Once I finish up Mothership Zeta I will probably delete Fallout 3. Hate to keep 7gb games around (played all DLCs).

Is there a demo of X3?

Is there a demo of X3?

I think so, but it used to come loaded with Starforce. Not sure nowadays - the game had it removed and is CD-less (yay!).

Which means what? (practically speaking)

It is evil malware and will f### up your system.

It is evil malware and will f### up your system.

Pretty much that. Specifically, it's a notorious form of DRM which, IIRC, does stuff like give itself level 0 (root) access to windows, ec. It was withdrawn from most titles after a consumer outcry - Ubisoft, for example, used it for the likes of Far Cry (1).

Why the f### do you need copy protection on a demo anyway?

Seriously, why wouldn't you want someone to copy it for everyone and their dig?

Why the f### do you need copy protection on a demo anyway?

Seriously, why wouldn't you want someone to copy it for everyone and their dig?

You can reverse-engineer demo code in order to crack the retail game, otherwise.

You can reverse engineer the production code pretty easily too.

So, in other words, don't get the X3 demo?

You can reverse engineer the production code pretty easily too.

How easily?

Well I've seen plenty of games that had no demo cracked on the first day. Spore for instance had SecuROM and cracked copies appeared before the official release of the game.

Well I've seen plenty of games that had no demo cracked on the first day. Spore for instance had SecuROM and cracked copies appeared before the official release of the game.

That's not exactly a measurement of difficulty though, is it?

Yeah it is. Anything that can be cracked on day 1 != difficult.


So given that you're crippling the take up of your own demo in order to provide dubious\non-existent security benefits, it's a bloody stupid thing to do.

Yeah it is. Anything that can be cracked on day 1 != difficult.

Not really. It depends on the amount of work - people, man-hours, etc - in that single day (assuming no pre-release leaks, of course). Most things can be done in a single day with enough people working on it, after all - I've seen sev 1 bugs being fixed in a fraction of the time of sev 5s for exactly that reason.

I think it'd be pretty spurious to call it easy, in any case - more likely that existing exploits/tools/documentation are used to speed up breaking whatever protection is present. It's also unimportant with regards to take-up; if people are offended by DRM in the demo it's a fair bet they'll object to the prospect of installing it if/when they buy the retail product. AFAIK it's pretty rare that a developer or publisher will voluntarily (in the event of an outcry over a particular product, I'd guess they generally prefer to replace it) remove DRM post-launch.

In any case (apparently) it seems the X3 demo used Starforce as it was impossible to remove (at the time) without significant changes to the base code. I think other demos may also use drm to prevent against reverse engineering which removes limits placed on the demo, such as time-based activation.