Bohemia Interactive inflicts ‘the fade’ on pirates

If you’re playing a pirated copy of Bohemia Interactive’s helicopter sim Take On Helicopters, you might experience some mysterious dips in performance. This is ‘the fade’, a system Bohemia has employed in their games since Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis.
Essentially, it’ll start to look like you’re playing underwater.
The system is still catching a few people out, as a recent post from ‘Kcannon’ on Bohemia’s official forums shows. “Why does the screen go blurry like I’m under water sometimes? What am I doing wrong?”, he asks, before being banned for an inability to provide any proof of purchase.
It takes me back to the days of Deus Ex (the original), where an anti-piracy scheme would make the game crash if players tried to board a boat at the end of the first mission.
Best of all (and unlike DRM), this system does not appear to affect any paying players. Plus, hey, it’s quite funny.
Source: forums.bistudio.com