Eidos Sets Sneaky Trap for Arkham Asylum Pirates
Software piracy has been the bane of videogame development for a long, long time, especially for PC developers. But it’s not very often when a game studio resorts to hidden piracy protection rather than activation codes or shoddy DRM, which makes Batman: Arkham Asylum a classic example of programming brilliance.
On the Eidos forums, a user by the name of Cheshirec_the_cat announced a problem he was having with the game, which he apparently downloaded for free. Let’s just say Eidos’s response is absolutely hilarious.
Cheshirec_the_cat (The Pirater):
“Hi!
I’ve got a problem when it’s time to use Batman’s glide in the game. When I hold , like it’s said to jump from one platform to another, Batman tries to open his wings again and again instead of gliding. So he fels down in a poisoning gas. If somebody could tel me, what should I do there.”
Keir (Eidos Admin):
“The problem you have encountered is a hook in the copy protection, to catch out people who try and download cracked versions of the game for free.
It’s not a bug in the game’s code, it’s a bug in your moral code.”
28 Responses to “Eidos Sets Sneaky Trap for Arkham Asylum Pirates”
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September 9th, 2009 at 5:50 AM
Haha. That was hilarious!
September 9th, 2009 at 5:51 AM
Awesome!
September 9th, 2009 at 6:33 AM
Im lovin it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 9th, 2009 at 6:37 AM
Hahaha, amazing!
Although I can’t say I never pirated anything, I can really appreciate a thing like this against “us pirates”
Keep it up!
September 9th, 2009 at 7:30 AM
nothing to say other then that’s awesome!
September 9th, 2009 at 7:40 AM
LOL, pretty nice Eidos. Pretty Nice.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:47 AM
God dang it.
I own the PS3 version so I was going to download the PC version so that I could check out and compare the PhysX stuff since I have a model compatible with the NVidia PhysX. What a shame.
I hope there’s a PC demo.
September 9th, 2009 at 8:54 AM
Ownage. lol
September 9th, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Somebody finally figured out how to beat them at their own game. If they want to pirate the game just limit gameplay. I can see it now in other games, GT5 the brakes fail going into the corner at the end of the high speed straight in Suzuka etc… Or your ‘chute fails in COD when you bail out of the plane in Multiplayer etc. This is just an ingenious way to make pirates pay for nothing, since “you get what you pay for” and if you did not pay for it then you don’t get a complete game experience.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Funny but not really PS3 related.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:43 AM
That’s quite possibly the most epic response I’ve ever read.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Oh the creative spirits of todays game developers. Thats freaking hilarious, sucker!
September 9th, 2009 at 11:11 AM
@MakaiOokami
The guy did seem to be playing it fine until glide came up, not sure how long that is into the game but could serve as a demo if you really want to try.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:25 AM
It sounds like Batman himself wrote that awesome crime catcher code.
2 thumbs up
September 9th, 2009 at 11:31 AM
that is absolutely brilliant, now if only Sony would deploy something similar when someone reported a stolen PS3. It would be awesome if Sony could send out a bug to the PS3 if you could tell them that PS3’s MAC address and then be able to locate the missing unit from there. I only suggest this because my original system was stolen about a year ago.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:07 PM
@JohnnyTruant5
u need the glide to progress in story a lot
lol now that was an awesome burn
September 9th, 2009 at 12:23 PM
That’s kinda like something batman would do if someone stole his batmobile, make it malfunction.
BRILLIANT!
September 9th, 2009 at 1:33 PM
OMG thats crazy,,so smart..lol..
September 9th, 2009 at 3:42 PM
Oh, Snap!
September 9th, 2009 at 4:10 PM
That’s genius! All games that come to the PC should include something like this
September 9th, 2009 at 4:18 PM
jajajajajaja, i just dl the demo on steam, and its great, im going to buyit (when i have money
) for the ps3
September 9th, 2009 at 4:24 PM
Best freakin post all day and MAD PROPS to Eidos , take that you manky pirates.
September 9th, 2009 at 5:08 PM
Lol. I do believe that hackers can’t really be stoped but limiting them is great. Now, let’s just see if hackers could exploit this. It’s still possible.
September 9th, 2009 at 5:09 PM
Amazing, hope more developers take note instead of making games incredible expensive cough, Activision, cough!
September 9th, 2009 at 5:16 PM
@SPD – they didnt figure out how to beat us at all. I have the game and I haven’t run into a single glitch. The stupid moron that downloaded this probably didnt check it to make sure its safe and all the files are exact matches of retail copies. I have hundreds of games and have yet to find a glitch.
Eidos did NOTHING to stop the piraters because again this kid didnt properly fix the ISO img file before burning onto a disc.
09/09/2009 at 10:09 PM
All I can say is “I hope Eidos isn’t reading your comment.” =P
September 9th, 2009 at 8:10 PM
Nice, not only did they make one of the best games. They do shit like that. I’m impressed.
September 10th, 2009 at 7:11 AM
[...] Source [...]
September 10th, 2009 at 5:39 PM
[...] or shoddy DRM, which makes Batman: Arkham Asylum a classic example of programming brilliance… SOURCE Some guy gets pwned by EIDOS admin. I hope this ain’t a repost did a search and my first time [...]