Garry mods Garry's Mod to catch pirates

by JC Fletcher on Apr 13th 2011 12:44PM

If you've been having trouble with Garry's Mod lately, specifically the error, "Unable to shade polygon normals," don't take it to the Steam forums. You can solve that issue rather easily -- by buying a copy of Garry's Mod.

Creator Garry Newman tweeted yesterday that he enabled the error, which is designed to occur only in pirated copies. "Having fun watching people complain," he added, linking to a Google search for "Unable to shade polygon normals." The error code spits out a number, which happens to be the user's Steam ID. Posting the error code on the Steam forum gives Valve an easy way to find the user's Steam ID, compare to list of GMod owners, and then make with forum bans.

"It's the simplest stupidest DRM possible, a phone home," Newman said on his blog. "It is not uncrackable. You could crack it with notepad. Or by disconnecting from the internet." The point isn't to make impenetrable DRM, he said. "Making it uncrackable isn't the motive here – laughing at [pirates] is."

Source: Garry's Blog, @garrynewman

Tags: garry-newman, garrys-mod, half-life-2, pc, piracy, steam

Reader Comments (75)

Elegant :)

@jumpshot

No it isn't. The Titan Quest devs did the exact same thing and it backfired simply because it was happening to people who bought the game as well.

Solutions like this are about as elegant as pooping in to a sock and throwing the sock.

@Credge It is because this particular one verifies if the user has bought the game. If they did, it's a pretty easy fix. I've also not heard anyone who bought it complain yet. If you bought it, you shouldnt have a problem. And so, elegant.

@Credge lol, you're just mad because you pirated it.

@jumpshot

It´ll be more comical if he hadn´t said how to break it, now that was funny....

@jumpshot

Here's something elegance. Now with 100% more baby pirates!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_0mdJZKXG9oE/TaX6HoCi4DI/AAAAAAAAFXw/KWNT7T1WkA4/pirate.JPG

Hilarious! Its great that he can get some enjoyment out of the scurvy dogs

@Diddy Sinatra
Arrrrghhh, matey!
Polygon normals are driving me nuts!

@JonahStein
The correct answer is:
"Is that a shader in your pants?"

Well played sir

That's heartwarming.

brilliant, google searched and had a good laugh

Comical...

its kinda sad when you have to pirate something like garys mod. its available on steam for like what? $5? and its downloaded straight to your computer?

maybe i can understand something that sold for $60 and you had to go to the store or something

but ever since steam came out and they started doing those summer and winter sales, I've really had no reason to pirate anything, paying the price of the sale games is worth the hassle downloading from a shady source, and finding a no-cd or cracked exe or something and worrying about viruses

@greyson97

10$

@greyson97

.... and you also need a copy of any Source Engine game.

@greyson97
... And not the free Portal they gave out to Mac users. Has to be a paid game.

@greyson97

There is other reason to Pirate a game such as seeing if it's any good and worth their money... there also is people that don't have credit cards to pay for stuff online *cough* kids *cough*.

@greyson97

Urgh, said 'is' instead of 'are' plenty times there. My bad, also *reasons AND take the capital off 'Pirate' ¬_¬

@VeeDeeVee
WTF. Offering advice = down vote? I don't understand so I'll just say it again...

You cannot use freely obtained Source games with Garry's Mod. So if you got HL2 Deathmatch through the ATI offer then it won't work. The Portal they gave out to Mac users for the beta will also not work.

ADVICE, PEOPLE.

@DovahkiinSpartan Children should be allowed to pirate games because they don't have valid credit cards?

Bah. back in the day we had to steal our parent's credit card information! Kids have it so easy these days! :)

@superfrick

and can't they buy those reloadable debit cards at the grocery store now? or even maybe a debit card, depending on if there are age limits on checking accounts or not.

@greyson97 The mod used to be free, but when it became really popular the guy decided to slap a price tag on it and sell it.. The paid version doesn't add a significant amount of new features, as far as I could tell, and it still requires a source game to play. If people want to pirate this, rather than give money to Gary Newman and Steam, then I see no problem with that.

@superfrick

I never said it was oaky. I'm saying that could be a reason as to why they would.

I believe Garry is winning.

@Darklink2009
but does he have Tiger Blood™?

@supersonic124

No. Now go away before I beat your unfunny meme-spouting 4chan ass into the ground.

The first link in your sources is broken, Mr. Joystiq!

Haha. Nice.
This is up there with the DS Michael Jackson Experience Vuvuzela overlay.

Although I love these types of DRM's, they have to be careful because one slip could be doing the same error to people who did pay. It happened to PC versions of GTAIV but luckily they patched that.

Smooth idea...but I wonder if they will retaliate? Pirates/hackers are a resourceful bunch. :/

@ShadowXIII
Can't live in fear, man.

@MLS

Fear? Nah, I just know how some of 'em think is all.

@ShadowXIII
Don't really see what they could do in retaliation.

@ShadowXIII
Pirates =/= Hackers

Pirates just take stuff that some guy put on the internet for them.

@ShadowXIII They already cracked and stole the game. What else are they going to do? Steal some more copies?

Nice to see the Arkham Asylum anti-piracy method being implemented elsewhere.

@Faceless Troll
My first thought too.

Ubisoft should print this out in BIG LETTERS, frame it, nail it to the wall and when the inevitable cry of Shoggoth re-awakens their dormant dreams of the stupidest DRM models possible, this should (hopefully) bring them back from the edge of madness. I can only hope.
Bravo, Mr. Newman!

@Halgrimur See the post directly above yours. Ubisoft has already used this method.

@Halgrimur

+1.000 to you, sir, for the Shoggoth citation. And yes, Ubisift's DRM is a mountain of madness.

@Mike Sylvester
The particular DRM I was referring to was the kind used for AssCreed 2(Some other games too if I remember correctly, but AssCreed was the highest profile one). Single most backwards and infuriating use of technology ever

I only wish they left the part out where the code said it was their Steam ID so Valve could catch more pirates :(

@Ospov

Why? Is there something wrong with wanting to stop people from stealing things?

@Corejam178
think he means on joystiq and garrys blog, so that they keep posting there steam id and keep getting ban hammered

@Corejam178 He means that he wished that part wasn't being publicized like this - it will warn some pirates.

@Vesuvium

Exactly. The more unsuspecting pirates they can ban, the better. Oh well, it's still pretty funny stuff.

@Corejam178 It takes a special kind of person to be caught to. Not only to they have to pirate the game, but they also have to go complain about the bug they encountered.

That's like stealing a gadget from a store, then coming back the next day for tech support. Not only are they bad people, they're also arrogant and stupid.

Best DRM ever. It doesn't inconvenience the people who actually paid for it, it doesn't actively data-mine anyone, and it doesn't aim to destroy pirates, just screw with them. The best part is that even pirates will probably love it. The ones who read about this beforehand and carefully step around the landmine will just laugh at the people who got themselves caught, and the people who got caught are probably incapable of waging any kind of hacker counter-attack by themselves.

Brilliant.

@ddrussianinja

This is pretty much what all DLC SHOULD be.

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Garry's Mod

Garry mods Garry's Mod to catch pirates

Reader Comments (75)

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:48PM jumpshot said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 1:04PM Credge said

Posted: Apr 13th 2011 1:12PM jumpshot said

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Posted: Apr 13th 2011 12:58PM Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar said

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