SunDog: Frozen Legacy

a.k.a. 陽犬號

published by Accolade in 1984-03, developed by FTL, running on Apple II E

type: action/reflex, simulation, strategy
genre: Science Fiction
perspective: other bird's-eye
player options: single player

languages: eng

4.5/5

Technical specs

display: raster

Editor note

The game had multiple levels of DRM. If one managed to circumvent any one of them, then the game could be copied. However, copies would let the player begin a game but prevent space flight; giving the in-game message, "Clearance to lift denied due to pirate activity".

On the day of release, FTL Games uploaded copies of the game to BBS systems dedicated to distributing illegal copies of software. FTL's uploads where only partially cracked of course; "Clearance to lift denied".

If customers called to ask for help about pirate activity (a phone number was provided in-game), they would be told something along the lines of, "Sorry about that. Send us your floppy disk and we'll send you back a replacement. Or you can buy a new one at a discount". Of course, they wouldn't send an illegal copy and had no legit copy to send. Those that opted to buy would actually get a legit copy of the game and a second legit copy labeled "backup". Once word got around in piracy circles, many would just call and ask to buy the game without mentioning "pirate activity". Even though the phone sales were reduced cost and many customers probably sold their backup, the company estimated they got an addition 130,000 sales that would not have happened otherwise.