In the early days of computing, there was no internet. This made it difficult to share games with friends, as you had to physically hand over the game media. This changed with the release of games like Doom and Quake, which could be shared online. However, these games were pirated, and the developers didn’t make any money from them.

In an effort to combat piracy, game developers started using CD keys. These were unique codes that were used to activate a game. If you didn’t have the CD key, you couldn’t play the game. This helped to reduce piracy, as …