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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:10 Overview & “Feelies”
5:02 The Real & The Fake
12:53 Everyday Anti-Piracy
15:50 The Malicious Ones
18:07 My Favorite Anti-Piracy Measure
This Tech Rules video used the following resources:
Videos Used, in Order of Appearance:
Mario DS Anti-Piracy Screen:
Earthbound Anti-Piracy:
GTAIV Anti-Piracy:
The Secret of Monkey Island Playthrough:
Mario 64 Anti-Piracy Screen:
Lego Island WHOOOPS!:
Puyo Tsu Gameplay:
Gyakuten Kenji 2 Anti-Piracy:
Michael Jackson Anti-Piracy:
(The YouTuber responsible for the two videos above has other great anti-piracy demonstrations, and they just recently returned to YouTube. Show their channel some love!)
La Abadia Del Crimen Anti-Piracy:
Rabi-Ribi Speedrun by IIvgmll at SGDQ 2020:
Just Shapes & Beats Anti-Piracy:
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I excessively talk about unimportant things on Twitter:
7:51 oh yeah, after a long time we actually found out how to make it play in game, vanilla cuphead, no mods, no cheats, no GameSharks.
I'm sure it's pretty well-known in the Higurashi community, but if you pirate the officially licensed GBA port of Higurashi's question arcs, Rena (the scary redhead girl) will appear and straight up say your IP address (The program actually converts the game from your computer into a GBA rom, that's why it knows your IP address). Answer arcs does the same with a different character iirc.
Late, but: Earthbound has a pretty malicious anti-piracy measures-three of them. The first one displays your usual “this isn’t meant for this type of port!” or “this is a crime!” message. Second, the game will bombard you with a whole lot of garbage enemies, most of which are different than the areas they’re supposed to be in or in passive places. The third, which runs right before the final battle, freezes the game and deletes your save. Interesting, huh?
The cup anti piracy thing is a lie but you can actually activate the music by entering the Konami code on the menu
6:27 – This is a weird one, my dad had a copier and I never had any SNES or NES games bug out on me.
But we also had a very banged up version of Metroid for NES that did bug out. Not sure if it was from DRM or just "trying to omany weird game genie and passwords screwed with it"
I also hacked up my copy of Pokemon gold in a way that left permanent weird damage – even if starting a new game the first pokemon encountered is now raikou (who always runs away – go figure), so while I'm not the person you were looking for "yeah, I messed with games and never saw this stuff detect on them" [I used the 'monster brain' device on Pokemon gold, by Pellican software]
they actually found the use for the cuphead song, it's just a cool thing if you put the konami code on the menu screen after getting the bad ending
Side note. Mario Party DS is a goated Mario Party, second only to Mario Party 6.
6:28 and this would,ve also happened with your snes had a but too much sram slapped on it when being produced
I saw a YouTube video showing the original F-Zero instantly crashing your chosen vehicle when starting a race, even in Practice mode (I think?). That was when I was a kid. Was that an anti-piracy check? Or was it just a faulty cartridge?
I think i might have gotten a pirated copy of yoshis Island ds since when i tried it all thoughs years ago it showed a black screen and some text i don't remember what it said but the problem was fixed my parents returned the posablely pirated copy and managed to find and get an official copy
Oh yeah I saw the thing you guys were talking about too. It made the roof of my house catch fire and the chief of police ate all of my oranges.
Dixie after diddy pirated: Fine ill join you
You know, that backwards version of the title screen music in Cuphead actually plays if you get the Bad Ending (agreeing to the Devil’s deal). It happened to me when I got the Bad Ending and was FREAKED OUT. Has that happened to anyone else?
I remember when I was pirating Geometry Dash, then the demon face got materialised out of my phone and said "FIRE IN THE HOLE🔥🔥🔥🔥" and proceeded to kill me.
Mf spent 75 percent of the video not talking about anti-piracy measures then rushes the rest…
One time i was playing a pirated version of minecraft then steve said motherfucker and jumped into my house cut me leg and destroyed me pc
After that he disappeared💀
The problem with many of these anti-piracy screens is that the wording they use is very unrealistic, almost no popular game would ever antagonize its own players for copying a game illegally.
Yea I totally got the high school movie piracy
I enjoyed this video but I feel like every time you were about to talk about something cool I’ve never heard of you’d just say, “but you’ve probably already heard about that”, or “that’s a long story for another day” and so I feel like I only got a fraction of the video that I was looking for. I clicked on this because I haven’t heard of all the ways games detect and respond to pirating, so I would appreciate it if instead of assuming I don’t want to watch it you could add timestamps and chapters for the people who have.
Otherwise great video I really liked it!❤
I experienced the piracy screen in Super Mario All Stars on the SNES. It occurred because I was cartridge tilting for glitches.
I pirated a hat in time and now hat kid is coming fast and oh god I just heard a window smash I think she’s gonna smash me on the Wochesbsgsudnfneiwgrjidhi
When I was a kid I also had some pirated games, since then I bought all the games I pirated back then. Also I always talked about games i liked
@techrules the scary aduio in cuphead only plays after you get the bad ending
I wonder someone sold rom-hacked physicals on the "buy it or die" one at some point
I like the way witcher did it, swap the hot girl with an old lady. U can still play the game, just don't get to see anything spicy 🫣
The reversed cuphead intro is in the game, you have to just make the deal with the deal with the devil at the end of the game and once you go back to the title screen it will play
Yo I like the content, but you should cut like half the video. Alot of time you just ramble without really delivering any Information
So far, the only anti-piracy measure I’ve seen in person is Lego Island’s “Whoops, you forgot to put the CD on your computer”, Pirates’ put the CD in your PC error message, and Startropics’ weird puzzle about watts.
I downloaded cuphead and modifed the the code and it redirected me to "You are a pirate" kids music video on yt
I recall Serious Sam 3 from a videogame magazine. It spawns an unkillable scorpion at some point and you can't progress. What made it funny was that after launch, game forums had a lot of players asking how to beat the scorpion.
Cuphead one isn't real because i had the pirated version of the game and it would have just a regular theme.
When i firstly knew of this i thought i just has a modificated torrent
I seem to recall getting a pretty spooky anti-piracy check once. The classic "gah, this is illegal" but with the grim reaper. If I saw it, it would be in the NES, SNES, or Genesis era. Now, I know I've seen a screen once, and it went away on reset, but since any of these memories would be almost 30 years old, and I've spent a lot of time on TCRF, I'd really love to know which game that was, or if I'm just mixing memories and random stuff I've seen since.
8:15
I like your funny words, magic man!
Dont forget that anti piracy screen in Mr.gimmick! Where at the starting of the progress of the final level, you will be greeted with nothing but a black interface blocking the game, with a text "black hole"
you can acess the cuphead thing by getting the bad ending and doing some button combo thingy
17:50
Honestly sounds like a really good measure if it wasn't opened every frame
"Hey, if you like this game, how about you buy it for real"
8:22 iirc, you have to get the bad ending and input the Konami code on the title screen
Note on the cup head thing: the sound file is played when you do the Konami code on the “Bad ending” of the game, then you get that on the main menu
Closest thing I’ve found to an anti-piracy screen legitimately, was in drawn to life: the next chapter for DS where I was (for some reason) fiddling with the cartridge as I was booting up the game, and got an error screen I couldn’t trigger any other way that was in the games art style.
So uh, ya STILL haven't done the FNAF 2 video :p
mario party ds
when i played the pirated version of "Just Shapes and Beats" i never got that anti-piracy screen, did i somehow miss it or did it just get removed from the files?
im assuming im late to blinkist lmao
I've only seen one piece of anti-piracy in person, in the mobile port of Worms 2: Armageddon. If you're playing a cracked version, your worms will all be poisoned and wearing pirate hats, no matter what cosmetics you choose. The poison makes it nigh-on impossible to complete the single player, and the crack makes it impossible to play online. I have no clue if this is true for PC and console ports, but worth looking into.
I know it's only on the cracked version, because a legitimately purchased download doesn't do this. Also yes, this is me technically admitting to downloading a crack. It was over a decade ago, and I've learned my lesson on supporting the devs.
RABI RIBI, YAAAAAAY!
go play it, it's on switch now, and its great!B
fun fact, there IS a set of Pokemon games that actually HAS anti piracy, in Pokemon Black and white and the sequels for those games, there IS an anti piracy module set in place where if it detects that there's no infrared communicator at various points throughout the game, it will straight up FREEZE the game and you have to restart at your last save
Its called a mod. Its a strange world where mods are called piracy
A real anti piracy screen I found is in Dragon quest V where the first boat ride takes forever instead of a few minutes
I pirated baldis basics and then baldi beat the shit out of me in real life and forced me to sit through a 278 hour lecture about how piracy is bad and when i fell asleep he beat me with the stick until i stopped sleeping. It has been 7 years since i last slept.
The first 100 people to go to https://www.blinkist.com/techrules are going to get unlimited access for 1 week to try it out. You'll also get 25% off if you want the full membership.
Hey everyone! So, for clarification: This video was being worked on right about when that Mario Party DS video was gaining traction, before the fake anti-piracy trend even kicked off. That's why I talk about it like some strange, foreign thing that magically appeared one day. (Which, let's be honest, it kind of is.) Thankfully, I opted not to make it a big focus in the video, so the finished product still holds up just fine! If anything, it might even be more relevant!
Also, big news: The first ever Tech Rules livestream will be happening this month, on the 15th! We'll be doing some sort of randomizer. I have a few good ones in mind, and I'm gonna make a poll for which game we'll do a day or two after this video's release. If you want to weigh in on that, keep an eye on the community tab! The stream itself should start some time in the evening. Well, evening in the Eastern time zone. Hope to see you there!
EDIT: Okay, so it's not technically correction time yet (although I'm sure you all will find SOMETHING I screwed up on) a lot of people are mentioning that the "unused" Cuphead track actually plays in the game's bad ending. That's…partially true. While the unused track starts the same way, I'm pretty sure it goes on for a bit longer, and there aren't any hidden images in it. My bad, should've mentioned that!
Also, it seems a lot of you are missing the original Tech Rules title card animation? I figured I would just try shortening it a bit, since I'm working on making my videos a little less bulky. If everyone wants it back, though, I'll bring it back. Just let me know!