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StarForce Copy Protection Causing User Ire

Posted by simoniker on from the ire-and-brimstone dept.

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."

2 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Copy protection sucks by dtfinch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Copy protection sucks by kenthorvath · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.