Vuvuzelas Blare On Pirated Copies of Music Game

An anonymous reader sends this quote from Wired: "A novel anti-piracy measure baked into the Nintendo DS version of Michael Jackson: The Experience makes copied versions of the game unplayable and taunts gamers with the blaring sound of vuvuzelas. Many games have installed switches that detect pirated copies and act accordingly, like ending the user's game after 20 minutes. Ubisoft has come under fire multiple times for what players have seen as highly restrictive anti-piracy measures that annoy legitimate users as much or more so than pirates. But some more-mischievous developers have used tricks similar to the vuvuzela fanfare to mess with pirates. Batman: Arkham Asylum lets unauthorized users play through the game as if it were a normal copy, with a single exception: Batman's cape-glide ability doesn't work, rendering the game impossible to finish — although you might bash your head against it trying to make what are now impossible jumps. If you pirate Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, brace yourself for an explosion, as your entire base will detonate within 30 seconds of loading the game."

It needs copy protection?

[plover]

Seriously, people would copy a game playing Michael Jackson? Seems like the vuvuzelas are redundant.

Re:It needs copy protection?

[cashman73]

I would think that with such a game, the copy protection used would be that every time it's loaded, part of the game would disappear. Kind of like what happened to Michael's face every time he had plastic surgery. But then again, that may not be actual copy protection -- it seems to me that it would enhance the "Michael Jackson experience",. . .

Re:I've been misled!

[billcopc]

That's the joke

In reality, the game is broken for everyone, they just now have a new scapegoat to blame the bugs on: piracy!

False premise

[russotto]

The vuvuzela noise isn't a copy-protection technique. It's just that the South African version of the game was the first to be cracked; it's in the legit .za copies as well.