Starforce Petition!

[Grumpy]

There seems to be some strong (maybe even heated) discussions happening through these forums regarding the Starforce protection.
Which brings me to start this thread. I would hope that only a simple comment is needed here: "Yes, I am boycotting Starforce games". That is really all that needs to be said! There is no point in congesting this thread with arguments, its not what I would like to see happen here! There is no need to say anything else! If people are serious then leave a short message here.
I would also hope that if this thread gains enough support then it could maybe become a future 'Sticky'? After a few weeks or months we will know if this is worth persueing.
Its not that I am supporting Warez or Piracy, I just dont agree with Software being installed onto my system without my approval!

Come on all, place your support post here. If you dont agree with what I am saying then simply do not post here! A post here is a post counted.

Thankyou for your post/vote.

Ok, a big thankyou to Morglum from cdsteam who has been kind enough to let me use his original Starforce Protected Games List. It was originally a Spanish only list! Feel free to let me know of any other Starforce games which are not on the list? I will edit the list to keep it up to date.

NOTE: List was updated on 21-6-05 from the list supplied by 'thebluegr'. Nice work 'thebluegr'. An Updated list can be found HERE.
'thebluegr' has also supplied some interesting reading which can be found here in Post #125 of this thread.

Starforce Protected Games

- 1944 Battle of the Bulge
- 7 Sins [3.4.71.19]
- Ace Saga
- Afrika Korps VS Desert Rats [v3.3.31.21]
- American Conquest (Russian)
- Anstoss 4
- Area 51
- Army Men (Russian)
- Asterix & Obelix XXL
- Beyond Divinity
- Blitzkrieg Rolling Thunder [v3.4.50.1]
- Breed
- Chaos League
- Club Football 2005
- Codename: Panzers Phase One (3 CDs) [v3.3.37.2]
- Codename: Panzers Phase Two
- Codename: Outbreak [12-10-2001]
- Colin McRae Rally 2005 (DVD) [v3.4.49.1]
- Cossacks: Back to War (Russian)
- Cossacks: European Wars (Russian)
- Cossacks II Napoleonic Wars (2 CDs) [v3.4.65.11]
- Counter Terrorist SF Fire for Effect (DVD) [v3.4.71.19]
- Creature Conflict The Clan Wars
- Cross Racing Championship
- Cycling Manager 3
- Cycling Manager 4 [v3.3.36.1]
- D Day (2 CDs) [v3.4.41.1]
- Dead to Rights (3 CDs) [v3.3.37.26]
- Demonic Speedway (Poland)
- Domination
- Etherlords
- Etherlords 2 (2 CDs) [v3.3.31.21]
- Fair Strike (2 CDs) [v3.3.33.3]
- Fire Department
- Fire Department 2
- Gadget and the Gadgetinis
- Gangland [v3.3.36.1]
- Garfield
- Gooka – The Mystery of Janatris
- GTR FIA GT Racing game (2 CDs) [v3.4.70.2]
- HOMM 4 (Russian)
- Horse Race Manager
- Icewind Dale 2: Heart of Winter
- IL-2 Sturmovik (Russian)
- I-Ninja
- Kill Switch (2 CDs) [v3.3.33.8]
- Korea Forgotten Conflict [v3.3.27.36]
- LMA Manager 2005
- Magna Carte (Korean)
- Magnamedia (Russian)
- Maximus XV: Abraham Strong Space Mercenary
- Medieval Lords
- Might & Magic 9: Writ of Faith (Russian)
- Narsillion (Russian)
- Obscure (1 DVD) [v3.3.36.1]
- Pac Man World 2 [v3.3.30.11]
- Pax Romana [v3.3.30.11] (no information available)
- League Manager 2005[v3.4.50.1] (Spanish)
- Postal 2 Apocalypse Weekend
- Pro Rugby Manager 2
- Psi Ops The Mindgate Conspiracy
- Psychotoxic
- Rally Championship Xtreme
- Real Madrid Club Soccer (DVD) [v3.4.50.1] (Spanish)
- Rendezvous 3 (Russian)
- Restricted Area
- Scrapland (2 CDs) [v3.4.50.1]
- Second Sight
- Seventh Seal (Asian)
- Shade Wrath of Angels [v3.4.53.0]
- Shtyrlits 3: USSR Agent (Russian)
- Siege of Avalon (Russian)
- Silent Hunter III [v3.4.71.19]
- Silkolene Honda Motocross GP
- Singles [v3.3.33.6]
- Singles 2
- Sniper (Poland)
- Soldiers Heroes of WWII [v3.3.36.1]
- Splinter Cell Chaos Theory [v3.4.71.19]
- Still Life
- Street Racing Syndicate
- Sudeki
- SuperPower 2
- Tennis Masters Series: Battleground of Champions (Asian)
- The Black Mirror (2 CDs) [v3.3.27.36]
- The Fall Last days of Gaia (2 CDs) [v3.4.63.3]
- The Heroes of Three Kingdoms (Asian)
- The I Of The Dragon (Russian)
- The Kreed [v3.3.27.36]
- The Moment of Silence
- The Suffering (2 CDs) [v3.3.37.2]
- Toca Race Driver 2 (1 DVD) [v3.3.35.2]
- Trackmania
- Trackmania Sunrise
- UFO Aftermath ( 2 CDs) [v3.3.27.31]
- Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun [v3.3.30.5] (no information available)
- Virtual Skipper 3
- War and Peace
- Will of Steel
- WWII Frontline Command [v3.3.0.26]
- Xpand Rally [v3.3.x.x]
- Xuan-Yuan Sword 4 (Asian) (no information available)

Changes
=======
- Juana De Arco [v3.3.36.1] ----> Joan D'Arc, protected by SecuROM New / CD-Checks
http://m0001.gamecopyworld.com/game...an_of_arc.shtml
- The Entente [v3.3.37.26] ----> protected by CD-Checks
http://m0001.gamecopyworld.com/game...e_entente.shtml
- The Black Mirror ----> updated StarForce version, correct is v3.3.35.1
http://m0001.gamecopyworld.com/game...ck_mirror.shtml
- Updated Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun with the proper English title
http://spacetarget.com/games/pc_victoria.shtml
- Updated some of the unknown games
- added some more games
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Here you can read an article about Starforce. It is an interview with Abbie Sommer of StarForce.
She discusses many aspects of the Starforce Protection, what it is, what it does and why it is needed.
Here is just a small portion of that interview:

Question: There's an uproar among segments of the game community that StarForce is installed without user approval. Is this a potential legal concern for your company?

Answer: There is no legal concern because before a user loads a game, he or she has agreed to accept the conditions of the end-user licensing agreement, typically known as a EULA. These are also known as click and go, or click and accept agreements. When you accept, you are saying I will load this game or application at my own risk, and have read and understood the terms. Or there will be a disclaimer that protects the publisher from damages of any kind due to their products’ use. Our product is licensed to our customers, and becomes part of their product, so the user by accepting the terms, is giving approval.

Now here Abbie states "When you accept, you are saying I will load this game or application at my own risk, and have read and understood the terms."

Tell me please people, how many of you, after reading the EULA, actually understood, from those terms, that an intrusive protection was going to be installed onto your system? Do you think her statement only implies to 'The Game' itself? I believe the EULA should tell us about the protection being installed!
If in fact there was nothing to worry about why is this statement included?
"Or there will be a disclaimer that protects the publisher from damages of any kind due to their products’ use"
The word 'Products' should really only say 'Game'! After all that is all we have been made aware of installing, as thats all it says earlier!
To be fair to the gamer this is how I believe that part or the EULA should be written:
"I will load this game and the Protection application at my own risk, and have read and understood the terms."

I still believe it is only a matter of time before this issue finds its way into a court of Law! The wording of documents like the EULA must be written in a way so as not to decieve the consumer! We must be given the opportunity to be 'fully' aware as to what we are actually installing!

Grumpy

[CPUYODA]

Id just like a sticky here with links to the gamelist with SF.

But I hope they do go down the tubes too.....

I buy all my games,and will attempt at my very best to avoid
any SF games,mainly because I use a RAID system on SCSI.

The GTR demo,back last year,gave me a fit I'd care not to explain.....

[chaosmaster]

I will boycot Starforce too, because i dont like Drivers, which run in the back and i don't know what they do!

Sry for my bad english

[nitrocb]

that`s the reason why i will boycott sf games. and i think that it can`t be that the protection drivers don`t allow to read dpm info from cd`s anymore. that is a feature, which is necessary to make copies of your original discs.
i think that it should be forbidden for the programmers of protections to manipulate installed software or to run a driver like a trojan in the background.

sorry, but my english is also not perfect

[Pyr0]

i refuse to buy any more starforce protected games

[LoxHazard]

I am boycotting Starforce games.

Starforce=Virus

[bkcross]

Originally Posted by Pyr0

i refuse to buy any more starforce protected games

dito!

[Agent X]

You have my vote. No SF for me.

[ubik]

The only piracy I support is the one practiced inside Sid Meyer Pirates!, but Starforce is not the answer for software piracy. As a legal costumer I am suffering for the wrongdoings of others. After 3 Starforce games, two of them giving me serious problems (had to return them and spent quite a few hours around my system), I am going to give them a wide berth.

Besides, take for instance Paradox Entertainment, a small swedish software developer: to generate lots of money a game don't need to be protected at all... it just needs to be good.

Buy Europa Universalis 2 or Hearts of Iron 2 or Crusader Kings...

[The-S-Owl]

Yes, as John Carmack (ID Software) ever said: Quality software is the best protection

[jimmi4u]

ok, I'm not gonna buy any starforce protected games anymore.
cya

[DUKE_NUKEM]

Hi guys, sorry for my english but I'm italian. I've been checking this forum for months before I decided to post something (how great is the power of Starforce ).
I have been playing gamez since 1992, and I see that in these years they've become a BIG BIG BUSINESS. And where's the money, there comes a trouble!
Too many gamez, too high prices, too much generous reviews (=too many "must buy" gamez) and , last but not the least, hyper-aggressive protections. The truth is, pc gaming was, it's still and it will forever be a hard matter if compared to consoles' easy-gaming. I don't think a honest-but-normal customer would spend thousands of euros (or dollars as you prefer) for the hardware and then fall into the deepest despair by seeing that some f@*#ing protections is devastating his system.This is a paradox: a guy who buys an original games have more problems than a warez kiddie.
Also, we should consider that a 6 to 18 years old guy often cannot afford a price of 50 euros for a game (while, with the same money, he can download a lot of stuff, including gamez from the net, I know this isn't the right way of thinking, but this is REALITY); so, you say gamez are not necessary to live, I agree but nothing related to entertainment is, so the common way of thinking is: if you can have them for free, why not).
In the end, I would like to remember that, even if it was possible to release a new starforce version every day, pirates would always have TONS of games to play with, choosing among old games, new-but-not-starforce-protected games and almost-new-starforce-protected-but-already-cracked games.
Cracking games is just a matter of time.
So, what are they waiting to cut the prices? By the way, isn't it primarily a problem of money?

[DUKE_NUKEM]

Ok, guys, now I'm getting reaaly angry. A few days ago I re-installed DTM Race Driver 2 just to have a decent run with a decent car (why not to try GTR? Cuz it's Starforce again, no more for me too! ) and today my drive refused to backup the backup of Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone. The curious thing is that I created that back-up after formatting, just about three weeks ago. Then I installed the game without any problem from the same disc.
Another strange fact, alcohol gave me errors in different sectors from one time to another. Don't know why, I start feeling the stink of Starforce: these are the things that typically drive a guy into the crazy-warez-world....
Ok, let's have a "succesfull system install" again: Sometimes I can't really afford the thought that I can't play with masterpieces like Scrapland, Colin 2005 and Street Racing Syndicate (Still Life?) but if this is the price to pay for playing a starforce game, ok then, where is the petition? Where do I have to sign?

[Grumpy]

@Duke Nukem
Its never a good idea to create a backup from a backup! Always backup from the originals.

[DUKE_NUKEM]

@ Grumpy

THX for the advice, man, you're damn right. But it is too late! The holy fire of purification has already burnt away the f@#*in' starforce virus from my pc! And, of course, alcohol went through the "backup of the backup" .
One final consideration: this is not the end of piracy, as someone said, this is really the end of games.