Authentication Issues
As today’s games shift from Single Player to Multiplayer, getting away with pirated software will become even more difficult.
Central authentication servers are the latest kind of copy protection software online. You can only play on the Internet when a special server maintained by the producers authorizes your CD key.
Quake III: Arena and Half-Life use this mechanism. Even though the CD key routine has been pluricracked and key-generated, the overall idea is to annoy (and mostly deny) people who didn’t buy the game.
Charging a monthly subscription fee of $10 like Everquest might be the taste of the things to come, where you have to pay before you play.
As today’s games shift from Single Player to Multiplayer, getting away with pirated software will become even more difficult.
Central authentication servers are the latest kind of copy protection software online. You can only play on the Internet when a special server maintained by the producers authorizes your CD key.
Quake III: Arena and Half-Life use this mechanism. Even though the CD key routine has been pluricracked and key-generated, the overall idea is to annoy (and mostly deny) people who didn’t buy the game.
Charging a monthly subscription fee of $10 like Everquest might be the taste of the things to come, where you have to pay before you play.