Bohemia Interactive explains how it uses FADE as anti-piracy tech
Bohemia Interactive has provided an example of how the FADE copy protection system is used as an anti-piracy measure Take On Helicopters.
In a mail sent out by the firm, a link to the official forums brought attention to a poster asking why his game screen goes "blurry like I'm under water sometimes" and even posted a shot of what the game was doing as an example.
Turns out, the player was using a pirated copy of the game, and the longer he played the blurrier it got, thanks to FADE.
"One of the aspects of developing any game in this modern age is how to protect it, it’s widely known that as soon as any game is released there are those who are looking to download it for free, who for whatever reason feel that their right is to not pay for something despite all the thousands of hours that have gone into its development," said Bohemia in the statement.
"Obviously game developers have a responsibility to themselves to try to protect their company’s future, but also a responsibility to the community that supports them by buying their titles, no gamer who has spent their hard earned money to buy a game wants to be playing MP against others who didn’t buy their game, no addon maker wants to have things they created over countless hours downloaded and used by people who didn’t buy the game it’s intended for.
"That is why we try to come up with unique and irrefutable ways to stop people from playing our games without paying for them, that’s why Take On Helicopters shipped with our unique antipiracy countermeasures."
Back in 2001 when the original Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis was released, the company had FADE implemented which causes game performance to degrade. Thus the reason those playing a pirated version of Take on Helicopters will notice morphed, watery image degradation.
Those who own a legitimate version of Take On Helicopters need not worry about the degradation of visual quality, according to the developer.
"Piracy is a big problem for Bohemia Interactive, as an independent PC developer, and we’re trying to focus our support as much as possible towards users of legitimate copies," the statement continued.
"Counterfeit copies of our games may degrade and, moral aspects aside, we certainly recommend only playing the original version. We have a free public demo version of Take On Helicopters in the development pipeline for those that prefer to test it before buying."