Peer-to-Peer networks and various other internet portals have been infamous for contributing towards piracy of video games. Developers and publishers spend a lot of time and money for coming up with the latest games. Years of research, innovation, creativity and efforts are required to build a game that appeals to the fans. The investment is usually in the order of millions of dollars. The least that the developers expect is their fair share in the revenue earned by the games.
But piracy seems to disrupt all of that. Developers have had to simply watch their hard work go to waste as people made illegal copies of the games and sold it with unauthorized keys that were pretty easy to replicate by anyone who had the right tools and just the right amount of technical understanding.
And just when things were getting worse, the games were given CD keys that were not only platform specific, but also specific for each copy of the game. Now this made it absolutely difficult for the games to be subjected to piracy. And with the developments in internet technologies, these keys are now not only used for accessing the game, but they are also used for downloading the games for consoles and desktop platforms that have cloud services. Check out the following benefits of CD keys which are in fact helping game developers to fight piracy.
CD Keys are Specific to Every Copy of the Game
Game publishers / developers are making use of advanced keys that are not only very specific to each copy of the game but they are also aligned to the specific platform that is compatible with the game. Moreover, with the games now being offered on cloud services, you need to get genuine serial codes for downloading the game. This has eliminated the possibility of piracy significantly.
Keys Once Activated Can Never Be Used Again
The one-time use feature was available for previous games also, but the possibility of using it as a base for regenerating matching keys or almost compatible keys was pretty much existent. There were also a chance that a particular serial code might work for another copy of the game. Such chances were not that frequent, but it could have worked by sheer luck. Now, CD key providers have implemented stringent quality checks, where every single key that they obtain from the publisher is verified for authenticity before it is dispatched. If someone does try to sell it off after use, then the key would be of no use. With the rising awareness about legal serial codes, customers are less susceptible to such threats as they would prefer to buy from a genuine source rather than seek out such keys from the internet.
Various Additional Perks are Provided Along with CD Keys
By providing value added perks such as discounted Downloadable Contents, season passes and assistance in queries, CD key providers are encouraging people to support authentic serial codes. Such benefits can never be provided to those who have simply ripped the keys from some forum or portal on the net.
Conclusion
Gaming is fun and attracts the attention of a lot of people, but it can be made even more fun if you get the real thing with all the perks and benefits. It may appear rather insignificant, but if you consider the perspective of the game developers, then the codes have the potential of having a major positive impact on the revenue that they earn from the sales. This is a great step towards fighting piracy and giving gamers the experience that they deserve.
