StarForce Apologizes For GalCiv 2 Warez Link

If you haven't read the gamespot article, I'd like to bring your attention to this quote in particular.

GS: Why did Stardock opt not to use traditional industry-accepted forms of copy protection?

BW: It's only industry-accepted in the PC game industry--the industry that people are regularly saying is "doomed." Most of our business is in the application software market (the market that no one argues is "doomed"), and such copy protection measures are not used. I don't have to keep my Adobe Photoshop CD in the drive to use it.

This guy is pure badass. I need to buy more Stardock stuff.

Has anyone played GalCiv2 on a GF2 64meg? How good/bad will it run? The rest of the box is a P4 2.0ghz with 640meg of ram

The guy who posted the link to download the game facilitated piracy correct? Shouldn't someone be charging him with something now?

All the games I play (having purchased) on the PC, don't require a CD to run. I like looking down my list of icons, picking a game out, double clicking on it, and having it just work. I've actually bought a game just hearing that a patch stopped the CD check (UT 2004).

I really liked the interview and the points made by the Stardock developer, he sees it the right way. Why should an honest customer be hassled with hideous copy-protection measures, if he has legally obtained the software ?

Starforce Software is the kind of copy-protection that really bugs you, although you bought a game, paid for it and just want to use ist.

Reminds me of the thing going on in Germany, where a company heralded itself as supporting the Police on crack-downs on pirateing/warez rings themselves paid 4 large FXP Servers for hosting and even forwarded specially prepared files of current movies without any allowance from the copyright holders. Look ! We have found 10000 IPs of filesharing guys! Nevermind the bill on which any monkey can see that we actually paid for the hosting of these files....

*sigh* Movie, Music and Software companies (not all - but very many) have gone down the wrong road for several years. Instead of embracing your customer, you rather irritate him ...

Call me a new Stardock fanboy, the bit quoted here is what I've been saying for years. Provide better customer service than the pirates do, not the other way around, which is all too often the case.

It is my hunch that the fact a game is copy-protected will *not* result in more sales, but just less people who play it. It's like a car manufacturer saying we need to put locks on our cars so that stealing them is difficult to do and thus people will buy one instead. Uh-huh, ya right.

I want to stab these people in the eye.

Additionally, here's their plans for version 1.1, hypothetically coming out before the end of the month.

http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=161&AID=107300

Fleet Manager! Planet specialization! Smarter! Dumber!

Finally, a game publisher tells it like it is w/re piracy. Most pirates are poor warez kiddies who would never have paid for the product in the first place.

If I was the type of person who would warez a game I would not warez this game, as it really doesn't interest me too much, but the funny thing is I'm very tempted to buy it just to support their decision. I bought (pre-ordered) Savage 2 the other day and I really only played Savage 1 in total for about 6 hours.

Voting with the wallet is fun. :)

Is it just me or do the similar company names just strike you as an odd pairing: Starforce forced Stardock to dock.

Someone should spam their forums with torrents to games they supposedly "protect" from being copied. I still can't get over the fact that they did that. It's unbelievable.

please tell me the man was fired.

Retards.

Galactic Civilizations rules. Buy it.

The next thing you'll know... Anti-Virus companies will start releasing Viruses on the internet to keep themselves in business

I just really REALLY hope that people in the gaming industry took notice of this. I hope they saw the true colors of StarDock and the StarForce team. It should be clear that they don't care about IP, they just care about their product.

If I was a game developer looking for some IP protection, I would count StarForce out. Hopefully the press to GalCiv (and how well they are doing in sells) helps knock some heads in the industry as well.

I re-read the last sentence of the quote several times. It doesn't make sense if you take into account what was said previously. Or is it just me....?

I so agree with these guys. I'm glad this is happening. The DRM shit in HDDVDs and the dumb stuff they are doing to CD's drives me bonkers. It prevents me from buying them, i don't want to deal with purchasing something and not having it work. Good products and services is the key.

I modded my original Xbox, but then bought a second one because the xbox live service was too damn fun. Now with my 360 I will never mod it, because at a game a month, for the exerpience i get with live/marketplace, etc it would be plain stupid to run burnt games and give all that up. And at say a game a month ($70) for the endless hours of entertainment I get I don't mind paying.

The do still need to bring games down in price for wider markets and more impulse buys, but thats another story.

that developer sounds totally reasonable and in touch with their consumer base.

Death To StarForce!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lets see... they have pissed off the consumer and now they have pissed off a developer and publisher. Maybe it is time for them to go away.