Starforce Petition!

[azhrei]

I've been boycotting SF3 games for a while now. I have a number of computers and also two places of residence. Usually I make copies of games so that I can play any game I own regardless of where I am. SF3 doesn't allow me to do that so I don't buy their games. Never looked at it like a boycott untill now though.

[glenbo]

the law is one game per house hold and one game per pc mate

[coffin filler]

Originally Posted by glenbo

the law is one game per house hold and one game per pc mate

Actualy thats not compleatly correct. Some games (note the some) allow in the EULA a game to be installed on more than one PC (in the same house hold) Then of course theres the issue of prot on exe ect but i have know of some devs/pubs that arnt to hung up on the "Only to be installed on one PC per game disk).

[glenbo]

well its border line as the law states 1 game per pc for network/multiplayer reasons.

[russellrv]

I dont think any of this is going to do anything unfortunately, mainly because you are not hurting any particular gaming company.

No one is going to listen to anyone who is part of a website which supports a community which tries to work around their software protection.

Even though starforce is very intrusive of you computer system, m$ has been doing it for years.

[HunterZ0]

Last I checked, the U.S. law was that you could have it installed on as many computers as you want as long as you only run it on one at a time. Having to insert the original CD to play is a way to enforce this, but that also steps on our fair use rights that entitle us to a backup copy so that we can keep the original safe in the box. That's why no-CD patches are a legal gray area and why sites like gamecopyworld still exist.

Also, russellrv is correct. The only way to send a message to publishers to stop using Starforce or any other protection is to BUY UNPROTECTED GAMES instead of protected ones. If you don't buy ANY games, they'll increase the copy-protection to discourage pirating. If you buy protected games, they'll keep the amount the same. However, if they see unprotected game sales are higher than protected ones, they'll see it as an important factor.

Unfortunately most people are either ignorant, lazy, indifferent, or pirates and don't bother to do research and then go out and buy only unprotected games. This is also probably why fewer and fewer PC games are being published.

Another good approach is to buy a game and then return it if the protection gives you problems. Exchange it for the same game until they get tired and give you your money back. If they have to send 5+ copies of the game back to the publisher for everyone who buys the game, the publishers and retailers will get the message that copy protection is bad for business. I know this happened to my brother recently with Call of Duty, which he bought and couldn't play because the only CD drive in his system was a burner (which the copy protection was biased against).