its multiple “Schadenfreudian Slips” columns for Gamasutra, notable and more than a little eccentric German game company Schadenfreude Interactive presents an anecdotal account of the hardships of trying to find the right copy protection.

Schadenfreudian Slips: Copy Protection Racket

A silly story based around modern copy protection for games. What sucked me in and made me laugh was the look at old copy-protection schemes that I had forgotten about.

I remember especially games such as Keef the Thief, which had a large extremely dark brown copy protection manual (dark to deter photocopies), full of long and cryptic words on numbered pages. The game would ask you at many junctures to provide a word from a certain “paragraph” on a certain page. There were previous and other instances of this type of scheme in other games and software, but this one sticks out in my head mainly because I had to strain for minutes to read these black-on-dark-brown letters. By the time I had found the page, killed my eyes, and entered it, I had forgotten what exactly I was doing in the damn game!