The Horror Of Anti-Piracy Screens
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ม.ค. 2022
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Today let's dive into the bizarre world of video game anti-piracy screens! From the history of game piracy, to real examples found within videogames, to the rise of the bizarre 'fake creepypasta anti-piracy screen' let's take a look at this strange and ominous community and why they, and so many others, find anti-piracy screens so terrifying.
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T H E T A L E N T
8:56 is pure gold
I love your new intro!! They did an amazing job!
Bighugefrog's intro is magnificent and suits well with your style or videos ! Props to them ⭐
Thank you so much for the video. Im usually to scared to check the original videos, but I love that you make a toned-down version so I can enjoy the content too without too many nightmares
Just getting error screens about actual game errors scared the shit out of me.
the ps2 error screen 😭
@@buttershy_ u mean the ps2 hellscape 😭😭😭😭😭😭
right like i would start crying over simple “this disk cannot be read” i wouldve probably fainted if i saw this stuff as a child
IKR
I got Pokemon Ruby's internal clock error screen when I was 7 and I panicked so bad I didn't pick that game up again until I was 14 😭
There was a really cool piracy screen in 'Just shapes and beats' for a bit where a little photo of the developer would pop up and basically say "I get it, i played pirates games too, but if you like the game please help spread the word about it so other people might buy it" - thought it was a different and pretty cool approach
Ooooooo I like that!
Man of honor
So dope!!!
That person's a person of culture!
js&b is a really good musical bullet hell game i can confirm
As a little kid the "FBI it's illegal to make copies of movies" screen before all movies used to scare me so bad, I was so worried I'd copy a movie on accident and go to prison
Me too
You wouldn't download a car.
I’m glad to find other people who had an odd fear of those screens
it really is that unreasonable childhood fear, huh. 'ah woops ah beans hand slipped and i accidentally copied and reprinted an entire film on cd i'm goin to jail'
@@buggibiiwhen i was a kid i was playing around with the printer and I saw the word 'copy.' I thought It had something to do with copyright and i was terrified the the police would show up at my door and arrest me
as a gamedev, you've gotta remember that us gamedevs want people to buy their games, not to traumatize people. I'm working on a joke ms-paint looking visual novel / point and click game about shopping in a store and hijinks ensue, and i have heavy anxiety over game ERRORS, let alone piracy screens, so for the full game the piracy screen will be a version of the game where the real store would be replaced with a party city and when you get the only possible ending there it pops up a message saying "enjoying the party? download the game!" with a website link. I'm trying to create something that would make me laugh when i was 7, not cry.
thank you.
also where can i download this game legally
@@Nova-bv5qb it's in a free beta right now but i can link it
@@Nova-bv5qb has 10 endings right now but i hope for the full ver. that it has 20+
What’s the game called
@@tgcjackred7716 Funky kong gives you beanbux: creppy edition. intentionally bad game with too much effort and laced with inside jokes, but you can still try it!
The scary part about anti piracy screens is the 4th wall break. You're the one that's supposed to be observing, but when it suddenly begins observing you, then it's chilling
Something about the abyss looking back I think
23:00
For me, it's the fear of getting in trouble. I don't want the video game to get mad at me :(
Sometimes, the orb watches you.
yeah thanks we watched the video.
"why are you in here?"
"i killed several men. you?"
"i pirated undertale"
"stay the fuck away from me"
Sans: *it's not sans... Its **_mans_*
Mans: perfection
@@lemoninahat Frisk isn't Frisk anymore.... they're Risk... and Char now, they lost the A in their name... Char, Risk, and Mans are after you and they're mad... *laughs*
@@lillyanaduff3864 😂 Oh jeez. But, Papyrus, he... He is simply Paper now. And, Undyne is... Uh. Am I reading this right? She is Undin. And alphys, oh alphys. She is alhys, uh... That looks funky. And finally, Flowey. The antagonist, the villain, the demented creature, simply is Flower now. He's still a big deal, even with the change but he's like this weird pink tulip with a face. It's not good
@@lemoninahat it ain't Undertale now, it's over quest 💀
@@TypewritR Long ago, there lived two races... Mike Wasowskis and Dora the Explorers
Pokemon Black's anti piracy is one I find fairly chilling, in it's extreme subtlety. It just doesn't give you any exp from battles. You don't even notice it for a while, which is why it's suddenly pretty scary when you get that "hold on, something is wrong" revelation.
Wiping out Emmet and Ingo’s Pokemon for nothing 👍
Wiping out Emmet and Ingo’s Pokemon for something 👎
(this is a joke, i swear, i may stan the subway bros but not that much)
Pokemon challengers gotta love those
mfs on their way to download roms of black and white just so they could obliterate ghetsis with mons they can't level up
This is what started making the zero exp challenge rule popular, I’m pretty sure. You could just easily download a copy of the game for entirely free and have a fun, weird rule attached to it.
Pokemon anti-piracy is so bad, its laughable. HGSS has an AP that prevents you from throwing your pokemon out to battle, but no emulator or flashcart I have ever seen or heard of triggers it. Even the OG R4, the very first one on stock firmware, doesnt trigger it.
The Izzzy anti piracy screen at 8:53 being followed immediately by a jc penny ad was one of the most severe tonal whiplashes I've ever experienced
67 likes and no comments? I'll change that...
Same but ubereats
Same but Aspen Dental
same but an anti 🏳️🌈 advert
same but uh...womans underwear
I was shitting bricks whenever I saw the "Viewer Discretion is advised" screen on TV. If I saw an anti-piracy screen as a kid, I'd never sleep again.
Yeah! I totally agree
I was shitting bricks when my ps1-2 turned on cuz of the screen when it cant read the disk lmao, also just the turn on sound
idk if this is universal but in the uk we have a "watershed" at 9pm where the tv censors relax. When i was a kid i felt like if i watched uncensored tv alone the tv would sense it and something would crawl out lmao
Wait, I wasn't the only person who shat bricks at those screens?
i still do that. even siri slightly is a no for me. and dont get me started on the disney fast play intro as a kid
The fanmade Ace Attorney one where they have a court case convicting the player for pirating the game will always live in my memories. Really made me feel guilty even though I didn't even pirate it.
I'd love to see that, if you have a link.
AAAAH YES! Also, also! Did you know that theres a real anti-piracy measure in the franchise too? In Edgeworth Investigations 2! The game suddenly switches to being entirely in Borginian, a fictional language in the AA universe!
@@shadowcatgamer2521 th-cam.com/video/1jF2_-Gz-X0/w-d-xo.html
Here it is
@@mae.glitter that’s so cool!! I need to revisit the series
oh hey a fellow ace attorney fan out in the wild! what's your favorite case?
There's a game that has a small community called just shapes and beats, and there's a legitimate anti piracy screen that actually is extremely nice. The main dev who worked on the game explains how he's not angry in the message, and how he used to pirate games as a kid as well. It doesn't let you play on, but it's a subtle reminder that it is a crime, even if it's common to do as a child since you don't know any better. It's a simple "hey, I did this too when I was your age, but you should know that this is something that can get you into big trouble. As much as you want to play this game I can't let you because it would be a crime" instead of something that scares you out of it. One of the best possible ways to execute it imo.
That’s my favourite anti piracy scene haha!!!
technically downloading a videogame online isn't illegal, but redistributing it is.
@@realCaveJohnson Exactly. And depending on where you live, a lot of ISPs will not give a single shit, even if you redistribute them. It's the reason The Pirate Bay was able to stay up for so long, it was hosted in Sweden where, at least in my experience, ISPs don't really care. I'm from Sweden myself and my whole family has been pirating stuff since around 2005.
I love that!!!! I'm putting something similar in my game that just asks you to email me a story about your day for a free copy. I want everyone to get to play it, but that's something they can still pay me with ^_^
@@karak962 Aww, that's really sweet! What's your game about?
“You’ll be making Lasagna in prison for the rest of your life, Garfield!” needs to be an anti-piracy screen.
Or "Next day you'll wake up, it'll be Monday, Garfield!" especially I'd there's a game that goes levels as weeks
That Nintendogs one is the most fucked up to me. Like you get a short time to love your new pup, grow attached to it, only to have it suddenly die, and show you its grave. Kinda reminds me of that game Can Your Pet?
It's dark, it's upsetting, and it's the most effective (albeit fake) antipiracy measure.
Exactly. To me, it feels insensitive to those who lost a real dog in their life.
@@roxassora2706 but it's not like it's making fun of it or taking it lightly. Almost like karma has hit the theif. Video game piracy IS a crime, so imagine getting punished by fate by having your little pup just die before you too could have some time together. It's personally my favourite since it's so scary yet so subtle..
I imagine a pirate who is accomplished at coding could remove this.
I have been trying to find the game can your pet for MONTHS!! thank you!!!
Can Your Pet traumatized me when I was a kid.
I don't think I ever encountered any anti piracy screens myself, but as a kid I loved the game Theme Hospital. Some of the later levels were a bit tricky for me back then so I tried entering a cheat code, which caused the hospital intercom lady to say "THE HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR IS TRYING TO CHEAT" or something along those lines, it did catch me by surprise but I could laugh about it 😅
Imagine if this was said in an actual hospital
@@therealt.parrot9791 if it was in a real hospital i would assume the intercom lady was in a relationship with the hospital administrator and he was cheating on her. the drama.
This game has a forth wall break?
Lol I remember that! Bullfrog used to put a ton of meta easter eggs in their games.
God I was obsessed with this game. The autopsy machine always creeped me out since people never came out of it. it doesnt help that youd get a reputation hit if the press discovers it.
personally, ive always been extremely creeped out whenever pbs would thank me for watching a program. so i think i would’ve died on the spot if i ever got an anti piracy screen
You hate thank you messages? Someone isn’t grateful /j
Yeah now that I think about it, it always gave me a slightly weird feeling as well. It must be the fourth wall break
ayo i thought it was just me, but especially when my parents were outside and I would be watching it and it would to the screens before the new show started, I was shitting bricks anytime those popped up lmao
My compulsive need to have my Audible listens marked as Finished pales in comparison to my fear of the old-timey man who tells me Audible hopes I have enjoyed this program. 😰
i thought it was just me! that always creeped me out growing up, so did the “to be continued” screen especially at night
When I was younger in about 2011, I had a friend at my house and we where playing in my bedroom. We had our DSs and where just messing with the voice recording game. I had the radio on and we started recording 5 second clips of the songs on the radio so we could put voice effects ontop of the singing. We thought it was hilarious. Then the music ended and the radio started reading out the news. There was the usual news stories and then a short message from the radio station saying it's illegal to pirate music off the radio and recording songs is a serious crime. My friend and I both freaked out and ran downstairs to tell our mum's, who where in the kitchen. We where apologising because we where scared the police where going to come to my house to arrest us. Our mum's just laughed.
AW
Lol
how did it know you were recording or could it have been a coincidence? did the music stop mid-song?
@@leaf111 I definitely think it was a coincidence. The radio would sometimes say something along the lines of "it's illegal to pirate music off the radio" after the news, it just scared me this time because I had been recording songs and I thought it knew. The message came on after the news.
@@lab_is_not_listening that makes sense, crazy coincidence. i've never heard an anti-piracy message on the radio (i'm from belgium)
i have a terrible fear of still images on a screen where there is supposed to be a video (don’t ask why, it’s so hard to explain, it’s so unsettling to me) so stuff like this scares me shitless
NO ME TOO I DIDNT KNOW OTHER PEOPLE FELT THAT WAY
@@guppiecuppie179 YES FINALLY SOMEONE WHO GETS IT. MY FRIENDS MAKE FUN OF ME FOR IT BC ITS SO HARD TO EXPLAIN
Reminds me of when I was a kid at my cousin's place, she had a copy of The Cat in the Hat movie, and it froze at one point and I couldn't stay in the same room because I was afraid there was gonna be a screamer, so I think I understand what you mean
THIS. My main example is that like. If something tells you it should be moving and it doesnt? Or if it tells you it shouldn’t move and you have to brace yourself for if it does? I also hate when TH-cam videos are showing a still image yet it is still continuing (unless it’s a music related video as I cannot watch music videos due to it being too distracting)
OMG YESS, I always feel like a screamer will pop-up
To be honest, the only thing about anti piracy measures that have ever spooked me was false positives. Being locked out of legitimate copies of games because something broke or it's just old is something that I would not want to happen
and yet companies keep making games with DRM that's close to spyware, games that depend on servers which will be discontinued once unprofitable, etc.
who needs game preservation anyway?
@@ais4185 there are actually archive sites for games that needed servers that no longer run, game preservation will eventually win
the Sims 4 is guilty of this. I have a ton of mods installed but nothing illegal and I keep getting notifications that items have been removed from my game because I "don't own them".
that game is buggy as fuck tho, definitely worth the probably $150 ive spent on it
@@leavemealonethx i always pirated sims and never had notifications like that lmfao
@@LilyBloodsom2003 hey can u lmk how do u pirate sims without wrecking my laptop that would be very cool
The baldi one REALLY got me. That one was really high on the trauma scale.
Anyway i was like 11 at the time, it was like 3am, everyone else in the house was asleep, and i was in bed watching disney channel, and out of nowhere the screen goes black and theres a red line with moving text on the screen that says "weekly test" or whatever. The alert sound started and mind you the volume was loud. Hysterical as i was, i plugged my ears the best i could, and ran to the tv to turn it off. I couldnt sleep after that.
What year was that? I feel like I was there when that happened
i’m 26 years old and i still would probably cry if i saw one of those again. that noise never leaves your brain
This happend to me 😭
omg you just unlocked one of my memories
Wait i also pirated baldi and i never got a screen like that
I think the creepiest one I’ve encountered which is also real, is one from the game La Abadia Del Crimen. When you walk into this church, it begins playing choir music like usual, but then the game gets stuck, and you hear this bit-crushed voice repeat “PIRATA” while the voice gets deeper and slower with every repeat, until it finally crashes
I got the baldis basics one I started crying and I told my mum and she laughed
The way that anti-piracy screens are unnerving reminds me of the way emergency alerts are unnerving. I can’t explain it, but it triggers similar emotions in me.
Fight/Freeze/Flight Response. It's instinctual.
ikr it makes watching horror movies aren't as scary as seeing the anti-piracy screens.
Same! Emergency alerts are HORRIFYING! Like once, I woke up to this loud beeping (at like 1:00AM) and when I got up in the morning, I realized it had been a tornado warning. The little notification on my phone screen just terrifies me! It’s even scarier with amber alerts and such.
i know exactly what you mean
same for me except its also random phone calls at around 1 am. they have an ominous feel to them, when in reality they just want me to sell my house to them lmao
i feel like the scariest part about anti-piracy screens (at least as an adult, im 21) has to be the eerie music or even the lack of music. i would probably be shit scared seeing any of these as a child no matter what sounds they played but even as a grown-up these certainly are uncanny
I agree. One time I got rickrolled while trying to download a game and the BLASTING MUSIC when I opened the file scared the shit out of me. I've never pirated again. So traumatizing...
@@pkeetrypt7654 that literally sounds so hilarious yet so scary at the same time 💀
what game did you pirate?
@@avidbreather6539 I was trying to pirate Pokémon ruby. Honestly the funniest thing is that they only played the part "You know the rules and so do I" and then displayed the "this game is pirated blah blah blah"
@@pkeetrypt7654 I pirated Pokemon Emerald once, glad but also dissappointed that never happened to me
@@pkeetrypt7654 BAHAHA-
do you have any footage? that sounds SO fuсkiпg hilarious
Honestly, disk-reading error messages still terrify me to this day.
Someone about that old vibe, dark background, quiet, emergency text and the combination of a strange looking character makes it way more scary than any horror game I've seen
"The disc could not be read. Please refer to the Wii Operations Manual for details."
The worst is the Gamecube GB Player one where they drop a fucking piano on you.
i think the thing that scared me most, and still scares me now, is red text. still, i find red text just so eerie, even if it is something as simple as an error, like a disc not being read, or something disconnecting. it is just so scary, no idea why haha
RIGHTT
Look at the screen for error code 410 Gone, I think it might be similar to this
i was always pretty confused about the whole ''scary anti-piracy'' thing because as someone whos dad wouldnt spend a single penny on a videogame when i was a child and the minute i asked my dad to get me a game he'd go on a certain filehosting site with ALOT of pirated content i ran into these quite alot and was basically desensitized to anti piracy screens
my dad pirated a solid 90% of everything and i don’t remember ever seeing one lmao
this is how i was about movies lmao. i remember going to friends houses and being like "why do all your movies have print on the actual disk? how did you make cases with the movie poster on it?" i also thought it was a stylistic choice that a lot of them were filmed "like youre watching it at the movies"
my grandparents had a dude at work or something that put pirated movies on dvd for like $1, looking back im pretty sure they would just buy every childrens movie he had and bring it to us. it was great because my brother had a habit of destroying things, so it wasnt a big deal when he ruined a movie somebody else in the house actually liked. at that point we would just buy the real copy and he wasnt allowed to touch it lmao
He’s a material girl.
@@musicbyella3769 samee. not only my dad pirated every type of media I ever wanted, but when I got old enough, he thought me how to do it lol (which, to be fair, is not complicated if you use torrent). it might be ther best gift he gave me: the ability of not having to pay for Netflix
Same, my first original game was Twilight Princess, when I was like 13. Everything I had seen until that point was piracy everywhere
Fun fact: Game Dev Tycoon's "piracy mode" also inspired people to pirate it just to see it/attempt to beat it, which lead to the game adding it as a sort of super hard/challenge mode to legitimate copies.
Yeah! I bought the game a couple years back, and Piracy mode is super fun (if you're good at combining genres and shit)
@@sirsnausages2164 It lowkey proved that piracy can be mitigated by having unique games that people WANT to play.
I like your pfp
@@Draemurr Thanks. I like yours, too!
@@ebagentj ty ^^
I got a false positive on Spyro 3 and ended up with Zoe warning me about my supposed piracy when I was around 8 years old. I remember it terrifying me - I was the ultimate goody two-shoes kid, always trying to be on everyone's good side and never breaking any rules out of fear, and the sudden mention that I was somehow breaking the law was so scary. I didn't know how anti-piracy screens worked at that age, so although I knew they were just characters in a video game, it felt like whoever ran the company somehow knew who and where I was and they were going to track me down and arrest me. Even as an 8 year old I knew that sometimes innocent people are assumed guilty by the police so I remember laying in bed crying about how I didn't want to go to jail lol
I would laugh my ass off at the goofy "You wouldn't steal a house" anti-piracy warnings on DVDs.
These, on the other hand, would have scared the hell out of me as a 12/13 year old.
"You wouldn't steal a house!" bitch I might
I Was Teriffied Of These When I Was Younger And I Only Just Found Out What They Meant 😭🔫
The IT Crowd had a funny parody of that. "You wouldn't steal a policemen's helmet."
The Earthbound anti piracy measure is hilariously harsh. Imagine thinking you got away with it, made it to the end of the game, and then the whole thing just crashed while you lost your save. Like damn, ice cold 😂.
That's why it was effective- it's much easier to know when you finally bypassed the anti-piracy if it's a lock-out right at the start of the game, but if it's something more subtle and way later in the progression of the game that deletes your progress every time it becomes VERY difficult and time consuming to keep changing, checking, changing, checking, until you eventually bypass the anti-piracy.
@@antaresyoung9614 same approach was taken with Spyro: Year of The Dragon!
I can't imagine actually getting to the end, the game locks you out after enemy encounters so you'd need to be cheating in order to get to the end in the first place.
I love games that do that. It’s a power move tbh
@@lambybunny7173 That anti-piracy measure is legendary
These have often scared me more than any actual horror game
Probably because you don’t expect games like Mario to be terrifying.
same
maybe because you usually know horror games are intended to be scary, so you can emotionally prepare yourself but when a game supposed to be relaxing suddenly does that it’s unexpected?
same
ikr I can watch horror games footage without looking away but never been brave enough to click on an anti-piracy screen video games compilation video.
Dude, the Nintendogs one BROKE me when I first saw it. I'm both relieved and a little disappointed it's fake. It's a sickly genius way to traumatize kids into never pirating games again. Lest the characters in those games get inflicted with "scurvy" too. I bet it would have been very effective.
This really reminded me of Emergency Alert System scenarios for some reason, I think you should look into it! It's similar in the same "analog horror" way as anti-piracy
EAS scenarios are analog horror, while APS mocks are digital horror.
Honestly, I think EAS alarms a way less more scary then anti-piracy screens. And its less scary when you see it off a screen instead of real life on a tv.
Obviously you'd be _terrified_ if an EAS alert played on the TV, way more than on your computer or phone screen. But you can replicate it by using TH-cam for TV@@SiennaBibby
honestly real piracy screens are much more eery than these creepypasta ones to me. just the fact that music cuts out and all that's left is a blunt message is pretty creepy espiecially if it was encountered alone or at night
God this always gives me chills, reminds me of when cartoon network would switch over to adult swim and all that would play is a silent black screen telling you the following program is for adults only. I couldn't read at the time but whenever I would be watching cartoon and my TV screen would just suddenly go black with small white text, little me would bolt out of the room in tears 😭
Yea, its like someone pulling the plug and therefor pulling you out of the immersion and saying "Listen, you have been caught, this is ending NOW." Immersion is a huge part of why games work, breaking that can be quite scary.
@@hammywoods you just described me perfectly in that moment, except i’d be too afraid to run and just watch adult swim. that’s how i discovered toonami actually lmao
@@hammywoods Kind of like when TV stations signed off in my day, it would suddenly go to loud static or a loud tone, and sometimes there would be a loud scary sounding announcement, as if the announcer was scolding you for still being awake. Now I'm going to have to try and find that black screen.
Love the concept of people pirating Friday Night Funkin instead of just going to Newgrounds to play it for free, and it being such a problem that they had to make special anti-piracy measures
Actually, piracy of free flash games does happen. Other unsavory websites would download and host FNF or whatever other game and put all their own ads to make money off something they had no permission to.
@@greedtheron8362 fair, there are lots of ripping sites or unblocked pages for school computers. Mobile ports too. Probably why pretty much every flash game has embedded links back to the original host and big logos and everything. Still found it kind of funny tho, the best anti piracy would probably just be putting a newgrounds link in the play button or something
it’s free to download too LOL
@@metallicbunny9595 understandable for school computers
I’ll never forget one day when I was on TH-cam and I stumbled across a n “ace attorney anti piracy screen.” It played out like a normal level, but had the player on trial for piracy, and ended up being convicted. I was much younger at the time, and the video gave me nightmares. Surprisingly though, it ended up motivating me to wishlist Ace Attorney on Steam, and I ended up getting it.
A Video Scared You Into Wanting A Game?
Never came across anti-piracy screens, but these scary fake ones reminded me of real emergency alert messages that would pop up in the middle of your Saturday morning cartoons. When I was a kid, I couldn't help but panic when the familiar and unsettling emergency alert screen came on in the middle of my show. I got so scared to the point I was in tears. The buzz sound made it even worse. Amber alerts are also terrifying to me, even as an older teen
These developers took the phrase 'scare them straight' and ran a marathon with it.
they really h@t3 the best way to enjoy games.
@@ddjsoyenby indie devs hate piracy because their games are often the only way they can pay their bills 💀
@@ddjsoyenby maybe because making a game your whole team worked so hard on and then get a random site pirating that exact game would obviously piss them off lmao
@@vivictinimoved agreed honestly indie games are the exception.
@@ddjsoyenby they are probably the reason why I hated the internet and the people of the 1st world countries at that time (I never understood that even games need to be paid for I was so young ). because I live in a 3rd world country where 1 dollar equals a lot of our money and we didn't even have credit cards. It made me think at that time that people of 1st world countries are just selfish people who like to collect money and ruin our days because their countries are successful ( which is clearly wrong since you people are just people just like us,I was truly stupid and selfish ) I even sometimes was close to crying LOL I was so devestated LOL
(MY ENGLISH IS HORRIBLE OMG)
I actually beat the final boss on a pirated earthbound. Was playing through on an SNES emulator, which has reloadable save states. Every time the game would freeze I would reload the previous save state and each time I did it I was able to progress a little further into the fight, which I would save and reload to. Took like three hours. Interestingly, once the battle ends so does the anti piracy measure and it lets you watch the final cutscene uninterrupted.
king o' th' pirates, ye earned yer title well!
@@battyrae1398 thanks, but I only did it because I wasn't about to play through in entire RPG again. I don't recommend it though it was very annoying.
The line between determination and insanity is a thin one and you did such a graceful dance on that line.
i love EarthBound. that final battle made me cry lol
I'm pretty sure it's just that Earthbound has issues being emulated on certain emulators. ☠️
Not an anti-piracy screen, but one of the games i play has a screen that will pop up if you type language it deems “inappropriate”. It just says “please do not use inappropriate language” but it fades on and off the screen. It’s always creeped me out since the first time it went onto my screen
was the game like gacha related?
@@SiennaBibbylike tomadachi?
When I was 7 I got an anti-piracy screen on my Nintendo DS in a Tinkerbell game, so, my parents called the numer in the manual the game card came in. It turns out that it was a legitimate game and somehow a false screen was triggered. As a kid I was really freaked out and came crying to my parents. If I remember correctly, Tinkerbell was trapped behind wooden bars with a disappointed queen on the bottom screen flashing "Power off and eject game card" while the top screen talked about how it was a serious crime and also gave instructions.
I remember there was an anti-piracy ad that would play on Australian DVDs where a picture of a movie, usually happy feet, would be set on fire as it said something like "when you pirate movies you're destroying cinema". That ad scared me so much as a kid that I had panic attacks everytime I saw the ad, and eventually every time I saw a happy feet DVD case. I don't know why it affected me as much as it did but jesus I still sometimes struggle if I see anything that reminds me of happy feet or the ad
@Coffee Reliant Yes thats the one! I only got two seconds in because it gave me the heeby-jeebies
y e s that happy feet thing scared the shit outta me for some reason. like i couldnt watch happy feet and i had to throw out my happy feet plushie. like something about that ad installed a visceral fear of any thing related to happy feet
I remember that everytime I would watch a movie on my DVD and add about piracy came on where kids were watching a movie and talking about how the didn't want to watch pirated movies anymore. Then a man would say that if you commit to piracy then you're a criminal, after 10 or less seconds the movie would start
It wasn't scary at all but it remember not liking the add and feeling bad whenever it popped up
I have like hundreds of DVDs and i never got an anti piracy ad :[
so trying to be the spoops.
Probably my only experience with this is stealing from a shop in Zelda-they changed my name to THIEF for the rest of the game (it even shows up on the save file) 😭
If that's not anti-piracy I don't know what is
im sorry but that's freaking hilarious
ngl it'd b a hilarious ap counter for the franchise
In the DX version theres a picture you can only get by doing that
Haha classic THIEF
I REMEMBER THAT
This video was so satisfying. I thought I was always so silly for getting nervous and plain scared by anti piracy screens or warnings. Although this is for movies, I would always dread the anti piracy warnings on DVD I would see before watching childhood movies like Aladdin with my family during movie night. We would click play on the title screen, I was cuddled next to my mom with a blanket and ice cream. But what I knew was coming was a dark screen, no sound, and words like “FBI,” “prison,” “crime,” etc. It felt wrong to see. It felt too touching. So when you said these screens make us feel vulnerable, especially as it breaks the fourth wall, you got it right on the money. And after that, the movie would play, but my nerves still haven’t settled. I sincerely hated the precautionary piracy warnings as a kid it was an unnatural fear 😭
You are ice cream during movies?
I love everyone sharing their strange mid 2000s early online horror experiences. All of us kids who were in the transition and grew up online but right before the cut off. I wish there were more support groups to talk about 2007-2012. My heart aches.
when i used to obsessively play moshi monsters i remember one time i typed a gift code wrong and the moshi monster that would 'eat' the code and throw up the gift would just make a weird noise and spit the code out if you put an invalid one. absolutely terrified me and ever since that moment i would leave the room when entering codes in case i typed them wrong because i didnt want to hear that sound 😭 if i ever saw an anti piracy screen i think i wouldve collapsed.
That happened :0? I played the game but I never got to use any codes
_I was a easily scared kid so I'm kind of glad I never did_
@@kassiaactuallydraws9361 it was probably my first adhd hyperfixation like all i did was think and talk about moshi monsters 😭 i had tons of gift codes because i bought the entire trading card set (i made my poor dad enter ebay auctions for cards i was missing). the gift code screen was iggy with his mouth open so it was kind of cute but the sound he made when he threw up an invalid code was absolutely horrifying for me back then lol.
edit: th-cam.com/video/_jAvtBvUcnU/w-d-xo.html i dont even know what exactly i found scary about this but this is what it looked like
@@jungjaehyuns Wow :0 I don't have adhd so it wasn't an hyperfixation for me but I relate on the moshi monsters brainrot. My mom had to limit my computer usage bc I only wanted to play it
I wasn't allowed to use money on anything so I never made nobody pass through that lol
The sound's silly ngl
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER I WOYLD RUN OUT OF THE LIVING ROOM WHEN I GOT A GAME OVER IN SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS SCARY
This is so cute pls
The image of the Mario characters locked behind bars in the Mario Party DS anti-piracy screen is actually in the game. It appears in the story mode, where Bowser locks all the characters behind bars and then shrinks their size down. I've seen some confusion where people think that the image is fake along with the rest of the screen, but it's as real as mayonaise
Mayonnaise isn't real though
@@PersephoneDarling28 Oh no, you've just made me realise that I have been spelling mayonnaise wrong my entire life. I'd edit my comment, but after this reply I lose finger privileges for the rest of the day
I thought mayonnaise was an instrument.
YES! Someone clarifies! Also, while the music in the video (known simply as "Piracy is no Party!") is made by the content creator, it is more so a rendition of a different song also within Mario Party DS.
... as real as, marionnaise
I always say I’m not scared of anything..... but this. And any error screens. Even seeing the words “serious crime” or “power off your console NOW” or seeing my favorite character sitting there staring at the screen as a kid I would be traumatized. I’m even scared of amber and weather alerts. Even a little glitch in the game. If honestly say it’s my worst fear
My favorite anti-piracy was a greentext about a guy who downloaded a sketchy copy of a game and his printer printed a piece of paper 100% black front and back.
idc if it's fake or not it's just so funny
Btw, "game developers" weren't pissed that people used to be able to pirate games easily. There is a class line here. The game developers aren't the ones making money off the sale of the game, they are only paid for their labor in making the game. The owners of the company are the ones who lose profit if the game is pirated
Um, no? That might be the case for AAA games since the 2005 to now. But indie game devs currently, and a good chunk of developers in 1980-2000 were directly hit by piracy.
This is not necessarily true. Most games for 80s home computers, which were predominately cassette tape based, were made by indie developers who both made the games and ran their own businesses. Large software publishers are more of a thing of the 90s onward because the popularity of video game consoles and the controlled ecosystems around them made it harder for small developers to release their games.
@@toyfan1769 first of all, anyone who pirates indie games that are often 20 USD or less should understand what disservice they’re doing to the studio. Second, the financial hits in the 80s to 2000s were before major game companies became multi-billion dollar tech giants.
@@wavee8894 but we all know what happened when Steam was invented.
thats only for companies like AAA, indie devs make almost all their money off game sales
It sorta reminds me of those warnings before movies on vhs/dvd that'd like "Do not copy this tape, it's a crime, and you can face up to 6 years in jail." Those always scared me despite being 8 and not trying to pirate Rugrats
LITERALLY like the silence as well. Idk what was wrong with me but those “the following program is classified pg” warnings used to scare me as well (they kinda still do)
I did get them and I was 100% watching pirated movies, but what can I say? I was 7 and living in a third world country with no access to the real deal. I especially remember an advert that was about a guy entering a shop dressed as a 2000s punk and stealing some CDs with a very gritty filter, the guy got busted, the cops pursued him and he got shot a buncha times with the message of "This could be you" or something along those lines, real funny nowadays but spooky as a child
y o u w o u l d n ' t d o w n l o a d a c a r
@@jdjohnson1591yes i will
Yeah, they were in theaters too. I wonder why that just… stopped
i think that people tend to dismiss these things just because they're fake, but they're, jus like you said, pieces of art. The creativity that comes into making a spooky, yet subtle screen like this is endless, and that should be applauded on its own
Not exactly a pirate screen, but I was playing a newer Indie dating game called Curtain Call. I played through all of the short routes, and I saw someone mention that there was a secret ending. Being somebody who likes to see that kind of thing, I started trying to figure it out. None of the routes were creepy or even remotely unnerving. I get to a screen that seems to be pushing a limit with a character and think “oh maybe this will give me like a bad ending?” And out of nowhere the character just says “you thought wrong” and the screen and her character glitch out with a static sound cue. No pop up, but I was definitely not expecting it. It scared the absolute garbage out of me and I instantly got off the game. Especially considering it’s not well known and there was very little information about the game, it felt super isolating, with no comforts about people even getting that cutscene. It wasn’t really a jump scare, just felt like a genuine callout directly to me for overstepping a boundary
I recently saw a fake anti piracy thing for Animal Crossing New Horizons where a new character appears and kidnaps one of your villagers and I’m just genuinely fascinated and confused about how you would make that. The character looked exactly like they would be in the game, everything looked right and I just have absolutely no idea how you would achieve that.
It's always intrigued me the sheer amount of talented artists and the like who spend their talent on, like, creating internet urban legends to scare little kids 😂
Would you have the link to that video?
@@stainedglassghosts3692 here it is! th-cam.com/video/AstyDnuUBY4/w-d-xo.html
It’s funny that you mention that because that’s my video and I actually made a video explaining how I went about making the fake anti piracy video
Thank you so much!!
Remember pirating from big companies is always morally correct
Hell yeah! Cheers to pirating every big company rpg I have the ability to play!
But is it ethical? 🤨
@@ingamesniperr yes. When Nintendo migrate to a new console, they often discontue manufacturing games for the previous console. This makes game like pokemon coliseum and coliseum XD abandonware (I believe a lot of ds/dsi games are abandonware now too?) and perfectly legal to emulate or otherwise pirate. Legit copies of pokemon XD in English are £80+, so pirating it is morally correct, ethical, and actively encouraged.
Eat the rich
Especially if the company’s logo is red and starts with an “n” and ends with an “o”
honestly if all the fake creepy pasta anti piracy screens were real, i feel like piracy would be very unpopular.
When i was 8 i got a legitimate copy of the sims 2, without a code.
Im not american, and when my dad called some people and got an email to get the code, it took like 3 days.
Then we got a new computer and my dad lost the email and thought nothing of it, i was like 10 and had to call the company myself.
I was on the phone on and off for about 5 hours with the same guy who wanted tk do everything but help me, called me names, was super rude and told me to get my parents many times even though i told him i was home alone. I called him about 4 times, but on the second time i told him that the guy i talked to before was super rude and im just a 10 year old trying to get a code for a video game, and he just told me its him and hung up on me.
I kept calling and annoying him, and still got no help.
My dad contacted them a few days later and a really nice lady answered and solved our problem in a few days.
Nowdays I have severe anxiety from calling people i dont know, whether its ordering a pizza or looking for a doctor or something.
Im so happy they stopped using these codes
I never got an anti piracy screen, but as a kid playing Sims 2 on DS I changed the time to get around a morning/night based element and triggered something where aliens invade your town due to time travelling and you can’t continue your game, they just continually make you faint until you go back to an old save.
The idea of a game having self awareness, that it could tell what I did to the hardware, scared me so much I had nightmares hahah
Yokai Watch had a similar thing, on which the Yokai Oni would call you out
IMO what makes these anti piracy screens and analog horror so effective is that it makes you the main character of the story. You aren’t reading about creepy occurrences happening from a characters perspective, it’s happening to you.
YEAHHH EXACTLY it's sonic.exe but turned in the direction that it's always needed to be turned. Walten Files is a fantastic example of modern analog horror in this light.
The thing is, they’re not supposed to be scary per say. They’re just supposed to inform you about the crime you could unknowingly be committing. But, that black screen staring back at you is just… creepy.
Kids take things like this so seriously. I remember reading a standard epilepsy warning on one of my games as a child and running to my mom asking her if I were going to have a seizure now. 😅
The eerie sounds or silence of an Anti-piracy screen makes it feel like you got yourself into a huge trouble. Like someone or something is coming to get you. Like you unleashed something.
Plus, it's very immersion breaking and takes you out of the game sometimes just to call you out.
It's pretty cool and creepy.
That's definitely the part that gets me with anti-piracy (well at least legit ones, not the jumpscare bs). The audio is so unsettling, like you know something's wrong because of it.
The funniest part of DRM is that it basically only protects the first few months of sales. Companies normally invest a lot of money on good DRM because those first sales are the ones that allow them to make their money back, but even good DRM eventually tends to get cracked anyway.
Sometimes even, they appear on legally purchased copies. Which sucks
@@ma.2089 Id occasionally run into games that wouldnt work on my ds but i shrugged it off because wed buy 🏴☠️ games on cartridges that had like fifty games on a cartridge and so most of them ended up working. But finding out that apparently people who bought it legitimately couldnt play the games is so wild. Its like they Want to drive us to the high seas
A lot of DRM gets broken within days of game release, let alone months or even weeks.
@@Shewhospeakesinverse The DS was piracy fest, Here they were called "R4" a cartridge with a SD card and you could just download any room and play it on your DS. i never had to buy a DS game and their cost was like 20$ lol.
The Witcher 3 clearly proved DRM doesn't work. Just make good games.
I always had a mini-fear of piracy warning screens. Even though I never had any pirated copies of anything, I still found the warning screens on my Thomas DVDs about copyright and FBI piracy crime to be very unnerving and unsettling, especially as a young child
I had a scary moment of that as a kid too. The FBI warning on videos I watched as a kid, just gave me a sense of fear, and disturbance.
the idea of seeking refuge in a game as a kid, only to be jolted back to the harsh reality with themes of CRIME SHAME and LAW popping into your mind. i think its the contrast of the two oposites that make these so intimidating, feels like being caught with your pants around your ankles.
Dang, the whole talk about activation codes sent me back! I remember all my pc games needing you to enter the activation codes in order to install the game. My family had an old computer, so we would only have a few games installed at a time, then uninstall and re-install if we wanted to play them again. You’re 100% right about them being a pain for regular users, because I definitely lost access to some of my games because the code would get lost. And this was also back when my family didn’t have any internet at all, not that anyone would know or think to try to look up codes online just so I could play Disney Animated Storybook Mulan. Lol
In general, there is something just extremely unsettling about piracy screens. I’m glad I never ran into one as a kid, cause they would’ve scared the bejeezus out of me. A lot of the scare factor is definitely feeling vulnerable and watched, but I think another thing about them that frightens me is the broken trust between player and dev/company, and that they want revenge on you. Like, a game is supposed to be an escapist activity, something fun and then to suddenly be reminded that this game is a product made for profit first and foremost is just kinda? And that feeling that these people who made a thing you enjoy now hate your guts or something. Idk, it always creeps me out.
-i just finished watching one of your videos help-
I used to have to uninstall and reinstall my old sims games so often, at one point I had the game activation codes for a few of them completely memorised.
Not to mention, you were just playing a game and enjoying what the devs made for you- and now all of a sudden, they've been watching you all along, and they don't trust you, and they didn't make this game for the likes of you. The confrontational aspect is probably what does it for me
That's kind of why I like the Just Shapes And Beats piracy screen. It doesn't judge you or try to scare you, it just sits down and tries to convince you.
@@parrotperson omg I used to memorise the activation codes too , or if I lost one id be so annoyed if they weren’t right online
That intro was so cool, fits the retro arcade game aesthetic perfectly.
glad someone noticed !
ikr! also the glitch and piracy message in the middle of the video. it scared me.
The piracy screens I always feared where the characters themselves call you out. Like a real Wreck It Ralph kinda situation where they just break character
I feel this way too. Some of my favorite fakes are the animal crossing new horizons ones from your thumbnail. The one where you wake up and the entire island is completely empty really creeps me out.
For me personally, I always found the piracy screens really goofy, even as a kid. "oh what, Sonic is going to try to shame me for committing a crime? what do you know? you're a hedgehog!" idk, the sudden tone shift and fourth wall break was jarring but in a way that just made the entire situation seem silly.
Stupi- oh right, I’m a Sonic Fan, my opinion doesn’t matter. But Sonic knows the crime the person that recorded it committed. He’s against animal cruelty and piracy. (maybe?!?!) Also, maybe he’s smarter than other hedgehogs?!?!
The anti-piracy measures being so inconvenient for people who just bought the legal copies is such a fail imo - not to mention that it can make it impossible to keep your ownership of the game longterm, like you said you can just lose the activation codes. When I tried installing my Sims 2 discs recently, I found out EA games let the licence expire, so even though I had paid for the games, and taken good care not to lose the stupid booklets, I had to "hack" my own PC to make it stop checking for licences because otherwise it just wouldn't install these games I genuinely paid for. aaaaaaargh!
same, I had to purchase the steam version of Spore even though I had a physical copy because the licensing nonsense
If it helps, such hacks have been made explicitly legal under EU law. It is considered a flaw in your product, that you have a right to correct.
Don't know if you're in the EU but it's just to say that even lawmakers are aware of the problem and agree that it's bullshit.
@@RegsaGC I am in the EU, and that info does help thank you! I feel vindicated lol
When does it check for the licenses?
@@rachelgoldenburg2241 Right after you insert the disc and attempt to read/play it
i had a pirated copy of spyro 3 as a kid and i was traumatized by zoey breaking character like that, it was literally like past my bedtime, parents were asleep, that happened, and i went to wake up my mom because i was so scared that something was wrong lol
I had it too, but what creeped me out was the paradox intro and that music, even tho, now, i listen to that keygen cracktune and jam to it often lol
It's always morally correct to pirate a triple A game and save the money for indie games
also, story: not anti-piracy, but the linked fear of a loud/repeating noise glitch. i was little, playing indiana jones wii with my mom, and suddenly the game stopped and glitched. it repeated the same noise over and over and i was petrified
Yeah, glitching noises are extremely terrifying
@@tadbitsketch yeah ,I know right? Once this happen to me and it's scored me for a hole week , but everything is fine.
@@tadbitsketch Yeah
ok so my tv is old and does that and i have a fear of being alone so when it happene for the first time a went under my covers and started shaking
I was playing Sims on my laptop and it bluescreened, and the Sims music did that 😭😭😭 it was terrifying
To me, one of the reasons why they're scary is because it's calling you out for something you actually did. Like a guilt trip in a Undertale genocide run, you feel horrible because you know you.
Or if it's a false positive, then it's changed to a fear you might feel when being wrongfully arrested.
Also, I watched this video about 4th wall breaks in video games and how that in and of itself can be scary because it's popping that comfortable bubble of being anonymous and inconspicuous, to being known and very much conspicuous. The same video also said what if Undertale had pulled a Psycho Mantis and during the genocide route Sans said something like, "Why don't you go play Overwatch so you can let them down instead?" And simply reading that in the video hurt.
I watched that one too!
why would someone feel bad for pirating games? i pirated undertale btw
@@KOTEBANAROT I can't really describe it, but it's like when a kid eats dessert too early, they normally wouldn't care, but when a parent catches them doing it, they feel bad
This video made me remember a recent thing that happened. I was wonder trading a bunch of contrary snivys I hatched while shiny hunting in Ultra Moon (surprisingly, plenty of people still trade on those games) and I got traded an obviously hacked shiny Celebi. Didn't feel like leaving the plaza to release it just yet, since I still had like 20 snivys left, so I kept trading. All of a sudden, while looking for a trade, the game cut to the generic blue shape background used when trading, with a message that said something like "A communication error has occurred. Power off the game now." I knew why it happened, and I knew nothing bad would happen to my save as I've gotten this exact message before with no repercussions, but for some reason it freaked me the hell out. So I just shut off the game, put away my ds, and played Legends: Arceus instead. Haven't turned it back on since. Might do that soon.
Breaking through the fourth wall, that summarizes it exactly! I remember as a kid, being scared when the TV stations would close down at night because it felt like the announcer was talking to me and looking at me, scolding me for not being asleep yet like a good kid should be. Also I love your hair and hat in this video, very cute colors.
There's just this spooky surrealism to playing a game as you normally would just to be interrupted by a screen or dialogue telling you the game is pirated. That's the main thing for me.
The immersion break, that the game "can tell" and pulls you out.
The funniest part is; I've only ever played pirated copies of games for like, my whole life. We don't really have much money in my family, so playing videogames is something we could never afford, yet I always loved. And in my whole life of playing any pirated game I want, I've never seen an anti-piracy screen at all lol
I'm guessing the people that make the copies actually take the time to get rid of those screens or weird methods to kinda lock you out of the game, so yeah, I guess they don't serve much of a purpose other than making "pirates" work a little harder, probably so the copies take more time to come out and the game gets a good amount of sales before that happens.
Yeah same ive pirated soo many games on many platforms, but i didn't even know about the existence of anti piracy screens before they became famous on youtube. Goes to show that DRM only really hurts the paying customer.
Yeah, seems Anti-piracy is mostly meant to slow down pirates. Cases like Spyro 3 are most fascinating to me since there's multiple levels of copy protection, the first one being obvious and easily cracked and then the next being much more subtle, with the intent that the pirate would play the game to test that it works, decide it's fine now and share it, not knowing that it was only partially cracked. I remember hearing that the majority of the sales that companies don't wanna miss out on are the first week or so.
same,but instead of low money,my uncle pirates games for me,even tho if i don't want it. he's very nice,i don't know if i should be mad at him or not...
however,i got some games without piracy,like super Mario 3D world,Splatoon,paper Mario color splash etc.
8:34
I love how she put her own anti-piracy screen in the video. 😆
8:55
My favorite anti piracy screens personally are the ACNL ones. Since Animal Crossing is such a peaceful game, the sudden anti piracy screen scare that accuses you of being a thief is just jarring and scary.
The Elmo with a knife one made me actually laugh out loud. I live for chaotic Elmo
*La la la la, la la la la.. Elmo’s world..*
Demonic Elmo...
i read elon for a second
@@rryunawhat if Elon musk had a knife and pirated the game?
500th like
I'm surprised you didn't mention "BAD EGG". it was a very well known anti cheating measure for Pokemon games. I remember kids at school would spread the news about it, warning everyone to beware of the "BAD EGG".
it's a glitch that happens when you use cheat codes. it takes the 1st pokemon in your party and permanently traps them into a "BAD EGG" and this egg is also locked into your party, so you are unable to get rid of it. but otherwise, you can continue to play the full game as usual.
this glitch never happened to me personally, but it did unfortunately happen to my sister. we had a Game Shark (a device that contains a huge database of cheat codes for just about every game you could imagine and you'd connect it directly to your console) and we used it a lot. I gave myself unlimited rare candies, unlimited master balls, unlimited max potions, and so on. I even gave myself rare shiny pokemon, even legendaries. I was undefeatable. however, I never received any punishment for it. unfortunately, my sister used the Game Shark device and ended up with the "BAD EGG". she was extremely upset, because the egg had taken over her Kyogre. not only was this one of her favorite pokemon, but she had captured it fair and square on a legitimate game that she purchased. it's still trapped inside the "BAD EGG" to this day. why she got punished for using cheat codes but I never did, we'll never know.
Oh man, I remember BAD EGG and all the old spooky proto-creepypasta videos people made about it. I had a GameShark but never used it on my Pokemon games because I was too scared that it'd mess up my file. I also avoided hatching the Egg you get in Lavaridge because I'd heard it would hatch into BAD EGG if you cheated your game (no idea if this is true).
And about why your sister's game tripped the anti cheat and yours didn't--apparently Bad Egg is more likely to appear if you use the quick daycare level up cheat or hack an illegitimate move onto a pokemon. Maybe it had to do with one of those?
@@beingmegucaissuffering.5326 Not sure how true it is but I recall hearing that it was possible to get a Bad Egg from the Wynaut even just randomly because of some glitch. Coulda just been a rumor though. Oh yea, and I do feel like I remember that the Bad Egg could be placed into a Box but there it could spread, potentially overtaking any other pokemon deposited? That and if kept in tge party it could "hatch" but only ever into another Bad Egg which also could hatch, forming a sort of endless loop. Once again, both these coulda been rumors since it's been forever since I last saw anyone talk about the Bad Egg.
@@beingmegucaissuffering.5326 yeah, I don't know exactly what cheat she was trying to use, but obviously it wasn't a good one. this was back in diamond/pearl era, so it's been a long time. I know there's ways of getting rid of them nowadays in newer games, but still haven't found anything that reverses the glitch and restores the trapped pokemon. RIP Kyogre
Speaking of Pokémon, there was a rather famous measure I haven't seen in the comments yet in BW where I believe you couldn't gain experience in pirated copies. Naturally, there were some people who decided to take this as a challenge.
This is the first time I've actually heard of bad egg being an anti-cheating measure, since I'd just heard of it being a glitch.
@@pandoraeve9751 they're literally calling you a "bad egg" for cheating. it's not possible to get one just from playing the game naturally as intended. if you get a bad egg, you did something to deserve it.
The anti-piracy screen thing reminds me of this dream i had.. I was trying to play a game on my Nintendo 3DS but it wouldnt let me open the game. It just showed a grayscale picture of Luigi's face (it was kind of similar to the uncanny Mr. Incredible meme, which I hadnt seen before at the time). The picture showed up on my family's 3DS screens too. It still creeps me out. I thought I was weird for being creeped out by a gray picture of Luigi but then I saw this video.. lol
I havent even heard of anti-piracy screens until now (Im very uneducated when it comes to video games) but it gives me the same vibes as the Luigi thing.
Edit: lol I got an ad when you did the anti-piracy thing (8:46-8:57)
This reminds me of one of my earliest memories. I had a Barney VHS and when it got to the end of the tape there was a blue splash screen with the production company (the Lyons group I think) and Barney's voice narrating cheerfully, "Copyright 1993 (or whatever year it was), the Lyons group!" For some reason that scared the FUCK out of me as a toddler.
Mario Party DS Anti-Piracy was wild. Just the sheer insanity of the escalation from Bowser saying he doesn't party with criminals, to the game somehow calling 911 through your DS and telling you to turn yourself in, to a completely original boss fight mini-game with a banging remix of the original video's music.
Also, if you translated the Japanese developer notes in the videos, most of them were along the lines of "TO HUDSON SOFT: _Please_ fire the programmer who keeps sending us builds with all this weird anti-piracy shit. -Nintendo"
The monty mole saying "I don't serve criminals" tho
@@FectoMemoria Or getting eaten by a Shy Guy.
Bowser: I don’t party with criminals!
Ok kidnapper of 35 years that also commits what I’m pretty sure are warcrimes
@@spiralhillrailfan3768 *PIRACY IS NO PARTY*
To the boss coming into the real world to arrest the player (that was the last entry in the series)
my favourite DRM is definitely from a game called ''la abadia del crimen'', where after a specific part of the game, there is a loud voice getting deeper and slower, and calling you ''pirate'' alongside of an ear-scratching glitch noise. the game then shuts down and deletes the save. i think it's so much scarier than the fake ones
is that the pirata one??? that scares the shit out of me lmao
i would diarrhea myself if i came across that while alone
PIRATA PIRATA PIRATA P I R A T A P I R A T A
Sweet fish, man. You like tad poles?
@@iwakeupandboomimarat yes that is the one !!
Not quite the same, but I remember as a kid we had an attachment for our gamecube that let you play gameboy games on it, and if the cartridge was loose or pulled out, a loud noise would play and a big red message would appear on the screen telling you to shut off the console and put the game back in properly. The first time my sisters and I witnessed it was late at night with all the lights off, and it scared the absolute shit out of all of us.
I looooooved the skip at 8:48, with the well placed ad that led us back to your video with the anti piracy gif going wrong. 👌🏻
Gotta admit, I was a little scared of watching this lol. I thought you were gonna show an image from Sonic CD that absolutely terrified me when I saw it in a video at age 11. But since you didn’t mention it I felt the need to google it. Turns out that 1: the image is real and not a creepypasta
2: it’s not an anti piracy function but a hidden message from Masato Nishimura who worked on the game
and 3: it’s not as scary as I remembered, it’s just pixel art of Sonic with a laughing human face and a moustache
I was expecting a mention of that one too.
I remember just READING about that hidden message in a Sonic magazine and it kept me on edge for days imagining how horrible the image of a "human-like Sonic" looked like. I didn't even have the game the message appeared in. Years later I found the image and thought "that's it?"
isnt the sonic creepypasta real? i thought a dev put it there and that was his face, he said he didnt intend it to be scary though
@@ender27plays something like that, yeah.
Liam Mannion it is real! And there are more (less creepy) easter eggs in the sound test screen where you find it! th-cam.com/video/Aub20UpiPt8/w-d-xo.html
i fell for the Earthbound anti piracy measures when i was a child and for a long time i would think Earthbound was this extremely hard game and people who liked it were insane
My favorite part about that anti piracy measure is that if by some chance you actually manage to get to the final boss, the game would take you back to the menu screen and delete your save file, making it impossible to beat the game.
I remember when I was a kid my dad would take me to the 'Computer fair' where they sold a lot of pirated games and movies. It was great, you could get the sims 1 for like $2. I was too young to realise there was anything wrong with it lol
When it started to glitch a ad came up lmao 8:37
Same! An nrma ad lol
LOL THIS HAPPENED TO ME TOO
I know these became a big creepypasta staple recently, but the thing is... I'm not sure they were ever really... A thing?
Like, yeah, I guess I have some very vague images of a generic screen identifying a game file as illegitimate in my memory if you really press me, but 99 times out of 100 what a game would do is just let you play for a while and then silently lock you out of progressing any further.
... the idea that people who legitimately bought games saw more of these screens than me who played mostly pirated screens is ... A lot to process. Capitalism baby
Replied to the wrong comment, whoops sorry
Yeah, for example Pokemon Black an White would straight up disable exp gain so your Pokémon would be stuck at whatever level you caught them in. I feel like adding a creepy hidden screen where pikachu tells you to kys yourself would just make people want to pirate the game even more.
@@thanatoast .... Ok literally i never played the ds pokemon games because id always get them in morocco and theyd either not work or be stuck in french? My copy of mystery dungeon worked fine but the trouble i had with the final boss and being unable to defeat him looking back on it now seems .... Manufactured
@@Shewhospeakesinverse you could have just deleted the comment?? lmao
I get pretty creeped out by some old technology stuff. Especially error screens because a lot of the old ones were very unsettling if you weren’t expecting them. A lot of those Nintendo ones talking about serious crimes would have scared the hell out of me lol
Same
I knew I wasn't alone in this fear, but it's good to see someone else saying it out loud. I first thought that I was scared of "some old 8-bit music but not all of it" and then narrowed it down to "idk anything from the atari 2600 unnerves me deeply" but maybe its just that im creeped out by some old technology stuff.
The Spyro one is the one I have encountered as a kid on a blockbuster copy of the game I still have. Makes me think that wasn’t a legitimate copy, hearing her say that again gave me the chills
i’ve seen a lot of people shit on the obvious scary and fake screens but i honestly really like them along with the believable ones. i like how goofy, creative, and fun they can be sometimes :]
when i was a kid there was this anti-piracy ad that played before brazilian dvds where a mom bought a pirated dvd for her kid and then a bunch of armed men showed up and started shooting the air and thanking her for the money, it was... an experience
now what the hell is this 💀
Reminds me of an anti-piracy clip from Germany. Children with their mum standing infront of a jail, singing Happy Birthday. Their dad's in prison for piracy and the childrens ask how many times they have to sing until dad comes out lol
@@oddinaryone1652 ahahaha i remember that one, I found it funny but after the scene there was this one guy who Announced that piracy is a crime and i found his voice super scary
Or the one that says you wouldn't steal a chicken or 'bullets' as changes. Good old times, I used to not look at and turn the TV mute
THIS
While not quiet an anti-piracy measure, I remember playing Animal Crossing for the GameCube back in the day, traveling to a friends neighborhood on a second memory card, and all of the weird stuff that could happen there. The developers included an "easter egg" that occurs when you turn the game off in another player's neighborhood. You would lose all the items in your inventory and your character's face would be replaced by two empty eye sockets and a gaping circular mouth. It terrified the hell out of me as a kid. I basically quit Animal Crossing for several years after that. It's hilarious in retrospect, but man, I chucked my game across the room when it happened.
Its even creepier if you consider the symbolism. The face is that of a Gyroid, which are grave figures
I haven't even seen that and I am now terrified, thank you.
YES! This happened to me when I visited my cousin’s town. He saved while I was still there and it booted me out. Scary shit. 😭 Resetti also scared the HELL outta me.
IS THERE A VIDEO SHOWCASING THIS
THE GYROID FACE
resetti yk the creepy mole thing in animal crossing always scared the shit out of me like I remember crying whenever he’d pop up, I can’t actually remember what would say but it scared me so much anyway.
Ah yes, Resetti. Ik what you're talking about. Yeah, basically he slowly flips his lid until he's SCREAMING because the player forgets to save their progress (a total of 3 times, I think) before he's like "Fuck it, i'm done" and then just wipes out all the game's save data.