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A flag just came in to the close queue, and I thought about it a lot.

As you might know, some games add an intended bug/glitch to the game if they detect that the game was pirated. This is usually never an issue on actual games.

Here are some examples:

Batman Arkham Asylum:

Legit copy:

place in legit game

Illegal, pirated copy:

Same place with piracy

Garry's Mod:

Fake error, only on pirated copies:

Fake error for illegal copies on GMod

Should we close these kind of questions?

ps. Here is the flagged question I closevoted.

Edit: I think that my question is different from this one the answer to this discussion is unclear after reading that post, so I still think that it needs to be discussed as a separate discussion. Why? Because while these issues on the question content don't affect legit owners, the question title itself can affect them.

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    Note: That place is impossible to pass with cracked copies, but even the game displays a "hit (button) to climb" on legit copies.
    – ave
    Feb 9 '16 at 15:41
  • I disagree with your edit. If the question title is worded in a way that people with a different problem might come across it, it's a bad question title. I.e. "How do I fix this error?" or "How can I climb this ledge?" should never be questions in the first place.
    – MrLemon
    Feb 9 '16 at 15:58
  • @MrLemon You might not see a way to climb on legit copies too, and even though the content is close, the answers are totally unrelated.
    – ave
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:02
  • If you have got that far into the game, you will understand the grappling hook mechanics by then (you would have used it a lot by then). I have found that as long as the vent is fully visible in your camera view then it will give you the on screen indicator to using the grappling hook.
    – user101016
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:06
  • I believe Hook (missing a required item) and Settlers 3 (certain building didn't produce material) also have game-blocking anti-piracy methods. Maniac Mansion had a funny one where the mansion would blow up with the wrong code, and Zak McKraken would send you to jail without the right paperwork. I think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade made the ending harder (i.e. needed to guess/retry all combinations of grails).
    – user101016
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:10
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    @camelCase Game Dev Story also has one, which causes you to bankrupt, after x years, even if your sales were high.
    – ave
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:12
  • For information only, I find these examples interesting... as I am sure others do. However, for practical purposes, these types of Q's only help people with pirated copies. I think you raise a valid point, but essentially allowing all the questions yield the same answer - buy a legit copy.
    – user101016
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:16
  • I think that the questions should be closed and the closing message should contain the link of the game (steam integration that searches for the tag maybe?), so that the asker won't get any rep too.
    – ave
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:17
  • @camelCase the steam thing was an example. It can pull data from somewhere and show that.
    – ave
    Feb 9 '16 at 18:45
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According to the list on the help page these types of questions are prohibited:

Piracy, and support with pirated games.

The bug in question ONLY occurs in pirated versions. Therefore, answering such questions provides support for pirated games. You will never see the problem in a legit copy.

Note - when I say support I mean offer guidance and answers for pirate copies (as opposed to agreeing with piracy in general).

With that in mind I raised a flag for the question linked in the OP. The information is only useful for pirate copies.

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    If the answer is "buy the game", is that support? It does relieve the asker of a lot of potential frustration while trying to figure it out, but it's not telling them how to fix the issue.
    – MrLemon
    Feb 9 '16 at 15:54
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    @MrLemon that is a big question that should be discussed as another post imho. Other than that, the linked question has 14 (14!) upvotes, and the OP who clearly is using a cracked copy (see his last comment on accepted answer) got 70 rep out of it, even though the answer is something like "here is how you do it on legit game, and you should buy the game and it'll fix itself".
    – ave
    Feb 9 '16 at 15:58
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    I think that is mostly covered here: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/7546/…
    – user101016
    Feb 9 '16 at 16:12

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