The last few Penny Arcade strips have been talking about the history of copy protection in PC Gaming, something I've had to deal with since my first two PC games (Maniac Mansion and Eye Of The Beholder 2 in case anyone is wondering) As a result I've seen several methods, including "Find letter V in word W in sentence X in paragraph Y on page Z", code books that give you the answers, maps where you are asked to name the X in grid Y/Z, Match the Picture (or variations of that theme) and my personal favorite, the Code Wheel, as seen in Yesterday's strip



Here is the thing though. I can understand why the code wheel would be stupid for an FPS or something like that, but the first one I got, and all of them since, have been for RPGs and adventure games, where a device like that made sense. It made you feel like you were solving a puzzle in the game, not by remembering some fact or combining items, but by actually interacting with something that would not be out of place in the game world. As a result, there was a level of pseudo-interactivity that added to those games.

Obviously all these methods have been made obsolete with the rise of the Internet. the passwords for Prince Of Persia, for example, kept me from playing the original for years, because I lost the list and my bro-in-law, who gave it, and the game, to me couldn't find his copy or the manual to make a new one. then a few years ago I decided to go online to find it and not only did I find the ones I had, I found the ones I didn't have as well (Saleem's list wasn't complete and we had called each other a couple of time when we discovered new ones, to work towards completing that list) I've done the same for several other games I own, but have lost the manual or copy protection answers that came with them. So obviously there needs to be some new method. Are the current ones the way to go? Probably not, but they are at least better then nothing. Sometimes not by much and in concept only, but they are.

Of course none of them are any match for a good hacker or someone who knows where to look for ways around them.