Ubisoft Officially Drops Starforce 63
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.'"
Starforce had me scared, that's for sure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Starforce had me scared, that's for sure (Score:2)
Re:Starforce had me scared, that's for sure (Score:2)
Re:Starforce had me scared, that's for sure (Score:3, Funny)
Wasn't that Star Blazers? Or Space Battleship/Cruiser Yamato (seen it referred to in both ways).
comicbookguy=off
Re:Starforce had me scared, that's for sure (Score:1)
Yes, it was Star Blazers who were also referred to, both by earth command and the Gamalons, as The Star Force.
OtherComicBookGuy=off
Huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Huh. (Score:1)
Re:Huh. (Score:2)
Re:Huh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Shame... (Score:2)
It's still a good sign though to see a publisher walking away from the evil that is Starforce.
Re:Shame... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can live with some copy protection. I don't agree with the idea, but I can accept some compromise.
However starforce has caused me too many problems for me to accept it. I've written several publishers/developers to tell them that if their game includes starforce, I won't buy it. (And of course, appropriate information as to why I won't buy it.)
Good move Ubisoft.
Re:Shame... (Score:1)
Obligatory Starforce links (Score:5, Informative)
Boycott Starforce Campaign [glop.org]
Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]
This is good news! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is good news! (Score:1)
Tommorrow's Story (Score:4, Funny)
What they should do (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What they should do (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be awesome if they patched their old games to remove it. I just hope whatever new "protection" scheme they use in their new games will be less retarded.
Re:What they should do (Score:2)
I never experienced a hardware defect, and never noticed a loss of performance on my DVD player as some people reported. But I can't believe so many people would complain, and StarForce would look so dubious, an
Re:What they should do (Score:1)
Re:What they should do (Score:2)
Re:What they should do (Score:2)
Athlon XP w/gigabyte mobo and 512MB Mushkin Black. Turns out, after I replaced the Mobo (with an Asus) and the power supply, and tried buying another gfx card, that a quick test with memtest+ found the culprit.
Now, it sucks to get a bad stick of ram and not know it, but it didn't act up in anything other than UT (and then memtest+). C&C Generals ran like a dream, no burps, farcry was perfect as well.
So check your memory for 12-24 hours with memt
Re:What they should do (Score:1)
Re:What they should do (Score:2)
Of course, the best would be to have differing chipset mobos, as both of mine were Nforce2 boards...
Re:What they should do (Score:2)
One of my happier game moments recently was reloading NWN on my PC after a HD crash, and finding out it didn't need a CD in the HD to play... EVER!
*does a little happy dance*
Now if the fine folks at Funcom would realize that their copy protection on Sacred is just silly (only requires the CD at startup) is effectively worthless in a 2 PC house when you want to play a game with the wife, I'd be set!
Out F'ing Standing! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
You know there's a problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You know there's a problem...Who's on first? (Score:1)
Re:You know there's a problem... (Score:1)
Re:You know there's a problem... (Score:2)
This just in ! (Score:5, Funny)
Won't use but won't recall? (Score:3, Insightful)
What can WE do? (Score:2, Interesting)
If enough people do this, it will create a large enoug
Midway climbed way past ubisoft on my hit list (Score:2)
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 ver
Re:Midway climbed way past ubisoft on my hit list (Score:4, Informative)
Recent games without copy protection:
Gal Civ 2
There you go, that's the complete list TTBOMK.
Not quite the list (Score:3, Insightful)
1.7 million sales for Oblivion says that limited or no copy protection works.
Hmmm... (Score:1)
LK
my anecdote (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:my anecdote (Score:1)
Re:my anecdote (Score:2)
Ubisoft makes problems on purpose (Score:1)
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.
This makes me happy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod parent up! (Score:1)
Boycott PC Games and SafeDisc (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Boycott PC Games and SafeDisc (Score:2)
And pirates have had superior versions for years... I remember the copy protection schemes on the amiga, usually required you to input a particular word from the printed manual (you dont even get printed manuals nowadays, games cost more but the publishers are too cheap t
Nice (Score:2)
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.
Good - more sales for them (Score:2)
I have avoided purchasing games [silentstorm-online.com] 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 [galciv2.com] 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 pr
They've seen the light (Score:1)
Re:They've seen the light (Score:2)
If piracy is your only way of affording games, then your unworthy of playing them.
Software is artificially priced very high. As someone who was very poor as a child, i can sympathise with the situation. My parents only bought me a computer on the basis that i could pirate the games, they could barely afford the machine let alone the extortionate price that games cost.