Atari Founder: Encryption Chip Will End Piracy

[IdolEyes787]

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/picture.php?albumid=25&pictureid=2116Speaking at yesterday's Wedbush Morgan Securities annual Management Access Conference, the Atari founder suggested that game piracy will soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new chip.

"There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now," he pointed out. "What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."

Bushnell thinks that piracy of movies and music, however, is probably unstoppable because "if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it."

"Games are a different thing, because games are so integrated with the code. The TPM will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay.
"As soon as the installed base of the TPM hardware chip gets large enough, we will start to see revenues coming from Asia and India at a time when before it didn't make sense."

:source: Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/encryption-chip-will-end-piracy-open-markets-says-bushnell

[JohnHenryDoe]

It amazes me that game developers will fall for such drivel. He makes a good pitch to bank the big bucks with this new chip. If the games are written in code, there will always be a way to crack it. NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE!:whistling

[The Flying Cow]

If you can't crack it, bruteforce it.

BTW Atari sucks ass.

[blika]

When was the last time I heard that?

Was it for the PSP only running authenticated code?
No wait it must be the iPhone only running on AT&T.

:whistling

As long as there are idiots to believe it, there is a nice market niche to be filled there.

[colbert]

End of game piracy? Never!

[thedemon44]

lol, let them try.

[Sonnentier]

I thought Trusted Computing (http://fa32876.yourftp.de/tcpa.htm) was already dead? :huh:

Howsoever, there will always be a way to crack any 'protection'...

[LaPistola]

anything that can be coded can be decoded.

[piggy]

Oh common...

i laughed most of the time when i heard such news. There was a time where people said that DVD movies can't be cracked.. There comes a time when people say Playstation 3 can't be copied. Now we only need to change the hardware and add mod chip to get it work..

Perhaps perhaps.. the first few months, there will not be any piracy after the new programs came out, but the modding community i would believe always wins.

[EvanUnisil]

I always think of these 'developments' as interesting. I mean, do they expect to make more money now that pirates can't copy their games? I can tell you right now, sales will go down, down down. Prices will have to drop. I don't think it's possible for any of these businesses (videogames, music, television) to continue thriving as well as they have been without piracy. The prices they charge us are far too expensive for the casual consumer. Just look at the success of the Wii.

[S!X]

It seems like anything can be "Cracked" these days, why should this stop anyone?

[mbucari1]

I'm sure that it will be able to be cracked, but I'm also sure that the skill and precision required to mod it will be greater than ever before. Yes anything can be cracked, but you have to admit it's been getting more difficult. Remember when cell phones could be unlocked with software and a usb cable? well now many require messing with test points while you flash. Yes PS3 games have been copied, but we still can't play them on the PS3. Al in all, you have to admit that cracking has gotten harder.

[Appzalien]

I think most of you are missing the point here. Why in the world would a motherboard manufacturer, pay for a chip to put on its board, that will hinder sales to gamers? The answer is they won't, at least they won't if they have a choice. The only way the chip will sell is if they pass a law that says mobo manufacturers must use it, and that's not going to happen.

They have been tinkling on the heads of the good guys for so long, they think that increasing the stream will stop the pirates, but its not the pirates they're tinkling on.

And the guy who stated they will loose money hit the nail on the head. Why does a good guy download a ripped game? to cheat and not pay? No, he downloads to see if its worth buying and to delay his purchase until the price comes down from 50 bucks. It used to be demos that let you try a game, now its complete games. So the logical move for the game makers should be to offer free but very low graphics quality versions of the game. Then I have an incentive to purchase the full eye candy coated version after testing the game. Sort of like downloading a low quality avi to see if the movie is worth buying when the price hits $10 or $12.

And I believe that may be the future of P2P. Allowing to legally download full versions of low quality games and movies as an incentive to buy the full blown product. That would certainly put a damper on the activities of pirates. Why should I risk fines and jail time downloading a full rip when I can have a low quality one legally? I for one am going to buy the good stuff eventually anyway, and skip over the crap.

[jokzor]

I think most of you are missing the point here. Why in the world would a motherboard manufacturer, pay for a chip to put on its board, that will hinder sales to gamers? The answer is they won't, at least they won't if they have a choice. The only way the chip will sell is if they pass a law that says mobo manufacturers must use it, and that's not going to happen.

They have been tinkling on the heads of the good guys for so long, they think that increasing the stream will stop the pirates, but its not the pirates they're tinkling on.

And the guy who stated they will loose money hit the nail on the head. Why does a good guy download a ripped game? to cheat and not pay? No, he downloads to see if its worth buying and to delay his purchase until the price comes down from 50 bucks. It used to be demos that let you try a game, now its complete games. So the logical move for the game makers should be to offer free but very low graphics quality versions of the game. Then I have an incentive to purchase the full eye candy coated version after testing the game. Sort of like downloading a low quality avi to see if the movie is worth buying when the price hits $10 or $12.

And I believe that may be the future of P2P. Allowing to legally download full versions of low quality games and movies as an incentive to buy the full blown product. That would certainly put a damper on the activities of pirates. Why should I risk fines and jail time downloading a full rip when I can have a low quality one legally? I for one am going to buy the good stuff eventually anyway, and skip over the crap.

wrong noob, they would leave things as they are, and not throw money away to get the same effect :)

and about the very low graphics quality theory you are putting one, it's the stupidiest thing me and 90% of fst users ever heard noobie

[$we]

Why in the world would a motherboard manufacturer, pay for a chip to put on its board, that will hinder sales to gamers? The answer is they won't, at least they won't if they have a choice.
If the game creators pay the motherboard manufacturers to install a chip, it will be in the motherboard manufacturers' best interest to accept the proposal, should the price be high enough to profit them. Duh.


They have been tinkling on the heads of the good guys for so long, they think that increasing the stream will stop the pirates, but its not the pirates they're tinkling on.
I don't think anyone is 'tinkling' on anyone.


Why does a good guy download a ripped game? to cheat and not pay? No, he downloads to see if its worth buying and to delay his purchase until the price comes down from 50 bucks.
A minuscule amount of the pirating population actually buys the very game they download... and, quite frankly, I think their dumbasses. Inhibiting the amount of people who pirate their games will not hurt their profit (by preventing 'good guys' from 'trying the game out') as much it will help them (forcing the piraters to buy the game, if they want to play it).

lol

[Sonnentier]

offer free but very low graphics quality versions of the game
I don't think this is a good idea. The user will already know the storyline and will have finished playing, although having eye-cancer from all the low quality :P

The classic design for game demos was good for me. I could check it out, there were a few levels sufficient to know if this will be a game I enjoy or not. Of course with the same quality as the full game, so I can evaluate if it runs well and looks good on my system. And if I don't want to pay even in this model, there isn't much hope I will fall for their prices anyway...

[jayz707]

isn't this trusted computing coming back or something? who know what else they will put in that chip? lol

[Chewie]

Requiring an encryption chip for a game to run would encourage mobo manufacturers to install them although it's not going to stop the crackers any more than dongles have.

[ScalpelMan]

As long as there are codes ; there're person's to decode them

As long as there are Bad Guys trying to rip our money from our buckets ; there're guys trying to save our bucks

As long as I use torrent ; I don't care about what they say ... let them go do whatever they wanna do , I am Busy pirating now hahahaha

The best thing they can do is to bribe P2P pirates & give them money to stop doing that :-) LOL

[The Flying Cow]

The only instance when a 'pirate' buys a game is if he wants to play it online. Even then there are ways to get legit keys via the net.

It's just not worth it. What for? To get a casing and some leaflets? You can print these from the scene as well.

I say until they actually drop game prices to what they should be (there's still a very large price margin they could cut), there are very little incentives to stop pirates from downloading full games and never paying for them (except when the prices drop significantly, i.e. 3 years after the game is released).

[Appzalien]

Pirates don't download games, leechers do. Pirates buy or borrow the game, copy it and fix it so it will install, then upload to share with leechers and other wanna be pirates that try and disguise it as there own.

If this chip ever see's the light of day it will end up in consoles not on PC motherboards mark my words.

[ulun64]

lol!!! I don't play any atari games. They can do anything they like with their games.

[tknaught]

For this to really be effective, it would need to be an end-to-end encryption system, requiring that only trusted operating systems are allowed, i.e. no Linux. Otherwise you can always run your software in some kind of VM.

[stoi]

As far as i can see, all this will do is limit the sales of brand new top of the range hardware.

You just have to look at the PS3, its lagging behind the other 2 in sales, not because its to expensive (its less now than the 360 was when that was first released and modded) but because you cant play coppied games on the thing yet.

People wont want to spend £600 on a new gfx card, £150 on the mobo, £400 on the proc etc etc if they then have to go out and buy the games and software for it.

Because if this does ever come about, you can bet your bottom dollar that it wont be just PC Games that get this protection, but every App known to man.

So not only will PC parts go down in sales, PC games and software will go down in sales, because there will be less people that can play the latest and greatest.

I can also see a mass migration to Linux, because windows will be Encrypted. Actually this might be the blessing in disguise for linux, it will take off like no tomorrow so may become more user friendly (I have it on my PC but never use the thing, because i just cant get my WI-Fi working, but im sure if i could be assed to look into it, i could. With this move i would be sure to look into it)

I just think this is a backwards step, and the PC is a lot different to the consoles.

Consoles you have 1 Manufacturer that makes that 1 console, and they also make some games. But they make their money from the sales of the consoles, not as much from the games themselves but they still make money from some that they do.

PC`s are made from different Manufacturers, and they dont have anything to do with making games or software for the most part. so if this goes through, they will loose tons of cash, and when that hapens you will get new manufactures coming into the market, not having this chip in them.

I just cant see it working at all. (and sorry for the essay)