Ubi and Copy Protection

Starheaven · Unread postby **Starheaven** » 12 Mar 2006, 22:13

Well after reading several forums and sites I am definetly not going to risk my operating system being F***** up by this intrusive copy protection program that loads drivers in my system that are cleverly hidden from users.
It affects other applications and no game is worth that hassle.

I love the heroes series but this is going to far.

Hear is one site with more on Starforce and list of starforce protected games anyone that is interested.

http://www.glop.org/starforce/

DaemianLucifer · Unread postby **DaemianLucifer** » 13 Mar 2006, 10:07

GCII just proved my point that copy protection is absolutelly unnecessary.And Ill buy them as soon as I can.And with the money Im going to save from not buying HV,no less!

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 13 Mar 2006, 10:21

GC II first caught my attention when it was called the "true heir" to Master of Orion... Meeeeeesa lika dis...

ThunderTitan · Unread postby **ThunderTitan** » 13 Mar 2006, 15:06

DaemianLucifer wrote:GCII just proved my point that copy protection is absolutelly unnecessary.

No my friend, it is necessary, for the people that make it... how else are they going to make money?

DaemianLucifer · Unread postby **DaemianLucifer** » 14 Mar 2006, 06:10

ThunderTitan wrote:
DaemianLucifer wrote:GCII just proved my point that copy protection is absolutelly unnecessary.
No my friend, it is necessary, for the people that make it... how else are they going to make money?

By doing actual work?

Orfinn · Unread postby **Orfinn** » 14 Mar 2006, 06:52

Like bounty hunting

DaemianLucifer · Unread postby **DaemianLucifer** » 14 Mar 2006, 07:59

Or spam-advertising

limejuice · Unread postby **limejuice** » 14 Mar 2006, 08:08

I've played every single HOMM + expansion that has come out, and was anticipating buying HOMMV, but this copy protection is making me think @#$% it.

Intuit tried adding copy protection to TurboTax because the mgmt was convinced that everyone was pirating TurboTax or sharing it with their friends. But what happened is there was no increase and sales and there was a huge uproar because a large % of people had problems with the copy protection software; Intuit pissed off alot of it's loyal customers, and gave them incentive to switch to H+R Block software TaxCut. There was such a backlash, Intuit had to provide a fix that would disable the copy protection, and they removed the copy protection crap in next year's version.

Is HOMM V going to come out for Xbox360 or Playstation 3? I would rather just buy a console version than take the chance that it messes up my PC w/ the stupid copy protection software.

Derek · Unread postby **Derek** » 16 Mar 2006, 18:18

limejuice wrote:Is HOMM V going to come out for Xbox360 or Playstation 3? I would rather just buy a console version than take the chance that it messes up my PC w/ the stupid copy protection software.

Very doubtful. Strategy games historically don't do very good on consoles. The genre is more reserved for the PC due to the mouse.

hydro123456 · Unread postby **hydro123456** » 17 Mar 2006, 03:18

http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=765

Finally we have proof of the damage star force causes.

Fallen Angel · Unread postby **Fallen Angel** » 17 Mar 2006, 16:18

hydro123456 wrote:http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=765

Finally we have proof of the damage star force causes.

While I do agree this proves without a doubt that SF can possibly have negative affects on RW drives, I feel compelled to point that the article clearly states the affects can easily be reversed if SF is removed from the system (completely, I assume). As I posted on another forum, it's now up to the customers to figure out if they have hardware that will be affected by SF. If so, then they unfortunately won't be able to buy what will hopefully turn out to be a great game (unless the protection is eventually removed).

We now know what the symptoms of the interaction are, which could precede possible damage if nothing is done. The solution is simple. If your RW drives begin to slow down, remove the software. Otherwise, it's like trying to drive your car to the nearest gas station when your engine is overheated. You're trying to get to help, but, in your ignorance, you destroy your engine in the process. It probably wouldn't hurt if Ubisoft put a warning on the box as well. Something like, "Protection software will interact poorly with such and such hardware and may cause damage."

As for Ubisoft, they should be ashamed of themselves for being more concerned about protecting their games from piracy than with providing potentially loyal customers with safe games and phenomenal customer service (such as with Starport). If all they're concenred about is staving off pirates for the first few months, why not provide legitimate customers with some benefits that can only be accessed through online registration or some other similar endeavor? It would certainly make for a lot less hassle for everyone.

hydro123456 · Unread postby **hydro123456** » 17 Mar 2006, 20:57

The problem is there's no way to know for sure if it's going to cause problems before you buy the game.

I'm not spending $50 for something that might cripple my computer while it's installed. If the games anywhere near as good as 3 I would like to have it installed for a very long time. Now is the time to contact ubisoft about this before we get screwed.

Fallen Angel · Unread postby **Fallen Angel** » 17 Mar 2006, 21:41

Unfortunately, we already know for certain that they won't be removing SF...the pessimists.

Fortunately, the types of hardware that SF affects have been mentioned in several places if anyone would care to search for them.

innokenti · Unread postby **innokenti** » 18 Mar 2006, 07:44

The easiest solution to all of this by far is for StarForce to get off their asses and make copy-protection software that work, but without the harmful effects on 'some' drives as it now displays. It's not beyond them to fix it - so why not do it. A clear problem has been revealed! Like any responsible (pah!) company they should go along and investigate and considering everything I don't doubt that they knew about it.

But then again that's just a waste of 'effort' that could be spent on making the actual 'protection' more impenetrable etc.

Campaigner · Unread postby **Campaigner** » 19 Mar 2006, 18:06

Did you people know that copyprotection greatly helped in the early 1990'ies?

Steve Fawkner said it himself here

ThunderTitan · Unread postby **ThunderTitan** » 19 Mar 2006, 20:58

Yeah, but there's a difference between what SF does and not being able to copy a CD.

Like was said elsewere, the people that buy the game because of the protection are the ones that find they can't copy the original CD using Nero.

Also did i get this wrong, or did he say that sales for a game increased after they put protection on it, which means there was a version that could be copied from before, so that kinda shows that it probably was just people copying it from friends, something that doesn't need instaling drivers on peoples PC's.

Gaidal Cain · Unread postby **Gaidal Cain** » 19 Mar 2006, 21:09

No, but sales for two succesors increased several times, after copy protection had been put on. It could of course be pure coincidence.

ThunderTitan · Unread postby **ThunderTitan** » 19 Mar 2006, 21:18

Or it could be that people played the original games without paying, and then liked them so much that they bought the succesors.

Wildbear · Unread postby **Wildbear** » 22 Mar 2006, 23:28

Time for the starforce joke of the week!

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13212

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 22 Mar 2006, 23:48

Heheheeee... It starts off very ominously:
"This latest identified threat by Futuremark..."

, and then at the very end:

"Futuremark as a company has not done any investigations, research or uncovered anything in regards to StarForce."

it turns out it was all a big 'ol CROCK!

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Ubi and Copy Protection

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