FM09 security v FM10 piracy threat?

After just reading a thread about somebody not being able to activate FM09, i discovered there is now a patch which removes the need for activation.

That got me wondering. Can anybody from SI/SEGA shed any light on the number of copies sold of FM09 compared to FM10.

Now correct me if im wrong but is there no protection from piracy against FM10? And im guessing it has still sold shed loads. Possibly even more than FM09.

So this got me thinking was it worth all the hassle and cock ups last year because of the activation. Im guessing it wasnt seeing as it was removed from this years game but still it would be good to hear if it did actually make a difference.

Hopefully there was no difference at all, or maybe FM10 sold even more so theres no need for the activation again.

The war against piracy can't be won. Rockstar Games spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on GTA 4 on antipiracy and it was cracked one week after it was released.

Just save the effort and use it instead to make the game a better experience for everyone, I would say.

I liked the activation.

anybody from SI/SEGA care to comment?

Si don't like discussions about piracy. Even ones that were intelligently written out so I'm not sure they'll reply. Personally I believe that anti piracy mesures , at best, will merely slow the tide. It won't stop it so the money could be better spent elsewhere

e.g

less money spent on anti piracy methods = lowere prices at the shop= people more willing to buy originals.

Nothing, ever, will be able to stop people from making illegal copies or downloads of the game. SI could throw millions into getting it completely anti-privacy but the fact still remains that it will be cracked or whatever at some point after its release. It would be nice if illegal copies cannot be made, but the chances of this happening is absolute zero.

Yea it's ridiculous. There's .iso files everywhere around the net nowadays.

Piracy is overated ,

I guess it all comes down to whether or not you believe legitimate customers turn to piracy because it's easy. FM will probably get illegally downloaded millions of times but it's irrelevant if these pirates would never have bought the game at £29.99. The real problem is if people who'd otherwise make a purchase are downloading illegally.

Piracy is bad, but reading the comments on torrent sites is hilarious. The sheer number of bad/fake cracks is astounding, and people get so ****ed when the game they're trying to steal doesn't work properly. I'd love to see a company like SI flood the sites with fake cracks, but I assume there'd be legal issues involved...

Indeed, legal issues will come into play. SI, i would suspect, are very wary about the whole legal issues and privacy threats about their games. I highly doubt if anyone from SI/SEGA come in here and make a comment about it.

the point im getting at is there really that big a difference in sales seeing as FM10 has from what i can tell, no protection against piracy compared to 09. Given what they spent on 09 piracy protection and all the problems and hassle that came with it was it really worth it.

Im guessing it did more harm than good to be honest. Just think how many people got p'd off last year coz of the activation issues and was put off buying 10 in the first place until they realised they could just buy the game and install it with no problems

You can't ban piracy. It is just not possible. A lot of media companies, including the music and video games branch, made the mistake that they thought they could and lost millions with trying to stop piracy while nothing worked.

I think that there are other solutions like buying it online, lower prices, and adding extra content (non-media) to a product. SI is doing a good job on this with the option of buying FM on Steam and the price of FM is relatively cheaper than other games.

the point im getting at is there really that big a difference in sales seeing as FM10 has from what i can tell, no protection against piracy compared to 09. Given what they spent on 09 piracy protection and all the problems and hassle that came with it was it really worth it.

Im guessing it did more harm than good to be honest. Just think how many people got p'd off last year coz of the activation issues and was put off buying 10 in the first place until they realised they could just buy the game and install it with no problems

FM2010 is protected - you either need to link the game to Steam or play with the disc in the drive.

Whether the FM2010 or FM2009 system protected the game better will be something we will likely have to infer from the protection for FM2011 when it's announced.

Personally I prefered the FM09 system well apart from the release day issues but then I had no problem with Uniloc on my computer, no doubt the people who suffered problems would have prefered it to have the FM08 or FM10 protection.

Saleswise in the UK according to reports FM2009 was the quickest selling CM/FM game (which would make it the third quickest selling PC game - CM4 held the record beat by World of Warcraft that week aswell) and was still #1 in the charts in April, if I remember correctly it stayed in the charts until it went budget and was removed from the charts (or that may have been FM08?)

Whilst FM2010 went straight to #1 on the all-formats chart and is still #1 in the PC Games chart.

FM2010 is protected - you either need to link the game to Steam or play with the disc in the drive.

Whether the FM2010 or FM2009 system protected the game better will be something we will likely have to infer from the protection for FM2011 when it's announced.

Personally I prefered the FM09 system well apart from the release day issues but then I had no problem with Uniloc on my computer, no doubt the people who suffered problems would have prefered it to have the FM08 or FM10 protection.

Saleswise in the UK according to reports FM2009 was the quickest selling CM/FM game (which would make it the third quickest selling PC game - CM4 held the record beat by World of Warcraft that week aswell) and was still #1 in the charts in April, if I remember correctly it stayed in the charts until it went budget and was removed from the charts (or that may have been FM08?)

Whilst FM2010 went straight to #1 on the all-formats chart and is still #1 in the PC Games chart.

rubbish rubbish fm2010 is not even in the top 20 ..even cm2010 ranks far far better than fm2010 in fact your will not even see fm2010 rank anywhere near the top 20

pc pro wrote it was the worse fm game yet so where do you get your rubbish from

link 1 http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/chart.asp?platform=PCS

link2 http://pc.gameseek.co.uk/

link3 http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110015

link4 http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/51863/The-Latest-UK-Game-Charts

link5 http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6162496.html

link6 http://www.simplygames.com/Chart/PC/

no i mean FM10 isnt really protected against piracy though. like somebody said, make an .iso file and you can play the game without the DVD so they must be able to use this to pirate the game. Was FM09 not impossible to play if you had not bought an original game or digital download because of the activation thing.

When i bought FM09 i wasn't on the internet so i couldn't activate online. After just paying £30 for the game, why am i expected to pay even further for an activation code by phoning a premium rate number (also from a mobile as i had no landline, cheers SI/SEGA)

So im thinking that the whole anti-piracy protection implemented for FM09 was a complete waste of time and money, and also a pain for paying customers who fell into my bracket at the time as well as the countless other problems.

Hopefully this is what SI/SEGA have realised and not implemented it into FM10 or any future versions of the game

last year really did f**K over people without the internet with that activation code thing.

FM2010 is protected - you either need to link the game to Steam or play with the disc in the drive.

Whether the FM2010 or FM2009 system protected the game better will be something we will likely have to infer from the protection for FM2011 when it's announced.

Personally I prefered the FM09 system well apart from the release day issues but then I had no problem with Uniloc on my computer, no doubt the people who suffered problems would have prefered it to have the FM08 or FM10 protection.

Saleswise in the UK according to reports FM2009 was the quickest selling CM/FM game (which would make it the third quickest selling PC game - CM4 held the record beat by World of Warcraft that week aswell) and was still #1 in the charts in April, if I remember correctly it stayed in the charts until it went budget and was removed from the charts (or that may have been FM08?)

Whilst FM2010 went straight to #1 on the all-formats chart and is still #1 in the PC Games chart.

That is protection?

FM is available for £19.99 at a lot of places, which is VERY reasonable, even cheap, compared to other games. That stops a lot of people from buying pirates. Plus its a quality game that lasts you for ages.

Would be interested to see the year by year sales of CM/FM games.

Anyone from SI please?

rubbish rubbish fm2010 is not even in the top 20 ..even cm2010 ranks far far better than fm2010 in fact your will not even see fm2010 rank anywhere near the top 20

pc pro wrote it was the worse fm game yet so where do you get your rubbish from

link 1 http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/chart.asp?platform=PCS

link2 http://pc.gameseek.co.uk/

link3 http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110015

link4 http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/51863/The-Latest-UK-Game-Charts

link5 http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6162496.html

link6 http://www.simplygames.com/Chart/PC/

Well according to the people who make the charts it's currently the #1 PC Game in the UK

You have rather helpfully linked to a chart from 2006, various charts that include console games (that far outsell PC Games - FM2010 outsells both Modern Warfare and Left4Dead on the PC in the UK), whilst you do know that store made charts are for the most part made up.

And how exactly is CM2010 higher in the charts when it's not in the ones you supplied and FM2010 is?

Well according to the people who make the charts it's currently the #1 PC Game in the UK

You have rather helpfully linked to a chart from 2006, various charts that include console games (that far outsell PC Games - FM2010 outsells both Modern Warfare and Left4Dead on the PC in the UK), whilst you do know that store made charts are for the most part made up.

And how exactly is CM2010 higher in the charts when it's not in the ones you supplied and FM2010 is?

what has where the game is in the charts got anything to do with what im saying. we all know its the best selling game every year. Im talkin about how much more/less FM10 sold compared to FM09 given that its not really protected against piracy.

If FM10 sold more or just as well as FM09 then the farce that was the protection for 09 was a complete waste of time and money.

If it did in fact sell less than 09, could this purely be put down to piracy reasons or the fact that so many people were p'd off with the 09 activation issues and were put off from buying 10. Or put off until they found out no activation is NEEDED!

no i mean FM10 isnt really protected against piracy though. like somebody said, make an .iso file and you can play the game without the DVD so they must be able to use this to pirate the game. Was FM09 not impossible to play if you had not bought an original game or digital download because of the activation thing.

When i bought FM09 i wasn't on the internet so i couldn't activate online. After just paying £30 for the game, why am i expected to pay even further for an activation code by phoning a premium rate number (also from a mobile as i had no landline, cheers SI/SEGA)

So im thinking that the whole anti-piracy protection implemented for FM09 was a complete waste of time and money, and also a pain for paying customers who fell into my bracket at the time as well as the countless other problems.

Hopefully this is what SI/SEGA have realised and not implemented it into FM10 or any future versions of the game

FM10 is protected similar to FM08 and previous games (and similar to various other PC Games) with a CD check, whilst no doubt the protection can be broken I'm sure various people on the forum were claiming the FM09 system had been broken last year (I'm not sure when or if either system was broken - I would advise people not to go looking as you'll be likely to find yourselves banned from the forums). I presume Sega will have an idea of how effective each system has been and it will likely play some part in their decision for FM11 though I doubt we'll be told specifics (some things even us Mods aren't told).

Obviously people like yourself had various problems with the FM09 system which resulted in the change (and annoyed the people who were happy with the FM09 system), as far as I'm aware the FM09 system took longer to crack than previous systems, though people in the forum claimed differently. Whilst the inability to play on release date wasn't a great side affect.

At the end of the day any system will be broken eventually and it's a trade off between what we have to put up with against how quickly the game is broken.

And with the game selling better each year it seems the average gamer doesn't mind what the protection is or more than likely doesn't consider it when buying games.

what has where the game is in the charts got anything to do with what im saying. we all know its the best selling game every year. Im talkin about how much more/less FM10 sold compared to FM09 given that its not really protected against piracy.

If FM10 sold more or just as well as FM09 then the farce that was the protection for 09 was a complete waste of time and money.

If it did in fact sell less than 09, could this purely be put down to piracy reasons or the fact that so many people were p'd off with the 09 activation issues and were put off from buying 10. Or put off until they found out no activation is NEEDED!

He isnt pointing it out to you, he is pointing it out to sparks who suggested that FM2010, isnt even in the charts for sales when it is, and it is in fact still the number one selling PC game.

IIRC it took a few days after release for FM09 to appear on some elite torrent sites, but for a game that is quite good, considering there are some games that were available upto a week BEFORE release.

I have no problem with the FM09 type of protection, aside from the release day issues, and thought it was a good idea. But there will always be people who object.

what has where the game is in the charts got anything to do with what im saying. we all know its the best selling game every year. Im talkin about how much more/less FM10 sold compared to FM09 given that its not really protected against piracy.

If FM10 sold more or just as well as FM09 then the farce that was the protection for 09 was a complete waste of time and money.

If it did in fact sell less than 09, could this purely be put down to piracy reasons or the fact that so many people were p'd off with the 09 activation issues and were put off from buying 10. Or put off until they found out no activation is NEEDED!

The sales figures don't appear to be released to the public by the people who do the charts so the charts are the closest you'll get to seeing how well they compare.

Even if the sales figures were public a direct comparison wouldn't show whether the protection had an effect or not - over the last year the country has gone into a recession, prices have gone up, various shops have shut down and the supermarkets in various parts of the country no longer sell PC Games.

The fact that FM08, FM09 and FM10 all topped the charts shows that the majority of users don't really care what the protection is.

Piracy is a problem for game/software/music. Though FM is more or less lucky here - there is a huuuge fandom behind the game and what is more important, most people in this fandom actually want to get a legal copy of the game.

Even here, in ex-USSR fans do their best to get a legal copy of FM, despite that fact that it's not that easy. For about nine last years you can gat most of the PC (and through last 3-4 years - most of Video games) games legally, but it's much harder with FM.

I had to buy 5 copies in London, while on business trip, because it wasn't clear whether FM2010 is being released in Russia or Ukraine.

They did release the game officially in Russia, after a month of the worldwide release. European version, without Russian (or any other local languages), which is not a problem, since fans here got used to English:) through 90ies and early 00.

Some other people order through Amazon and other internet shops. Though it's still not that easy.

As a matter of fact, I got acquainted with CM through a pirated copy back in 1998 (it was impossible to get any other version of the game in Kiev) and now I buy all new versions - through Steam/ postal delivery/ while traveling - it doesn't matter.

P.S. SIGAMES/ SEGA people - please do something about FM being available through STEAM in ex-USSR. I can buy it from there, but only because I'm working for an international company and our server works through London.

Most anti-pirate mesures that are taken like DRM, activation and so on ruins the experience for actual buyers rather than pirates who will find a way through anyways, for free.

I say don't bother trying to stop piracy. Waste of time and money.

Put that time, thought, and money into the game, and make it good enough that most people will repect it and it's developers too much to want to steal it.

Ambitious idea, yes, but it's better than pouring money into a system that will trouble pirates for only a few weeks, but trouble customers for the life of the product.

I say don't bother trying to stop piracy. Waste of time and money.

Put that time, thought, and money into the game, and make it good enough that most people will repect it and it's developers too much to want to steal it.

Ambitious idea, yes, but it's better than pouring money into a system that will trouble pirates for only a few weeks, but trouble customers for the life of the product.

I totally agree with this.

It's better to put more efforts in development + proper distribution/ pricing.