The Problems With Game Copy Protection

Next Generation has a piece looking at the sometimes overly enthusiastic copy protection schemes used in PC games. From the article: "In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares. These days, however, copy-protection software is ubiquitous, and any PC game bought at retail is going to have it embedded on the game disc(s) in one form or another. I'm okay with that in theory, but some of these anti-piracy software programs are so potent that they cause issues for legitimate game buyers. One of the leading brands, StarForce, is notorious for not only making it difficult for a small percentage of legitimate users to load up StarForce-protected games, but also for leaving potentially problem-causing StarForce software behind on your PC, even after you've deleted the game it was protecting."

Comments

Pointless to read.

[DerekLyons]

At a display of such massive cluelessness as:

In the late '80s and early '90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that you not pirate their wares.

I quit reading.

Re:StarForce installs a driver, like Sony

[GrumblyStuff]

I know this is offtopic, but, damn, Doctor Ow is an awesome name. If only you could have punctuation as part of your legal name, too, because that really calls for an exclamation point.