How pirates hijacked DS

[group.owner]

A tiny piece of plastic is making software theft simple – and it's
costing the games industry a fortune. Toby Green reports

Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The R4 enables the user to play pirated games from the internet which
can be downloaded for free

The R4 enables the user to play pirated games from the internet which
can be downloaded for free


Think of a pirate and it's likely that an image of a bandanna-clad,
eye-patch sporting villain springs to mind. But these days, piracy has
moved out of the high seas and into our homes. For millions of people,
downloading an album for free or buying knock-off DVDs in the pub is a
normal part of life, with no yo ho ho-ing required.

Until recently, the world of video games had been one industry that
had found itself relatively untouched. The methods required to play
most pirated games on consoles are too risky and technical to have
seeped into the mainstream. Now, however, consoles are in the pirates'
sight – and it's all down to a small piece of plastic, no bigger than
a couple of centimetres squared.

The R4 is a tiny Chinese-made device – costing around £14 – that for
more than seven million owners of Nintendo's hand-held console, the
DS, has blown wide open its capabilities. Combined with a small memory
card and plugged into the back of the DS, it enables the console to
play MP3s and videos, as well as store copies of games you already
own.

Crucially, however, it also enables the user to play pirated games
from the internet; games which don't have to be brought from a dodgy
man in a pub, but can be downloaded for free. Add to this that it's
simple to use, and available through retailers such as Amazon, and you
can see why the R4 and devices similar to it are bringing video game
console piracy to the mainstream.

"There has always been an undercurrent of piracy in the console
market, but it's more of a hardcore pursuit," says Tim Ingham, the
online editor of gaming magazine, MCV. "You usually need to 'mod' a
console to really take advantage – which invalidates the warranty and
can easily go wrong. It usually involves some kind of hardware
modification, soldering and more."

Tim calls the R4 the "most official-feeling" piracy product he has
seen for the DS and this, along with its ease of use and availability,
has attracted people, such as parents, who would never have considered
pirating a computer game before. The fact that it can be brought from
such mainstream websites as Amazon means that many do not even realise
its illicit nature.

Nick Welsh has two young children who love their computer games and
own a Nintendo DS. He heard about the device from another parent while
on holiday. For Welsh, buying a R4 solved both a logistical and a
financial problem. "The trouble with kids is you pay £20 or £30 for a
game, and they could only play it once," he says. "Let's say I sit
down and download 10 new games, the way it ends up is they'll only
really play one or two or those, and the others get replaced. I
wouldn't be able to afford that number of games."

Since all the games can be stored on one memory card, which stays in
the device, it also offers convenience. "You can have 70 or 80 games
on a 2GB card," says Welsh, "and they're all on the back of the
machine. There's no fiddling around with cartridges – it's all there
to hand."

Unsurprisingly, the games industry is not taking this lying down. The
Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA)
estimates that piracy costs the industry £3bn per year, while Nintendo
said it lost £560m last year.

Jodi Daugherty, Senior Director for Anti-Piracy at Nintendo, has been
tackling pirates for 14 years and believes the fight against the R4 is
one of the most challenging she has faced. "What is different with
these devices is how they're distributed and the impact they have with
regards to the internet," she says.

As well as issuing warning letters to the websites on which the games
are hosted, Nintendo is also targeting both the Chinese manufacturers
and the distributors who sell the devices, and have conducted several
raids on factories. Last July, Nintendo – along with some 50 game
producers – launched a lawsuit in Japan against distributors of the R4
and similar devices.

The distributors argue that devices such as the R4 are legal in their
own right. One online vendor selling the device even has a disclaimer,
stating: "By visiting and making any purchase from our site, we assume
that you will not use such products in any way that violates
international copyright laws. It is the sole responsibility of the
buyer to comply with the laws of their country."

However, Daugherty points out that, in order to enable the games to be
played on the DS, the R4 has to circumvent the built-in security
software designed to stop this. Daugherty also says that Nintendo are
working with online retail giants Amazon to "curtail the global sales/
distribution of game copying devices which violate our intellectual
property rights".

Of course, a close eye is being kept on the music and film industry,
neither of which can claim to have solved the issue. "The games
industry is certainly more aware of how things can go wrong – many
publishers and developers often mention how they've seen it go wrong
in the music world, and that they won't make the same mistakes," says
Ingham.

Electronic Arts is one company who have found out the effects of a
backlash. When their eagerly awaited God game, Spore, was released
last month they included a piece of digital rights management – or DRM
- software designed to prevent the game being pirated. They are now
facing legal action from gamers in California, who claim the software
can't be uninstalled – and, despite all this, the game has been
pirated anyway. However, Ingham does feel lessons have been learned.
"I think the biggest difference is that within these age-old industry
giants, an understanding that things will have to change sits
alongside that fear. That's something music in particular never quite
appreciated. They tried to control the uncontrollable."

It's not only the game publishers who have reacted to the R4. In July,
independent gaming retailers called for a ban on selling the device,
after reporting drops in DS software sales. Still, just as consoles
and software become more and more advanced, so will the methods used
by the pirates. "Many believe that the threat of piracy will
eventually not only move games online," says Ingham, "but change the
transaction between player and seller altogether. In the casual games
sphere, it is already popular, for example, for the owners of games to
give them away free, entirely supported by in-game ads."

Welsh agrees that a different approach would make him reconsider his
position. "If there was some sort of iTunes equivalent where it was
relatively easy and you could try a game for a week for a quid, and
pay another four quid to keep it, then I think it's likely I would use
it," he says.

It may be too late – the R4 has brought console piracy into the
mainstream, and the industry will have a tough time trying to get it
back into the shadows.

Levelling the score: The fight against fakes

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure (PC) 1989

An early tactic used by videogame makers was to use a game's user
manual as a rudimentary anti-piracy device, with players forced to
enter information in the game that could only be garnered from the
booklet. For their Graphic Adventure, based on the third Indiana Jones
film, Lucasfilm Games came up with an ingenious way to combine this
with the in-game puzzles. They originally included a copy of the Grail
Diary of Henry Jones Sr, which plays a large role in the film, in the
box. As well as being a good read, the diary contained various clues
which were required by certain puzzles.

The Secret of Monkey Island (PC) 1990

Another graphic adventure from Lucasfilm Games and another ingenious
method to defeat those who wished to play the game for free. Each game
included a code wheel entitled "Dial-a-Pirate", which had the upper
and lower halves of pirates' heads on the outer and inner circles
respectively. The game would show a face and ask you to make it on the
wheel, requiring you to then type in the year that would be revealed.

Half-Life 2 (PC) 2004

Clearly, illegal downloaders couldn't wait to get their hands on one
of the most eagerly-awaited sequels of all time, so its developer,
Valve, decided to coincide the launch of the follow-up to Half-Life
with the official launch of Steam, a digital distribution system.
Users who installed Half-Life 2 – whether they had downloaded it or
brought a physical copy – were required to be online to validate the
game through the system. Crashing servers meant the idea was
originally slated, but now Steam has established itself as a popular
form of games distribution.
. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/how-pirates-hijacked-ds-954403.html

[enrique]

The cost of software is a cop-out for parents who purchase this device
for parents. They are essentially teaching their children that
stealing is OK, provided that no one knows about your activity.

Nice parenting.

The legal way to get games to your kids inexpensively is to rent
them. If Little Timmy has the attention span of a snail and couldn't
own a game for more than a day, there are online services that enable
you to rent and receive games over the mail, much like what is done
for dvd movies. This somewhat also addresses the "Oo! Oo! I want that
new game NOW!!" as many of these same services will offer rental of
these games as soon as they are available for sale.

> .http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/how...