Garry's Mod sets trap for pirates

By Robert Purchese Published 13 April, 2011

Clever code names and shames.

Garry Newman set a trap within Garry's Mod to expose people pirating his work.

"Anyone unable to shade polygon normals?" asked Newman on Twitter.

Hours later he added: "Just enabled this error in GMod today. It happens when you pirated it. Having fun watching people complain."

A search for "unable to shade polygon normals" turns up plenty of results on Google.

There are even pirates asking for help dealing with the error on the official Garry's Mod forum.

The best part about the pirate-catching error code is that the naughty user's Steam ID is posted within it. When they reproduce the code on a forum asking for help, Newman can cross-check the code against legitimate purchases and hoof the pirates out.

Garry's Mod, a physics sandbox, started as a Half-Life 2 mod. The $10 download now works with most Source-powered Valve games, allowing the objects and characters of the world to be spawned, manipulated and played with.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (26) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • kentmonkey #1 1 year ago

    Ubisoft, please take note. THIS is how you deal with piracy. Not something that actually hinders those of us that purchase your bloody products (or did, haven't done since your awful anti-piracy measures buggered up the experience more than your tearing).

  • Tyronne #2 1 year ago

    Guess this means this can be called Garrys mod mod.

  • KrazyFace #3 1 year ago

    Ahhh, that's funny.

    All I can say is; serves ya right!

  • Benno #4 1 year ago

    I remember when Garry's Mod was free, I thought it was pretty fun - could make all kinds of scenes

  • PixelPirate #5 1 year ago

    dont punish the people buying it legitimately, instead show the pirates for what they are.

    Genius :-)

  • Xabarin #6 1 year ago

    This reminds me of that level in mirror's edge where, if you had a pirate copy of the game, you couldn't progress any longer because your character resufed to jump. The forums were flooded with post like "Hay guyz, I can't jump on lvl 3, plz help, I bought this game from [insert retail store name here]".

    Good times.

  • JoeBlade #7 1 year ago

    Bravo, good move! Let us indeed hope more devs and publishers notice and opt for this sort of approach rather than draconian DRM.

  • mattigan #8 1 year ago

    And the Batman AA one where cape glide didn't work on pirated copies. Excellent work!!

  • crozon #9 1 year ago

    LOL nice one

  • RipperSU #10 1 year ago

    This sort of anti-piracy measure is definitely the right way to go, especially on PC. Boot the game once with your internet connection and if it's pirated you can't play. Simple but more effective than any of that 1 time only activation/registering bollocks.

  • Doctor_What #11 1 year ago

    I also like this because it works as good advertising - sure, you can pirate it, you can get a really good taste of it, but if you want the full thing then you'll have to buy it.

    I have pirated stuff in the past because I wanted to try software. It turns out that most of it was shit and I uninstalled it instantly. Anything that I used a couple of times I have then purchased because the developers definitely deserve my support. Good products always get my money. A decent trial system means I never pirate anything (because I can trial it for free), but there are many instances where I have purchased products because I had a good experience with a pirated copy.

    Sadly, I think I'm in the minority for supporting developers this way - for me, I've given more money to developers because of pirated versions than if those pirated versions hadn't existed. Sometimes piracy is good marketing! Hopefully these people trying Garry's Mod will go on to buy the real thing. Everybody wins.

  • DwarfyP #12 1 year ago

    @JoeBlade This is a part of DRM. In fact the ones mentioned by some here in the comments are tripwires from SecuROM.

  • Subi #13 1 year ago

    Yay Garry, nice one! :)

    Pirates please take note: You may just about be able to justify pirating £40 stuff from enormous faceless corporations to yourselves (although God knows how), but nicking products that cost a microscopic amount of money from one-man studios selling direct to the public? That's just scummy.

    Edit: Wording and clarification: All piracy is equally bad, except to pirates.
    Edited by Subi at 14/04/11 @ 12:41

  • bad09 #14 1 year ago

    See this is how you combat piracy make the game not work for pirates and make it hassle free for legal consumers.

    You listening games industry? No? Thought not.....

  • GamesConnoisseur #15 1 year ago

    I love this kind of anti piracy measures but sometimes think its miss the point, if the pirate just ends up believing its the bug or game flaw rather than due to his/her actions.

    So to go further by adding unremoveable tagline to Steam account (PSN/XBL etc) that he pirated so and so.

    Now that would be like having a mark of crime tattooed to the forehand! Ah that was the good old days!

  • GlassMoon #16 1 year ago

    Ha ha, well played!

  • Lusterpurge #17 1 year ago

    My favorite anti-piracy measure was in Earthbound where if the game detected a pirated copy, a random battle would occur every step you took. Also, if you somehow make it to the final boss, the game will delete all your saved games right before you fight it.
    Edited by Lusterpurge at 13/04/11 @ 11:05

  • Jmog #18 1 year ago

    Wish I was able to make some kind of game - I would have so much fun making creative anti piracy measures. What my game would do would be to make the pirate believe his computer had virus. After completing the second level, a flood of popups would attack him. Some of them should say stuff like "Erasing C: in 30 seconds" and then it would just count down until they hit "cancel". After two minutes of further game time it would reappear.

    Of course it wouldnt actually do anything but who would be brave enough NOT to press the Cancel button. And after having that popup for a couple of times they wouldn't dare play the game. Good times.

  • kinky_mong #19 1 year ago

    Here in my car, I feel safest of all.

  • lostlain #20 1 year ago

    Lemmings 2 on the amiga, let you play the first level of every world if pirated, then asked you to buy it.

  • dingo75 #21 1 year ago

    @Jmog:

    1. You have to fool the cracking groups as they do the work not the average consumer.
    Those guys eat code for breakfast so you need to be really good fooling them.

    2. Once your little scheme is identified they will patch it out and release a fix making all your work worthless.

    3. Real pirates don't let single player games go online but instead block them via their firewalls.
    Only retards go online with cracked copies and they deserve everything they get.

    4. This kind of protection can back-fire because it might make people calling your game "broken" and prevent sales.
    The Titan Quest developers (Iron Lore) did blame this as main reason their games tanked and they had to close up shop.
    Titan Quest cracked copies did make the game unplayable and forums were flooded of people telling everyone that the games were broken.
    Edited by dingo75 at 13/04/11 @ 21:27

  • hax-generator #22 1 year ago

    haha, you can't do anything to me..: i use simple settings, so i play it as nonsteam game! i would buy it, if it was possible to buy it in Serbia! None of shops got it, and i haven't internet card! when you start selling it in Serbia, i'll buy it... I'm sorry, but this is the only way i can play it. (don't blame me for that, because garry newman should stop thinking "everyone must have card for buing on on internet"!)

  • KDR_11k #23 1 year ago

    Ubisoft did this many years ago, I think the first notable one was Settlers 3. When the disc check failed it had a "bug" where the iron smelter produced pigs instead of iron ingots. It had too many false positives so they had to remove it in a patch.

  • topscore1632 #24 1 year ago

    @Subi:

    So, you're saying that pirating an EA or Activision game is OK? How big does a company have to become before it's alright to rip off their stuff? I can tell you one thing - I bet Garry Newman makes a hell of a lot more net profit that EA does. Have you forgotten that these 'huge faceless corporations' are staffed by developers trying to make ends meet and provide for their families just as much as indie teams and smaller developers?

  • Subi #25 1 year ago

    @topscore1632: Clearly I worded that statement badly if all the negs are anything to go by. What I meant was, many pirates justify themselves by telling themselves that they're only taking tiny bits of money from huge faceless corporations by pirating games, and "the games are so expensive anyway, I have a right to play them, so there," etc. So those pirates who also pirate games from hand-to-mouth indies, to whom they know it affects much more, are treated as scum even by the other pirates.

    BTW, I also work for one of those huge faceless corporations, and I do struggle to make ends meet, so I care very much. :)

    In case that still isn't clear enough: All piracy bad, and should be punishable by death.
    Edited by Subi at 14/04/11 @ 12:42

  • Abraxus #26 1 year ago

    How many AAA titles get demos these days? Not many. That adds to piracy, because believe it or not some people are not willing/able to spend upwards of £35 on a pile of shit that lasts 5 hours and is buggy as hell. Make a good product, price it reasonably and get a demo out and sales will increase. I got stung by Dragon Rising, and you can be sure as hell that I'm going to demo the new OFl game before I even think of parting with money, unless they release a demo. One SP mission and one MP map will do nicely.