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PC Gamer on PC Copy Protection

by Chris Remo, Mar 14, 2006 11:24am PST
Related Topics – Ubisoft, Games: PC

Since we're already talking about copy protection in games, this story seems appropriate. Next Generation has published a paraphrased version of a recent PC Gamer article by Greg Vederman entitled The Problem With Protection. Vederman discusses the state of copy protection in games and lists of the three major players. The well known StarForce, unsurprisingly, gets the brunt of Vederman's criticism.

Despite years of combating piracy, by the late 80s and early 90s, the games industry could do little more than ask nicely that people 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. And this isn't just some story that I've read about online or in emails from readers. No, it happened to me.

StarForce representatives have long maintained that the company's software presents no problems to users who install and run StarForce-equipped software in legimitate ways. However, the overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence from a wide variety of sources suggests otherwise. Being used by major publishers such as Ubisoft, StarForce has been doing well for itself, but the company may start to see problems along the line if it continues to turn a blind eye to the software's numerous problems.


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Comments

19 Threads | 51 Comments
  • #49
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    By: gerbilclaw x
    Reply
    #48..... couldnt agree more. It should be there in big f**k off red lettering.
    Unfortunately I recon this would impact sales even more than piracy.

    The deception behind the installation of these poxy drivers is a major part of the problem. Ive been investigating StarForce since it wormed its way onto my PC and crippled LEGITIMATE CD/DVD software.... Im not alone it seems.
    People posting issues to the Starforce tech support are "answered" with the usual hands off responses. People posting evidence of StarForce not working have all their evidence removed from the forums etc etc etc.
    They (StarForce) just dont care as long as their crud protection system is in place...... which is laughable given that many StarForce games are already cracked (some on release day). StarForce will not even produce stats on how many of their "protected" games have been hax0red.

    Lets face it .... if the industry considered StarForce a safe and viable method of control, all companies would use it. Thankfully, this isnt the case and its been spotted for what it is..... badly written malware under the guise of copy protection.
    Mar 15, 2006 6:42am PST
  • #31
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    By: jccalhoun x
    Reply
    Sure, copy protection on games may not break my optical drive, but it sure as hell has made it impossible for me to get soem game disks to install or even recognized by my system.

    Thankfully, there are pirates that are able to break the copy protection so I can download the games that I actually paid for and play them.

    So what good has copy protection done? It has pissed off someone who actually bought the game, and didn't do anything to prevent pirates from cracking the game and torrenting it. That's some business plan they have there...
    Mar 14, 2006 2:28pm PST