Starforce Protection Racket

Galactic Civilisations II has had stunning sales despite not using any software copy protection. Something interesting though....

They posted a message on their message board that releates directly to starforce and some rather dubious practices that the DRM company have been practicing of late.




http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx?forumid=161&aid=106741&c=1

I stated on stardocks forums that I would not purchase gal civ 2 if they didn't put in multiplayer. I still feel that it's a horrible horrible slight to the fans of mutiplayer 4x games. But when I found out that they were not going to put copy protection of any kind on the game... I went out and bought it immediately. They don't even have a cd check on the game. And it's that kind of flying-in-the-face-of-convention that I just have to support.

I agree, I love 4X, but money is really tight.. but I am buying this game, somehow. Just to support them and never buying anything with Starforce.. those @#!*s are evil

Here here. I'll always support great software which does not contain *hidden* pap getting installed without my consent. The big companies who do decide to use Starforce are going to lose at least one customer - me. I know they won't lose any sleep over that fact. However, the more people who realise this hidden stuff is creaping its way into their PC the bigger the protest will become.
Good for those companies who refuse to be bullied into using SF.

I have more respect for compainies who treat me as a customer rather than a criminal who should pay for the privilege of having malware secretly installed.

Just look what happened to Sony and their Rootkit fiasco

I totally agree with everybody. Hats off to them for taking a pretty big gamble for not using any copy protection.

Starforce has been a nightmare. I got Colin McRae 2005 free with my new graphics card. After installation and when the game is run it does some kind of disk validation check. That check totally crashed my PC. Result - instant uninstall.

A couple of weeks ago I bought Toca Race Driver 3. This game uses starforce too. I couldn't even install it at first. The install routine would totally hang my PC about 3/4 the way through installation. Get this - Codemasters tech support forums suggest disabling my second SATA hard drive, disconnecting my external USB hard drive which I use to backup my PC. In the end it turned out to be some driver or DLL that Nero uses.

In my opinion, that is totally unacceptable. I respect the use of copy protection to try to combat piracy but in this case I have bought the game and I am the one being heavily punished.

So, as you can see, I have a bit of a gripe against Starforce protection. I have now decided I will not buy a game which uses this method of copy protection. I think this is a pretty sad state. It comes to something when copy protection method is a major consideration when buying a game.

Okay, rant over with!! LOL.

Copy Protection is not designed to prevent piracy. Pirate copies do not have copy protection either.

I was wondering whether GalCiv2 was worth getting. Guess I'm convinced now.

I have also stopped buying software/games with abusive licensing policies. Like was posted earlier, it probably won't make much of a difference, but I can only hope that enough people do the same and eventually they will catch on that the lost sales are not from piracy, but from their attemps to stop piracy, that have really ticked off the legit users.

you guys do know that SF are offering 10k for any person who can show that their copy protection is craping your computer...

http://www.star-force.com/protection.phtml?c=261&id=707

@#!* me! They'll be bankrupt inside a week!

To win that you need provide a computer with nothing apart from windows installed, prove that the cd drive works, install the starforce drivers and then prove that the drive doesn't work. That's the easy bit; next you have to take out the cd drive, and put it into a computer provided by them which has no starforce drivers installed, and prove that the drive still doesn't work. (i.e. they want you to prove that installing starforce permenently broke your drive.) And you have to do all this in 3 days.

Since the only way starforce drivers have been confirmed to permenently break drives is by forcing the moter to spin at non standard speeds, which can take weeks/months to do any damage, it's pretty much an unwinable contest. And even if you did find a drive that starforce can break within 3 days, there's the slight problem that it's already broken, and cant be entered into the contest.

Ah, I forgot about the smallprint. What a crock of @#!*!

I have toca race driver 3 and the cd check, like toca 2 is pretty fast for a starforce game but I have other starforce games like Codename panzers and the cd check can take upto 5 mins before the game will start and if you put the disc in a cd/dvd burner it says it's a copy.

The really crap thing is starforce hurts paying customers but has been beaten by the pirates anyway. But the thing that really anoy's me is I install a new game that takes between 3-6gig's of harddrive space but due to lame ass copy protection I still have to stick the disk in to play the game. Why cant they protect the installer and make it so the game will only run if installed from an original disk and cant be copied to another pc from the installed version.

Although I cannot *prove* anything I have a current problem which my DVD recorder. Windows does not pick up on the fact that a blank CDRW/CDR has been inserted. So, the "Write files to CD" option is unusable because XP will always respond with "There is no blank CDR/CDRW present"

I used to have SF here no thanks to the >DEMO< version Trackmania. I'm not sure if removing SF has affected the drivers controlling the DVD drive writing operation.

And thats the bottom line of it. Be a good boy and risk having your setup trashed. Or, be a bad boy and pick up a cracked copy with the appalling protection removed. Plus you no longer need the CD present.

SF are too damn arrogant assuming we must all be 'criminals' and therefore should accept the side-affects of their protection methods.

And that's another reason I'll never buy a starforce protected game. Go read their forum. Their basic philosophy is "screw you. If you dont' like our protection then you must be a pirate". One post on there says basically "why would you need a debugger running alongside a game anyway?" My answer to that is "none of your damn business and don't try to tell me how I can and can't use my computer." Their arrogance is astounding.

I wonder how many sales are lost to people not wanting to bother with annoying copy protection schemes? Is it just the computer geeks out there that would think like that, or does it spread wider. There are a number of games that I wanted to get, but decided not to because I had heard bad things about their copy protection.

As for Trackmania. I have a big problem with Trackmania. I bought it over the net from cdnow and never got it. Complained and they said they would send me another copy, but never got that either. Gave up and downloaded it (never got to play it online though). Then got Trackmania Sunrise, this time at a local shop, and it comes in the most idiotic cover ever. It's nearly impossible to get the damn cd out of it. After a week or two the cd had become so scratched from the convulted effort it took to get it out of the cover that it no longer worked. Maybe I should just send it back to the publisher asking how you're supposed to get the cd out of the damn thing without torturing it. Love the game, but damn. (end of rant)

Ragnar

The #1 reason I do not buy software. Even "online activation" will cause me not to buy a product. Heck, somebody on here is selling Map Crafter (something I could really use), but there was no demo and it has an "online activation". Since my work computer does NOT have a net connection, needless to say, Map Crafter lost a sale. I do not know how companies expect to make a profit when they prevent legitimate users from using their software.

Their copy protection is illegal under international copyright laws. Under international copyright laws, including the DMCA you have the legal right to bypass such protection schemes if it interferes with your legal right to use the software.

they are awarding money to people who can prove that it damaged the hardware. I agree with them that this is not likely to be happening.



That's because they screw with the software. IIRC, they inject a device driver hook into your CD/DVD drivers, and tell it to drop data that looks suspicious to them... Yes, it interferes with perfectly legitimate operations, and 3rd party programs that have nothing to do with their 'protected' titles.

Of course, the end result to you, the user, is the same: Your system effectively broke, thanks to Starforce. But because of the nice condition that it has to be broken 'hardware', you won't qualify for their compensation anyway.

The only fix is to either reinstall your OS, or use one of the Starforce removal utilities that can be found online. Simply uninstalling the protected game won't fix the issue since it will leave behind the starforce driver garbage anyway.

My answer would be "Because thanks in part to your masterfully crafted copy protection scheme, my computer and in particular the games it runs, is not as stable as it used to be, and being able to safely kill it when the sound or whatever hangs, is a benefit". Although your point is well taken.

Yes. But then again. think about who's buying PC games? Mostly geeks, normal people buy console games.

I doubt that sales lost by people protesting SF are made up by sales from converted pirates. But hey, it's not like video game companies do their own research, they just buy whatever line ESA / ELSPA feeds them about piracy.

I believe it hooks into the kernel, sitting between the kernel and device drivers. It'll even interfere with other types of copyprotection. Try running a recent securom protected game (like Dawn of War: Winter Assault) with the SF drivers installed.

Any recent EA title runs the risk of not being able to run alongside Starforce drivers also (safedisc).

Also, Starforce hooks into the kernel as Mikkel says, it also runs in safe mode. So if your machine suffers from boot problems after installing Starforce (never heard it happen, but it's always possible with a future release), safe mode wouldn't even work.

I think a lot of people are finding the stardock information lately... I've been trying to get to starforce's web site for the last 20 minutes and it's hanging or I get



I think they might have finally done something that's going to get them in deep water. :)

Boycot Starforce site - http://www.glop.org/starforce/list.php including a list of games that use it. :)

Ragnar

I want to play Toca Race Driver 2 & 3 on my pc, so boycotting it due to the protection isnt really going to work and I suspect the average PC gamer doesn't give a damn what the protection system is until it stops them from playing the game they want.
I dont mind protected games after all I wouldn't want someone pirating my software if I was selling it, but I do mind software protection that interfere's with other system software or use and also calls me a pirate by asking for the original disk when i have put the original disk in the drive, it just happens to be in a cd/dvd burner drive.

Basic copy protection to weed out the really crap amatures is all I deal with. CD keys and needing the disk... I'm used to it, and it isn't such a big bother to me that I feel I can't play the game. I don't go for any of these crazy things... but until the general public wises up about how much of a problem it is, they won't bother to change it.

Until they realize it is akin to the local CD store droping the easy to fool mag strips for strip searches and anal probes, it will not change.

stardocks made the authentication protection to prevent further pirating, and it seems to be somehow very natural - too many ppl are copying it around.

The biggest pirating base is China AFAIK, it seems to be legal putting warez/cracks on personal/commercial site, very sad but true.

I haven't been able to burn any discs with my CD burner after installing a game demo with starforce - even after a reformat! :(

I also tried burning a disc from a linux live CD, still no joy - i think the drive is busted forever now!

Why do you need copy protection on a demo anyway?

Heh. My dvd drive broke the other day- Wrote about it a couple of times I think-

It was while i was uninstaling starforce (Note: I'm not saynig SF broke my drive). The drive wouldnt open, and when it did, it opened then closed immediately.

Tracy then started to smell something funny, so, i shut down, openned it up, and took the drive out- burning my hands it was so hot!

I opened he drive up to take a peek to find that the board was singed. Whoops!!!!!!

bit of a coinsidence eh?

In China, you literally only have to go about 2 miles from the airport before you start seeing pirated DVDs, Software, Games, Clothing, etc being sold.

There is no such thing as crap amatures anymore.

Try moving to a foreign country for 4 months and forgetting all your original discs at home. No more Civilization IV for you.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, THE SOFTWARE PIRATES YOU!!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4456970.stm

I wouldnt care, when Sony created the rootkit, they used code that was held under the GNU license! Which effectively meant, that they were in fact, breaking copyright law themselves! :/

Flids, the lot of them

Dabz