Anti-Piracy Screens Are Unnerving. But, why?

imagine you cozy up in bed finally able to relax after a long day of school you just got a brand new copy of Mario Kart Wii for your birthday and you're excited to try it so you attempt to play the game this is supposed to be fun right [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] you're taking in the new sounds and atmosphere as you get used to the weak controls you might not be winning the race but you're having fun [Music] well that's weird but maybe it's just a glitch I mean your parents wouldn't get a hacked copy or anything like that right [Music] foreign [Music] yeah the disc is probably just scratched but it would take too much effort to get up and take it out so you decide to keep playing [Music] stolen software like a pirated game and what's with this creepy footage something about this makes you feel really uneasy like you've done something irreversibly wrong but why does it make you feel this way what makes this anti-piracy screen scary I know that Izzy's already covered this topic very well however I've wanted to cover this subject for fun for a long time so why not now make sure to follow my social media link below and of course thanks for watching the video real anti-piracy screens are the best place to start and speaking of Izzy's it's thanks to their video that I'm able to reference these images that are very similar to the Warped and much creepier fan made versions that are on YouTube today the first anti-piracy screen is from Donkey Kong Country 3. this screen is very ominous I think that's the best word to describe it the music may be dark but it's still clearly cartoonish and has the same Vibe as the rest of the game however that combined with the context that this screen popped up because you had no legitimate copy of the game makes it much creepier not to mention the image in the background it looks like the characters are in distress and it almost seems like they're staring at some unseen evil that they're forced to face maybe I'm over analyzing it a bit but you can understand why this would be distressing to some the vignette around the image also makes it feel like the characters are trapped unable to escape from their impending doom the next one we'll look at is from Super Mario All-Stars and this is what it looks like [Music] although it doesn't have any music or unnerving imagery something about this screen still gives off that ominous feeling maybe it's because it has a much darker and emptier visual than the game and such a stark contrast throws the player off maybe it's because the music suddenly goes silent immediately telling the player that something is seriously wrong before they read a word on the screen the top sentence is also scary especially as a kid seeing the sentence it is a serious crime to copy video games must have been terrifying you'd probably think you were about to go to jail or something although not as creepy as the other one this Mario All-Stars anti-piracy screen has plenty of unnerving material when you really think about it for a final more modern example we'll check out baldi's Basics anti-piracy screen [Music] while this game is already supposed to be unnerving we can pinpoint some commonalities between this screen and the older ones I've referenced before first off we have Baldi himself similarly to the Donkey Kong Country 3 screen Baldi looks very distressed and is also facing off camera likely towards some type of impending doom another similarity is how dark the screen is that lack of vibrancy and color shows even a younger player that immediately something is very wrong and that's a very unnerving and very Primal feeling the text is more lighthearted than text from the other games being less accusatory and coming from the I think this may be an error angle the final similarity of course is the darker tone of the music So based on these three real anti-piracy screens we have a pretty good gauge of what makes these screens scary one ominous text two dark music or silence three a dark screen pretty simple but let's see exactly how these fan made anti-piracy screens use these aspects the first fan made anti-piracy screen is for a TV show instead of a game but there's a reason that I'm using this one more SpongeBob coming up stay down your cable provider has been broadcasting Nickelodeon for an unauthorized period of time after the license had expired you have been viewing pirated programs and have failed to contact the Federal Communications Commission you are now subject to criminal persecution for copyright infringement to avoid Court proceeding please send a cash envelope of 500 to the following address 1515 Broadway New York City New York 27505 we see a lot of similarities to the anti-piracy screens we've referenced before the silence the dark imagery and the ominous text all culminating a pretty unnerving experience but I've been repeating myself what else makes this particular anti-piracy screen unnerving well the image in the background an image which actually comes from a creepypasta this Creepypasta is titled SpongeBob bootleg episode and goes something like this this image was taken from Split Second frame in a corrupted bootleg of the SpongeBob episode dumped other than the image the rest of the videos composed of incomprehensible jumbles of colors static or just black screens the audio seems to be a heavily distorted version of the audio from the original episode with loud droning buzzes occasionally interrupting it the bootleg tape itself was found in December 2004 by a group of five teenagers from the city rummaging around in a trash can within an abandoned mental institution of these five individuals two have committed one has gone missing one refuses to comment on the tape and the last hastily agreed to give paranormal investigators a tape shortly after being interviewed about the and disappearances of the other three persons the current whereabouts of the tape were unknown and many who stared this image for a long enough period of time claim to see SpongeBob blink Creepypasta are a huge influence for these fan-made anti-piracy screens and as we go forward you'll really be able to see what I mean [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] this anti-piracy screen is even more terrifying than the last one it just looks so realistic and listen to the ominous music the scariest thing here is the thought that your system could forcibly disable itself entirely due to an anti-piracy measure I can only imagine the pit that would form in one's stomach if they had to come to the realization that they would have to contact Nintendo to fix their system knowing that they would know it was due to piracy what then would they press charges is it better to throw away the system and get a new one the unknown plays heavily in this one and I love it but on to my final pick Sonic is a game where you run forward you get from point A to point B as fast as you can and that's about it but what if you turn around at just the right time in doing so maybe you discover something at the beginning of the level something that only those with an illegitimate copy of the game are supposed to find [Music] foreign [Music] this is easily one of the most accurate fan-made screens that I've seen the Sonic Sprite looks Sinister yet still kid-friendly the text is the right amount of ominous and threatening not going as far as to say we're gonna take your life or something like that and the music here is particularly unnerving something about how off the tone is really helps the atmosphere of the screen however there is more more that ties back to the Creepypasta Roots I mentioned earlier at this point Creepypasta has been done to death I don't think anyone here needs an explanation of what Creepypasta is considering it's so popular you can see a lot of Creepypastas influencing these anti-piracy screens for example the one I just previously referenced the hollow eyes at the end are a common Trope in many Creepypasta the text directly to the player seems like they're playing some type of cursed cartridge like a game they got for free off eBay with a very mysterious sticker on it that had Sonic cruelly written in marker there are a lot of anti-piracy screens to fit the Creepypasta model jump scares sharp teeth the game telling you someone's gonna get you Etc but this final anti-piracy screen follows the Creepypasta model in a way that seems the most genuine let me explain the roots of video game possible revolve around shock for example it might be a little unnerving if your Mario game music cut off but it would be shocking if Mario violently jumped on a Goomba and left its corpse this is why Sonic EXE exists for example jump scares blood and scary texts are shocking if they're in a non-horror game especially one that's kid friendly foreign [Music] [Music] when the background turns red and the normal looking liquid now has black eyes with red pupils and that's shocking even the cloud has sharp teeth Mario presumably being killed by the likito also fits this model [Music] [Music] foreign the game doesn't just feel like it's trying to stop Pirates it feels like it's cursed like this is some type of code that was put in by a deranged programmer maybe this was actually a prototype copy not a beta but a full version that was supposed to be released before they discovered the strange anti-piracy measures [Music] see it's pretty easy to make up a story around this gameplay that perfectly fits the Creepypasta model these added aspects along with all the features I previously discussed can truly make an anti-piracy screen scary [Music]

Channel: Gearisko

Views: 2,597,015

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Id: dL9gUli_7L0

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2022