Controversial StarForce Copy Protection Creators Quizzed

Thanks to FiringSquad for its interview with the creators of the StarForce copy protection scheme for PC videogames. The author explains: "In recent months there's been an increasing awareness and alarm over StarForce copy protection. It's actually a driver that installs itself with the [Windows] games that come shipped with it, and originally it didn't uninstall when the game was uninstalled." StarForce's Abbie Sommer argues the advantages of "driver-level copy protection", explaining: "The drivers are what prevents the use of kernel debugger utilities such as SoftICE, Cool Debugger, Soft Snoop etc. Also the drivers prevent emulators from spoofing a drive, and thwart burning tools such as Alcohol 120%." The author concludes by injecting a little personal opinion into the mix, arguing: "PC games will never go away, but if the market keeps shrinking due to the increasing ease of piracy... then the number and quality of games will almost certainly decrease."

Comments

well, duh

[Scudsucker]

People don't mind swapping discs in consols because they are designed to only play one game at a time. However, computers with their vast hard drives, are able to store thousands of programs at a time without needing to insert a cd. You don't see Photoshop asking you to put in the install cd. The reason why sights like Gamecopyworld.com are so popular is because people don't want stupid limitations that aren't there for technological reasons, but because the developers deliberatly wanted to be a pain in the ass.

You CANNOT prevent piracy

[davek]

Piracy will always be here. Since software is only a collection of electrical impulses, I can always make a set of impulses which is exactly the same as the original. What we need is to move away from selling the software and toward the service model (perhaps not in is current form, but something like it). This works even for PC games.

Software is free, whether you want it to be or not. Forget the moral bullshit arguments. This is the way it IS. We've got to find some other way of making a living.

-Dave

Re:And punish legitimate users?

[log0n]

Some of us have grown up and stopped playing games. Easy solution to having to guess which may or may not be protected ;-)