Anti-Piracy in NES Earthbound

I just caught this comment by Kotaku reader Jouen a second ago.

Just bring back the anti-piracy measures they used with Earthbound on the NES. If the game detected that it was being played on an unlicensed cartridge then it would ramp up the difficulty to an almost unplayable level and randomly flash messages reminding you that piracy is a crime, and if you managed to get to the final boss the game would crash and erase your save data. It was cruel, hilarious and probably taught a few people a lesson

I had never heard of this, so I started wondering if it was true. I went to Google to find the answer. The Earthbound 0 ROM apparently has three versions of the ROM floating around that defeat different areas of the anti-piracy in the game code.

There’s also apparently some anti-piracy stuff in Earthbound for SNES too. That seems to be what the fellow above is referring to.

I think making the game so difficult to be unplayable is an excellent way to combat piracy personally, although games like Demons Souls raises the bar on how difficult we have to make it before gamers give up.