EA Classics Asia-Pacific CD release dismissed as 'pirated'

[Wedge009]

Describe the bug
From #275 and #276, it appears my ff7.exe is being dismissed as 'pirated' due to a brittle check accepting only a limited number of hashes:

7th-Heaven/AppUI/Classes/GameConverter.cs

Lines 164 to 168 in 38afb2f

	byte[][] requiredHashes = {
	Convert.FromHexString("4EECAF14F30E8B0CC87B88C943F1119B567452D7"), // 1.00
	Convert.FromHexString("684A0E87840138B4E02FC8EDB9AE2E2591CE4982"), // 1.02
	Convert.FromHexString("141822081B3F24EA70BE35D59449E0CA098881E3"), // 1.02 4GB
	};

Read directly from the actual installation disc, not from a copy, the SHA-1 hash is 248dd6e260d1f90bb3b9f046437b762c1144c21f. It is 5,821,440 bytes in size and is time-stamped 1998-06-18 15:19:02 UTC.

The back of the box states 'Asia-Pacific Edition: Not for sale in NORTH AMERICA, SOUTH AMERICA, EUROPE or JAPAN.' Among the internal papers is advertising for other EA games of the era, with the web address: www.ea.com.sg (Singapore).

I can provide photos for evidence of ownership, if required. The game was purchased in Australia.

** Versions **
[x] Tested on latest stable version
[ ] Pre-release only bug

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Follow the steps in Getting Started with an EA Classics Asia-Pacific release of the game.
2. Attempt to start the game via 7th Heaven.
3. With or without modifications, the console returns an alleged 'yarr' error string.

Expected behavior
Not having an original retail copy be falsely marked as 'pirated' would be nice...

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows 7 as well as Ubuntu 24.04 with Proton 9.0-4
• Version: 4.2.0.0
• Build: stable release

[julianxhokaxhiu]

Hello, thanks for providing this info. Is it possible to provide those photos so I can track how legit is this copy and which languages does it offer? 7th Heaven supports only the english language of the edition. If this one does not, I am afraid we won't add the hash because of this mainly. Looking forward, thanks.

[Wedge009]

I'm only aware of English being provided. I don't know what the relationship is between Square, Eidos, and EA for Final Fantasy VII PC (the EA Classics label suggests a cut-price reprint after the original release), but I understand that at least in the late 1990s EA distributed its games in Australia via Singapore - I have an Australian retail Wing Commander Prophecy from 1997 printed in Singapore. There's a holographic EA sticker on the front with web addresses for both Hong Kong and Singapore. I am a native Anglophone and can only read languages in Latin characters.

PS The comments on the hashes appear to indicate different versions of the executable, I don't see any such version information, further suggesting this may not be a 'standard' executable.

For file size constraints, I've scaled down these pictures - provide me with another means of sending these to you if you want the original untouched photos.

[Wedge009]

Aside: I have a very similar package for the original 2000 Final Fantasy VIII PC release as well. I think it likely that I only purchased these in late 2000s (I only started playing the FF series in 2005), hence the EA reprints.