Starforce up to their old tricks again
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Starforce up to their old tricks again So, what, this is an attempt by them to make StarForce look better through another site that is owned by them?
Yep. They're creating fake reviews, on fake review sites, and they're not even smart enough to register with a domain company which provides whois anonymization, or to remove the posts questioning their practices from their own forum.
The admin guy on there seems somewhat unprofessional - Both in terms of spelling, the use of smileys, and the replies he gives to forum users.
Reading the posts there indicates he is just a marketing guy for SF.
The opening statement on this page says it all though:
It is obvious that all the rumors around StarForce hazards are spread by international piracy groups
Reading the posts there indicates he is just a marketing guy for SF.
The opening statement on this page says it all though:
It is obvious that all the rumors around StarForce hazards are spread by international piracy groups
The admin guy on there seems somewhat unprofessional - Both in terms of spelling, the use of smileys, and the replies he gives to forum users.
Sounds like Richard Keam...
Does he work for StarForce too?
It is obvious that all the rumors around StarForce hazards are spread by international piracy groups
Kinda like how all the rumours about piracy hurting sales are spread by copy protection companies? The opening statement on this page says it all tough:
Does that mean that were all international pirates!?! Best get the wooden leg out then... And where did I put that bloody parrot, me hearty's!
What I don't understand is the sheer childness of their forum moderators... I mean, they go in the huff because people dont like the fact that they install hidden drivers in their systems... And when someone prints anything against them, they threaten legal action (From an article in PC Format)
I'll give them the dues, it's not all Starforces fault software companys like using their system... software companys should be SHOT for allowing crap like this in their product, they are just as bad!
My mate bought King Kong, and his CD Rewriter drive is now goosed, it gets halfway through backing up stuff up then does nothing... I checked is computer, and starforce was in there! And he swears blind that it was fine before he played King Kong!
If this is the way professional games development is going on the PC, and if this total lack of respect to the costumer (ie me) carries on, I doubt I'll buy another PC game again!
Dabz
I was recently unable to copy a CD onto my hard drive because the drive refused to show in the list. Removed starforce? The drive suddenly started appearing.
I've bought a few games this year and took them back, and king kong really got my interest, specially considering it's high spec requirement and the fact it ran fine on my laptop. I didnt even obther with it once i found out the demo plopped SF on me chine.
I've bought a few games this year and took them back, and king kong really got my interest, specially considering it's high spec requirement and the fact it ran fine on my laptop. I didnt even obther with it once i found out the demo plopped SF on me chine.
By Dark2025
I buy games, most people do. Just yesterday I bought Galactic Civilizations II, after I have already been playing it for a week. Yeah so I download games and I'm not going to hide that fact, but I pay for the genuinely good ones. Most games I download I never plan to buy anyway, and ones that I do plan to buy I would download them and try them out to see if it really is worth buying. Then there are ones I didn't think I would buy, but then I realize how good they really are, like GalCiv2 (plus no copy protection, which wanted me to buy it even more). I only know about 2 or 3 people who would never pay for a game or movie or anything else. I'm not sure if the money spent on copy-protection would be worth trying to get the money off those 2 or 3 people and get their protection software bypassed within 2 days of release, rendering it useless, when they could spend it making the game better so people like me would actually want to buy them. Protection really doesn't help either. There are ways to bypass any copy-protection system out there, even StarForce, but I don't download or buy any of them, because they take slightly more work to get working than the ones that can be cracked or keygen-ed (but still very much possible to get working with little effort). That means I don't test them out, that means I don't buy them. Plus I'd hate for the games to mess up my computer. That would not be nice.
That one quote is what keeps SF's head up their own ass... if it wasn't a plant to begin with.
ALSO...
QUOTE
And where I live, we have another colloquialism: The Customer is always right.
Guess that tis is identical colloquialism, just say in different words.
SF is not paid by the end user. They do what they are asked to do, what they are paid to do.
You can't stop SF by bitching to them, you don't matter to them. You can only stop them by cutting off their payment... by changing the minds of the publishers... by boycotting SF games and by educating the mass market... you need to organise real world groups to go to game stores, stand outside and hand out flyers and tell ask people what game they are gonna buy.... you can't go into the store.
You can also tell the store owners about SF and the problems and ask them to not carry the games... eventually some will listen, and eventually the bigger ones will listen, and then finally you'll get a target or walmart to listen, and SF will go away.
I buy games, most people do. Just yesterday I bought Galactic Civilizations II, after I have already been playing it for a week. Yeah so I download games and I'm not going to hide that fact, but I pay for the genuinely good ones. Most games I download I never plan to buy anyway, and ones that I do plan to buy I would download them and try them out to see if it really is worth buying. Then there are ones I didn't think I would buy, but then I realize how good they really are, like GalCiv2 (plus no copy protection, which wanted me to buy it even more). I only know about 2 or 3 people who would never pay for a game or movie or anything else. I'm not sure if the money spent on copy-protection would be worth trying to get the money off those 2 or 3 people and get their protection software bypassed within 2 days of release, rendering it useless, when they could spend it making the game better so people like me would actually want to buy them. Protection really doesn't help either. There are ways to bypass any copy-protection system out there, even StarForce, but I don't download or buy any of them, because they take slightly more work to get working than the ones that can be cracked or keygen-ed (but still very much possible to get working with little effort). That means I don't test them out, that means I don't buy them. Plus I'd hate for the games to mess up my computer. That would not be nice.
That one quote is what keeps SF's head up their own ass... if it wasn't a plant to begin with.
ALSO...
QUOTE
And where I live, we have another colloquialism: The Customer is always right.
Guess that tis is identical colloquialism, just say in different words.
SF is not paid by the end user. They do what they are asked to do, what they are paid to do.
You can't stop SF by bitching to them, you don't matter to them. You can only stop them by cutting off their payment... by changing the minds of the publishers... by boycotting SF games and by educating the mass market... you need to organise real world groups to go to game stores, stand outside and hand out flyers and tell ask people what game they are gonna buy.... you can't go into the store.
You can also tell the store owners about SF and the problems and ask them to not carry the games... eventually some will listen, and eventually the bigger ones will listen, and then finally you'll get a target or walmart to listen, and SF will go away.
It'll never go away, maybe SF will, but system hogging DRM will be here forever!
PC's as an open platform is finished... It's been nice, but that's the way our world has come!
Dabz
PC's as an open platform is finished... It's been nice, but that's the way our world has come!
Dabz
only if no one trys to educate the people... Look at all the work the enviromental people have done "Oh, they will never fork over the cash to put scrubbers on their smokes stacks"
by boycotting SF games and by educating the mass market...
Boykotting isn't going to work. If anything it's going to drive developers to use even more draconian copy protection scheme, because the mantra that lost sales = increasing piracy is so deeply rooted in their minds.What you have to do is send a signal to publishers that Starforce protection is decraeswing the value of their software, making it worth less to the consumer. Thus you should buy games with little or no copy protection (like GalCiv2 and Oblivion) right away, for whatever rediculous price they ask, and buy Starforce games out of the bargain bin or out of a bundle. Because a game with StarForce protection isn't worth the potential agony of having to reinstall windows, for more than a fiver.
They need to see the ammount of sales go up, and the profit margins go dowm. That'll kill StarForce quicker than you could imagine.
FD.... isn't that exactly what a boycot is? not buying someones products on principal?
I tried watching Blade (the movie) DVD yesterday, but when I plopped it into the dvd drive and tried playing it with Windows Media Player, I got a DRM copyright violation and it refused to play it.
Its as original as originals come, but WMP knows best :p
anyways, tried Zoomplayer next, and no problems :D
I hate DRM so bad.
Its as original as originals come, but WMP knows best :p
anyways, tried Zoomplayer next, and no problems :D
I hate DRM so bad.
They need to see the ammount of sales go up, and the profit margins go dowm. That'll kill StarForce quicker than you could imagine.
Except I somehow doubt they will correlate the low sales to the copy protection scheme they use unless some sort of stink is made about it first (boycott or whatever else)
Getting people aware is probably the best way.
Letters to G4TV, Game Informer, Next Generation, etc... would probably be the best bet. That is, provided they are unbiased and would present the issue in a way that would be taken seriously.
FD.... isn't that exactly what a boycot is? not buying someones products on principal?
Yes. And that's not what I was advocating. Any loss in sales is automatically going to be attributed to piracy. Any loss in profit is going to be attributed to lack of value. Except I somehow doubt they will correlate the low sales to the copy protection scheme
What low sales? I specificly said that sales should go up. Hmmm... I misunderstood your post then.
I was under the impression that you were trying to get publishers to see a correlation between copy protection (or certain types of it) with their sales, which is probably giving those that make the decisions a bit more credit than they're capable of.
Piracy is always an excuse for low sales. Copy protection or lack of it isn't even considered if the sales are high.
I was under the impression that you were trying to get publishers to see a correlation between copy protection (or certain types of it) with their sales, which is probably giving those that make the decisions a bit more credit than they're capable of.
Piracy is always an excuse for low sales. Copy protection or lack of it isn't even considered if the sales are high.
part of boycotting is getting the word out WHAT you are boycotting.
You have to write Starforce and more importantly, the publishers useing SF. Saying... I am so in so, I was going to by such and such a game, but I noticed you use a malicious piracy pevention package called SF (or any at all) I can't condone the use of such things since they do such and such a thing or mean such and such a thing to me. I will instead, pick up this other game, not made by you, and I will not buy another of your products that has this problem.
for good effect add
I am not a priate, and you should rely on selling your product to those of us who would buy it in the first place, not try to get people who wouldn't ever buy your software to buy it because they can't steal it... People who steal cars wouldn't buy them if you made it impossible to steal them.
You have to write Starforce and more importantly, the publishers useing SF. Saying... I am so in so, I was going to by such and such a game, but I noticed you use a malicious piracy pevention package called SF (or any at all) I can't condone the use of such things since they do such and such a thing or mean such and such a thing to me. I will instead, pick up this other game, not made by you, and I will not buy another of your products that has this problem.
for good effect add
I am not a priate, and you should rely on selling your product to those of us who would buy it in the first place, not try to get people who wouldn't ever buy your software to buy it because they can't steal it... People who steal cars wouldn't buy them if you made it impossible to steal them.
This does work, by the way.
I have purchased 2 software programs after the license system changed to something less draconian.
One thing I particularly hate is a license scheme that does not give me control over the license, but requires you to contact the company every time you need to register. To me this means I may not be able to authorize a program I bought in the future, since XYZ company may not even be around! I let the authors of these programs know my concerns (And I'm sure many others did the same) and, like I said above, 2 of them changed the license and I purchased immediately with a new message stating why.
The thing is, this does work, but one person doing it is not going to change anything. It requires large amounts of people to be doing it before the voices can be heard.
I have purchased 2 software programs after the license system changed to something less draconian.
One thing I particularly hate is a license scheme that does not give me control over the license, but requires you to contact the company every time you need to register. To me this means I may not be able to authorize a program I bought in the future, since XYZ company may not even be around! I let the authors of these programs know my concerns (And I'm sure many others did the same) and, like I said above, 2 of them changed the license and I purchased immediately with a new message stating why.
The thing is, this does work, but one person doing it is not going to change anything. It requires large amounts of people to be doing it before the voices can be heard.
exactly
Its like, you can stop using a product for many reasons, if you don't tell them why, they won't ever know why their sales drop.
It is important you express why you don't or do use something to companies... Some listen... Some.. (like cartoon network, about playing movies like Batman and Dumb and Dumber... which aren't cartoons) don't bother to read your complaints about their stupidity...
Its like, you can stop using a product for many reasons, if you don't tell them why, they won't ever know why their sales drop.
It is important you express why you don't or do use something to companies... Some listen... Some.. (like cartoon network, about playing movies like Batman and Dumb and Dumber... which aren't cartoons) don't bother to read your complaints about their stupidity...
Its like, you can stop using a product for many reasons, if you don't tell them why, they won't ever know why their sales drop.
The problem is they don't care about one sale, or even a 100, possibly even 1000. It's all statistics, and statisticly insignificant, at the scales we're talking here.It's a matter of getting the message accross that their product is worth less because it uses Starforce. That can only happen if sales and/or revenue increases but profits decrease.
The problem is that the pc market is stagnating, so they will have to start caring for small but "mouth to mouth ad" killing sale drops. They aren't in the situation anymore, where they sell more and more of their 300th reincarnation of the same old crap.
The problem is that the pc market is stagnating,
Yeah, well big surprise there. How many memorable games do you remember from last year? Haha Aprils Fools! We do Suck!
Or maybe they didn't say that. :)