Answer: Crysis Warhead

The developers of Crysis Warhead coded a rather clever method of dealing with pirates right into the game. If the game detects that the currently running copy is pirated or compromised in any way, it replaces all the in-game munitions with chickens. Every bullet, every rocket, every munition fired out of an in-game gun is replaced with a fluttering chicken.

Not only does the ‘chickens and bullet’ swap affect the player, but it also affects all enemies and non-player characters. You can’t kill the bad guys and the bad guys can’t kill you. You end up stuck on the first level in an absurd chicken-throwing contest that never ends, with the bad guys either milling around ignoring you or freaking out throwing thousands of chickens at you.

In a strange sort of way, it’s really like a gloriously absurd demo. The pirated version lets you try out the game controls, check out the quality of the graphics, but not actually progress in the game for lack of real ammo. Clearly, the developers had a sense of humor about the whole thing coupled with a clever marketing strategy.