Starforce Dropped - Gamers Win Against Intrusive Copy Protection

squall_leonhart · April 14th, 2006, 02:47 PM

Starforce have recently become the Target of a Boycott campaign by gamers all over the globe due to damage to systems, and installations, because of thier Ring 0 type driver.

UBISOFT earlier released a statement that STARFORCE Boycotters are hackers and pirates, and began banning members of thier forums who spoke out against it, it wasn't till a Member of the gaming community stepped up and Launched a Class Action Lawsuite representing any and all gamers who have had thier system damaged due to the protection, that things started to happen.

Well, Today it has been announced on several different sites that Ubisoft have dropped the DRM Creator on upcoming titles, such as Heroes of might and magic 5, no news has yet been announced on what will come of the titles already released that have Starforce, but some members of the community believe that a Product Refresh should take place where updated and patched copies of the games should be released with starforce removed.

DailyTech

squall_leonhart · April 14th, 2006, 03:07 PM

How to dodge the installation of starforce on protected disks

Quote:

While I do not condone the use of unofficial cracks and the like, all of the so called release groups have been able to remove StarForce from their versions of games and other software for quite some time. Admitedly it is one of the hardest to remove, but they all have skilled guys who can remove malware like StarForce.

So when you buy a gmae "protected" with StarForce, visit a good website or other source that can provide you with a cracked executable, because the way StarForce works is by installing itself when you first try to play the game. Using a cleaned executable means the StarForce payload is removed/disabled and therefore will not infect your machine.

I know the use of cracked executables is technically illegal, but I would strongly recommend anyone who buys a game infected with StarForce to replace the main executable with a cracked version from a "reputable" (ahem) source.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people who know about this and how to circumvent StarForce are to some degree involved with piracy, which is ironic as it means StarForce is only hurting users who buy all their software and know nothing about cracks. All the people they should have been targetting have already downloaded the full game with a cracked executable, and will download the cracked patches as and when needed.

Serious Sam 2 was great fun to play, but do you know what the first thing I did after coming home and installing it? That's right, I got the cracked executable to avoid StarForce infecting my PC. UbiSoft are the worst culprits for supporting StarForce as almost all their releases are infected with it; I recommend either boycotting their games, or downloading a cleaned version of the executable if you buy any of their products.

Mac Daddy · April 14th, 2006, 05:16 PM

Good news on them dropping it Squall they never should have used it in the first place

squall_leonhart · April 14th, 2006, 06:34 PM

no, but money makes you greedy

Mac Daddy · April 15th, 2006, 02:27 AM

For those that hold values money means little .... Once again good on this and hope they and Sony and anyone else who uses DRM die a slow rotting death in hell !!

nCaine · April 15th, 2006, 11:05 AM

So if man is five and the devil is six than that must make them seven,
This honkey's gone to heaven,(nope)
But if it go to hell then I hope it burn well,

We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn,
Burn motherfucker burn.

zme-ul · April 15th, 2006, 12:43 PM

Fighting evil with evil is no good to anyone

squall_leonhart · April 17th, 2006, 01:33 PM

wtf are you on about?

zme-ul · April 17th, 2006, 05:44 PM

hmm ...
using cracked exe for playing the game is illegal, you said it earlyer ... so, it is wrong
everyone is pointing the finger on UbiSoft but ... what about the other publishers who use StarForce protection on their titles, like CodeMasters, no word abouth them ...

sorry for my bad english ...

jbruneau · April 17th, 2006, 05:53 PM

Actually, using a cracked exe is NOT illegal as long as you OWN the origional software disc and can prove it!

There is nothing wrong with using them, alot of people do it, so that they do not have to move the disc around and risk scratching it or something. I have 2 kids, I don't know if you have any, but if you did you can understand that they can be careless with things (not intentional) but things get scratched and stop working. I'm not paying $60.00 for a game that will stop working in a couple months, so I use them! Either way, the problem with the emulation isn't that it works (as it does very well), it's that it can damage your computer system for no reason what-so-ever.

Even if it is only 5-10% of people who have this problem, out of 1,000,000 people, that is 50,000 systems that stop working! At $3000 a peice, that is $150,000,000 worth of damage that the company just tosses aside and 'claims' as system incompatibility! That is bull!