Early Anti-Piracy Measures Made Digital Preservation Difficult

Unfortunately for posterity, and for those who purchased and interacted with Moonmist when it was first released, Infocom chose not to include the descriptions of the world in the software at all. In order to figure out what the player character's surroundings are like, the interactor has to consult the manual, which has to be kept on hand during play and read alongside the computer text. This was done to make illegal copying of the game difficult-the nondigital manual would have to be copied, too, for the software to be of any use. This technique was one of many antipiracy "bundling" approaches used by Infocom, and certainly the most irksome one. In A Mind Forever Voyaging, a difficult-to-duplicate code wheel was included in the software package. The code determined on it is required to enter that work's simulation mode. Infidel, Starcross, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, and Trinity were three of the many Infocom works that came with partial maps that provided necessary information. Some of the items packaged in Infocom works were more of a carrot than a stick, included to entice buyers rather than to actually obstruct potential pirates. These "feelies" included a scratch-and-sniff card and 3-D comic in Leather Goddesses of Phobos, the aforementioned glow-in-the-dark stone of Wishbringer, and a Don't Panic button and "peril-sensitive" sunglasses included with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The original packages for Suspended and Starcross were based around a large injection-molded face and flying saucer. The packaged items that are required within the game, to be used as a printed key, are a clear detriment to the experience of interactive fiction, whatever commercial sense they made or seemed to make. As a result of these measures, interaction (already a cumbersome affair by virtue of the note taking and mapping required) has been made even less accessible to those with casual interest.

The techniques employed by Infocom were far less intricate and oppressive than was standard in the computer gaming industry. On most platforms, Infocom's disks could be copied freely, whereas labyrinthine schemes to prevent disk duplication were routinely employed by other companies. These involved making alterations to the boot sector or employing special properties of home computer disk reading and writing to distinguish duplicated disks, even when the copying was done bit by bit. These schemes, euphemistically called copy protection, introduced additional incompatibilities to the software and made it difficult for legitimate users to back up their software. Because of the further problems this so-called "copy protection" introduced, when a legal, original disk with a home computer game can be found today it can be difficult to get it running on a modern platform or emulator. If any examples of heavily copyprotected computer games survive through another two decades for study and discussion, it will be thanks to the loose, widespread network of teenagers and college students who assiduously cracked these programs, allowing the crippled disks to run freely both on systems at the time and on compatible computers today.