VGChartz Pro

Bohemia Interactive Talks Piracy, DRM

by Stefanie Fogel, posted on 09 November 2011 / 812 Views

Indie developer Bohemia Interactive is opening up about piracy and copy protection after a complaint on its forums surfaced from one clueless pirate about blurry graphics in its military game Take On Helicopters. The image degradation is due to Bohemia's unqiue DRM called FADE, which is designed to reduce performance of illegally downloaded games.

Bohemia Interactive states:

One of the aspects of developing any game in this modern age is how to protect it. It’s widely known that as soon as any game is released there are those who are looking to download it for free, who for whatever reason feel that their right is to not pay for something despite all the thousands of hours that have gone into its development. Obviously game developers have a responsibility to themselves to try to protect their company’s future, but also a responsibility to the community that supports them by buying their titles. No gamer who has spent their hard earned money to buy a game wants to be playing MP against others who didn’t buy their game, no addon maker wants to have things they created over countless hours downloaded and used by people who didn’t buy the game it’s intended for. That is why we try to come up with unique and irrefutable ways to stop people from playing our games without paying for them, that’s why Take On Helicopters shipped with our unique antipiracy countermeasures.

Bohemia began using FADE back in 2001 with the original Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. While it doesn't stop a person who illegally downloaded the game from playing it, it does manage to only give the pirate a taste of the game before degrading its performance. The developer assures gamers that legitimate copies of Take On Helicopters will not suffer in the same way.

Bohemia Interactive CEO Marek Spanel has offered to personally look into the forum complainer's issue... if he or she shows proof of purchase and a CD key. So far, there has been no update.


2 Comments

Jumpin
Jumpin (on 10 November 2011)

Their statement rings very true. What it all boils down to are pirates who essentially think two things: 1. They're entitled to data theft. 2. Since there is little chance of getting caught, and currently almost no shame associated with it, there's nothing wrong with it. Then they will come in with excuses to morally justify their actions "too expensive", "this company is evil anyway," or "Just sampling". None of which are valid excuses since in the end it still boils down to criminal activity dictating the direction of the industry.

  • +3
demonfox13
demonfox13 (on 09 November 2011)

Excellent. People have no right to download a for free when it's out in retail. Gaming is a luxury, not a NEED therefore noone has the "right" to this. Only exception to the rule (this is all my opinion, everyone is different) is if a game is no longer in circulation, or if capcom re-re-re-releases it for the 12th time and tries to put it on DRM, and you have already bought it in the past.

  • +2