StarForce Copy Protection Causing User Ire

Ant writes "According to a thread on the Rage3D boards, and another on The Adventure Company's site, the copy protection system StarForce, as used in PC videogames including Toca Race Driver 2, Traitor's Gate 2 and Broken Sword 3, is installed on a user's PC without proper explanation, and doesn't get removed on many uninstalls - some users report difficulty in keeping their systems stable due to conflicts, and think they've tracked it down to the StarForce protection."

Comments

Copy protection sucks

[dtfinch]

The pirates will always crack it. They only wind up hurting paying end users. It seems nowadays the more you pay for a game the more worthless it is, due to the increased amounts of so called copy protection, which actually does little at all to halt piracy. CD's get scratched. Their attitude is "if it gets scratched beyond repair, that's just one more reason to buy a new game to take it's place" and preventing piracy is just the excuse. I've never pirated a game in my life. I know a couple people who have, but copy protection never stopped them.

Re:Copy protection sucks

[Apiakun]

Right.

Take the following example (stolen from one of the forums mentioned in the blurb):

"...software piracy is nowhere near as bad as these companies make out (it's just an excuse to explain why their games aren't selling, when the truth is it's because they're crap).

In the second place, I can find a crack for a game in 0.5 seconds time. "

Ok, wait just a second, could this guy/girl be any more contradictory? Piracy isn't as bad as they make it out to be, but he can find a crack in half a second ? Whew, sure sounds like piracy is pretty damn rampant and easy to come by to me.

I still believe that one of the most efficient methods of attracting the attention of a company is to write them a letter.

However, don't tell them you are going to pirate their software, instead tell them that exactly what you disagree with and let them know in a professional manner that unless they change those business practices, you will no longer purchase any of their products. Tell them you are going to spread the word.

Word of mouth is an incredible advertising medium. Just look at Slashdot. If a company has a great product, it is going to make the rounds, people will talk about it, people will use it.

Corporations also realize that people with bad experiences are much more vocal than those with good ones, which further compounds their issues.

I really hate to be cliche here, but don't be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution and do something constructive!

Re:Copy protection sucks

[kenthorvath]

Ok, wait just a second, could this guy/girl be any more contradictory? Piracy isn't as bad as they make it out to be, but he can find a crack in half a second ? Whew, sure sounds like piracy is pretty damn rampant and easy to come by to me.

Not all persons using cracks are pirating games. There are legitimate uses for backups and cracks (not wanting to search for a CD everytime I want to play a game being a MAJOR factor). It is an unavoidable fact that people will copy games.

Instead of trying to curb piracy by introducing new and irritating (and often crippling) DRM, the focus should be put into making a game worth the investment. The price should be just right so that it is actually easier to go to the store and buy a copy than to wait for a friend to burn it for you, or spend the time to download it, etc... And let us not forget that many people who pirate would never have purchased the game anyway - they just copied it because it was available and worth a try, not because they were rich and selfish.

Re:Copy protection sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. The reason why games are pirated so easily is not because there is a mass pirating industry - but because the copy protection doesn't actually work.

If it did work then there wouldn't be any pirated versions.

One would wonder why it is necessary to state the obvious - but clearly there are companies out there buying copy protection technology that when put to the test turns out to be nothing more than snake oil.

It defies belief that games companies who are the major purchasers of copy protection software can know so much about graphics and 3D surround sound, but clearly do not know when they have been had by these scam artists selling copy protection software.

Re:Copy protection sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a financial incentive for publishers to include copy protection on games; otherwise, they would not do so. Remember, in a capitalist society, money talks :)

The majority of piracy comes from Joe Average Gamer telling his friend Mikey, "Hey, you need to check out this game!" and installing it on his system. Joe Average Gamer buys 3-4 games per year and doesn't know a cd-crack from an ass crack, let alone have a clue about torrents or newsgroups. So, he installs the game on Mikey's computer, but Mikey is bummed out when surprise! it doesn't work when Joe Average Gamer returns home with his CD. Ideally (in the publisher's mind, anyway), Mikey liked the game enough, or Joe A.G. is persuasive enough, that he'll go out and buy the game on his own so they both can play.

This is why copy protection is included in games, not in a futile attempt to stop it from appearing on a warez site.

Re:Suggestion for avoiding such copy protection

[bigbigbison]

The weakness of this method is that the game companies won't know why people stoped buying the games. They will just see sales decline and say "Well, the pc is dead" and stop making pc games. Either that or they will continue to plame piracy like the music industry does (our sales are down so it must be piracy, not that people don't want our product any more).
So if people are going to stop buying games because of copy protection, make sure that the game companies know that is why you aren't buying their games.

simple copy protection

[SanityInAnarchy]

As far as I know, everyone who's ever been to a LAN party has probably pirated Half-Life, along with a few dozen mods. But that won't work outside the LAN party. I also know that, with the advent of Steam, everyone who wants to play any kind of online game at all has to have a CD key. It only costs about $10 to get one anyway, so most people just deal with it.

It's even more centrallized with an MMO game.

The best copy protection is: Make online games so you can make it reasonably difficult to pirate the game -- but make the CD key and online identity the only copy protection. Make good games so everyone wants it, and make them cheap enough so that everyone can buy them.

In fact, make it so that when I look at a game, it actually costs me less money to buy the game than time to crack the copy protection.