8 MORE Video Game Anti-Piracy Measures That Were Total Genius

2. Earthbound - Difficulty and Death

Can we all just stop and appreciate how good Earthbound is? Honestly, it’s one of the weirdest and most wonderful games I’ve ever played. Yet some people can’t appreciate a good thing - and pirates definitely won't.

First off, the difficulty is ramped up quite considerably by having tonnes more random enemy encounters hamper the flow of the game. This was clearly done to put people off with the sheer challenge. However, we all know that this is a world where people have beaten Dark Souls with a Guitar Hero controller; people live for sadistic challenge. Therefore, you might have gone through the game regardless, laughing at the level of grind that Nintendo presented you with.

Well joke's on you friend, because if you make it all the way to the final Gygas fight, you’re in for a shock.

The game checks its connection to the games system just before this second phase fight and if it finds any inconsistencies, locks the game, messes up the graphics and forces you to restart. Fine you think, that’s ok I’ll just go back… wait… where’s my save? DID THE GAME JUST DELETE MY SAVE? Oh Nintendo, you saucy minx. Well played.