Trials of Mana demo taken down after crackers use it to enable piracy

Enlarge / Artist's conception of Square Enix temporarily casting the Trials of Mana demo back into the void. (credit: Square Enix)

Square Enix has removed the demo version of Trials of Mana from Steam after hackers found a workaround that used the demo to gain access to the full version of the game.

"Due to unforeseen circumstances, we need to temporarily take the Trials of Mana Demo on Steam offline, we hope to have it back up again very soon," Square Enix wrote on the game's Steam Community. "Please rest assured, all progress made by those who have downloaded and played the demo will remain and be carried over when it's back online."

The workaround, as described in message board posts around the Internet, required downloading a copy of the Steam files distributed with a legitimate copy of Trials of Mana. Those files usually wouldn't work if loaded onto a Steam account that hasn't purchased the game. But by copying over a couple of files found in the "Paks" directory, users could essentially trick Steam into loading the full game through the free demo version associated with their account (though some users reported problems loading the "extra" chapter at the end of the game when using this method).

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