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Ubisoft Officially Drops Starforce
totalbasscase writes "Starforce, the copy protection scheme hated by most who've had reason to use it, has lost a customer. Ubisoft has confirmed that not only will Heroes of Might and Magic V ship without Starforce copy protection, the publisher is discontinuing its use in all its games." From the article: "We'd venture it has something to do with the lawsuit raised against Ubisoft for using Starforce as copy protection software. When we asked why they were dropping the company Ubisoft representatives said, 'Ubisoft takes its customer concerns very seriously and is investigating the complaints about alleged problems with Starforce's software. Ubisoft's goal is to find solutions for its customers if there are problems with Ubisoft products.'"
I mean, c'mon, I don't want a converted WWII battleship flying up and launching the Wave Motion Gun at me!
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
*Scratches Ubisoft off the "Completely Evil" list, and puts them on the "Evil, but I'm not so pissed off I won't buy their stuff" list.*
Since game companies absolutely depend on the goodwill of the consumers of their product, I'm glad to see they made the right choice, and I hope other companies *coughSONYcoughcough* will see that the right choice can also be the smart choice.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
They'll likely be moving to another copy protection system that l33t hax0rs bypass in minutes and that cause much frustration for countless legitimate users.
It's still a good sign though to see a publisher walking away from the evil that is Starforce.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That's great news, but what kind of copy protection will they use in its place?
Games using Starforce
Boycott Starforce Campaign
Wikipedia article
This way, I might some day be able to buy a copy of Heroes of Might & Magic 5, and actually play it without ill feelings in my guts.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
How about a way to remove it from existing games now?
"'Ubisoft takes its customer concerns very seriously and is investigating the complaints about alleged problems with Starforce's software. Ubisoft's goal is to find solutions for its customers if there are problems with Ubisoft products.'""
So we're finally going to get that "gameplay" we've been asking for on Slashdot for years.
Tommorrow on Slashdot: Ubisoft to look for a new Copy Protection system!
Now what Ubisoft should do is patch all of their games that use StarForce so not only upcoming games will not use this protection system, but the previously released as well. Then only will I believe them when they say "Ubisoft takes its customer concerns very seriously".
Or maybe it has to do with the forum fiasco where StarForce goon handed out links to warez and whatnot.
Starforce is of the same level of ilk as adware/ransomware vendors.
Behold a toast to hoping these Russians are looking for jobs in Siberia within the next 3 months.
What, just like Sony BMG does?
"I can live with some copy protection. I don't agree with the idea, but I can accept some compromise."
Earth 2160 uses an XP style activation.
... when the first thing you do when you are thinking about buying a game is check what sort of copy protection it uses before even considering the purchase itself. And what if the game happens to have one of the more offensive copy protection schemes? (Safedisc, Starforce) Well, you're forced to download cracks from questionable websites if you want to avoid dealing with them. This is coming from someone who wants to buy their products. This is a good first step for Ubisoft, but they should realize that all restrictive copy protection schemes do nothing but hurt their business in the long run.
So what are they going to use in its place? Any ideas? Ubisoft doesn't mention what they will/won't allow in their copy prevention software, so the next one could be just as bad. I'd rather they just wouldn't use any at all.
The company is happy to announce it's copy protection system is changing names from Starforce to HappyFriendlyStuffedBear in order to revamp our bruised image. We're also glad to have Ubisoft's HoMM5 as our new flagship product. As always, we will continue to strive to redefnie the phrase 'haha you're screwed' in many different ways.
In Soviet Russia, Starforce drops you!
What about the poor saps who bought the games already? What about the games unsold on the shelves? Somehow I just can't see Ubisoft doing a recall or releasing anti-Starforce patches.
"This is a good first step for Ubisoft, but they should realize that all restrictive copy protection schemes do nothing but hurt their business in the long run. "
So which came first? Copy protection? Or piracy?
How soon will it be before starforce starts linking to torrents of HOMM5 or other UbiSoft games.
If enough people do this, it will create a large enough blip in the demographics that maybe, just maybe, these companies will sit up and take notice that non-copy-protected stuff can actually make money and all that. And they'll even save money on being able to skip buying some outrageously expensive CP thing.
After all, about all the copy-protection thing ever did was nail the average user. Anyone with any knowledge at all can find hacks on the web to get around it (or, for that matter, a full copy of it for free without the CP). And those with a lot of knowledge can flat out get around it anyway. In short, it doesn't affect those they declare themselves as targeting.
In the mean time, here's hoping that Ubisoft continues their way on the return to sanity, and learns a valuable lesson from all this.
Z
I'm wondering if they are really dropping Starforce because of customer complaints/boycott or because Starforce tried to strongarm them and Ubi called their bluff.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Good luck
:/
I bet i would get a 20% error rate trying that. How does one KNOW what they have or don't have.
Midway arcade treasures deluxe didnt say in the ad or on the box or during the install that it uses/requires the starforce rootkit. Only sign is a starforce popup telling you to reboot AFTER installation
Definately not sure why that POS requires copy protection in the 1st place. (90's arcade games stripped of arcade features...ie race games that won't use a wheel or forcefeedback even tho the arcade version did...should be false advertising)
Can't say that I've had any problems with Starforce recently, but a few years back a Starforce-protected game did trash a CD-ROM I had at the time. On the first run of the game (I think it was Broken Sword III) there was a kind of "seek of death" sound, and the drive never worked again. Yeah, it was an old drive, but it worked great up until that exact moment.
I don't know what the current state of Starforce is, and I'm assuming they've improved its compatibility. What I have a problem with is the arbitrary installation of a device driver into a system without any form of notification to the user, no explanation of the risks involved, and no way to back out of it.
Software developers really should have a legal declaration that accompanies their software, in which each major component is declared with an explanation, and an inventory of the files that comprise it.
"Ubisoft's goal is to find solutions for its customers if there are problems with Ubisoft products."
Clearly, they just admitted that they make problems in the first place on purpose. If their goal is resolving them, then without problems they are useless.
It's a cunning business strategy, really.
1.7 million sales for Oblivion says that limited or no copy protection works.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I was extremely happy when I found out that "Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None" did not use starforce (or the like). In fact it does not even require the CD to be in the drive when the game is played! This is a major change of pace for the publisher, The Adventure Game Company, whose online forums disappeared from their website shortly after a large number of people complained about star force. I stopped buying their products for while, but if they are going to tone down the copy protection I might start buying their games again.
I've been having trouble finding torrents of Ubisoft games. Now there'll be no problem!
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
I have switched to console games since there seems to be better backward compatibilty. After upgrading my computer to one that has a DVD drive instead of a CD-ROM drive, I found that all video games I had bought that used Macrovision's SafeDisc v1 no longer playable. Macrovision's code artifically declaired the purchased CD to no longer be an "original." Neither Macrovision or the game manufactor would provide any support in addressing the issue. To date, Macrovision makes no promises that their current copy protection methods will continue to authenticate the disk as being an original if used in a BluRay or HD-DVD computer drive once they become available. Given the lack of any guarentee and the history of lack of forward support to maintain continued re-use of the product has lead me to decide that it is not worth investing in PC games any longer.
As a side note, friends have let me know that the same games play fine from a DVD-ROM drive provided you used the "pirated" version with the copy protection defeated. The bottom line is that Macrovision is not stopping copying of software but rather creating an situation where the "pirates" end up with a superior product over those that payed for the copy-protection enabled version.
Way to step up to the plate, Ubisoft!
My guess is that they got enough returns, emails, and support calls from dissatisfied customers that they finally figured they were losing more money on that than on pirates. Still, it makes me feel a lot better about the idea of buying games from them.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
For those that don't get the joke. It is a reference to when StarForce posted the torrent for GalCivII on their website because StarDock didn't use any copy prevention mechanism on the game.
I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, but good for them - it's a move that's likely to lead to higher sales.
I have avoided purchasing games which used egregious copy protection, even though I owned previous games in the series and was quite interested in buying the title. I have been spurred into buying games I was unsure about simply due to the anti-copy-protection stance of the company. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Not surprising to any of you, of course, but here's a concrete example of how bad copy protection costs sales, which might come in handy when talking to game company folks.
I hired the PC copy of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory but couldn't play it after I returned the original disc due to the lack of a crack. I had to hire the PS2 version and copy that instead. And I formatted my hard drive to get rid of the starforce drivers that were on it. I recently hired Rainbow 6: Lockdown and installed it on a 10GB hard drive I had lying about, I can enjoy the superior PC version because fortunately someone was able to crack the game. All starforce does is create a lot of unessesary effort and annoyance, I can't afford to buy PC games due to living on AUD$10,500 a year. Now I should be able to enjoy Ubisoft's future games (until my PC's specs are outdated) without having to resort to playing an inferior PS2 version.