Ubisoft And Starforce Parting Ways? 60
Ars Technica posts about the possibility of Ubisoft ditching StarForce in the wake of some very bad PR for the copy-protection company. From the article: "'To return from there good on an important subject, that of Starforce, here information which should interest you: it was decided that protection anti-copy used on the very new Ubisoft plays would not be the Starforce software...Yes, that relates to Heroes as well!' The translation may not be pretty, but the news is. Starforce should be considered malware if you ask me, and treated accordingly. If this really does mean Ubisoft is going to stop using it on their new releases we can all do a little dance of joy."
The sound of a thousand grammar nazi's screaming (Score:4, Funny)
Yay for Ubisoft. Getting rid of that horrid copy-protection scheme and the most annoying of all slashdot trolls, in one shot.
Re:The sound of a thousand grammar nazi's screamin (Score:2)
Re:The sound of a thousand grammar nazi's screamin (Score:2)
Re:The sound of a thousand grammar nazi's screamin (Score:1)
You fail at criticizing grammar.
Re:The sound of a thousand grammar nazi's screamin (Score:2)
That's unpossible!
Re:The sound of a thousand grammar nazi's screamin (Score:4, Insightful)
Score 1 point for the consumers! (Score:1)
Re:Score 1 point for the consumers! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Score 1 point for the consumers! (Score:2)
Don't speak too soon - Do you really think they'll just completely skip the copy protections (because we all know that without it, games like... Oh, say, Galactic Civ II, would never have become best sellers)?
Next week on Slashdot: Ubisoft partners with Sony to provide their next-gen copy protection, which runs so discretely no one without the (leaked) password to the secret "remote compliance monitoring port" will even
Lets hope the new scheme is decent (Score:3, Insightful)
Better translation (Score:3, Informative)
So, to come back to an important subject, that of "Starforce", here is something that might be of interest: It has been decided that the anti-piracy tool to be used on all new UbiSoft games will not be Starforce.
P.s. To answer the actual question: Yes, this includes "Heroes".
Re:Better translation: Nitpick (Score:3, Informative)
That should read "to be used on the next Ubisoft Games".
"les tout prochains" means "the very next". "All new" would have been "tous les prochains".
The article only says... (Score:2, Insightful)
Something in me hopes the system will also be bad and eventually Ubi will announce that copy protection is impossible, finally acknowledging what we all knew for ages.
Re:The article only says... (Score:2)
I think it's safe to say that it will be, simply by virtue of it being so difficult to be more malicious. What would that even be? They send somebody to your house to personally demolish your computer with a sledgehammer to ensure it isn't running pirated (or any other) programs?
Re:The article only says... (Score:2)
Re:The article only says... (Score:2)
Oh, it's possible. If every game came with a 330-pound bouncer who just beat the crap out of you every time you tried to copy the game, I think piracy would be stifled. They could justify it in the license agreement, just like with invasive software! Yay! They'd have to classify him as digital though, or the DMCA wouldn't prevent you f
Such as... (Score:1)
Like with Sony's Blu-Ray DRM, their "region-free" PS3 or GalCiv2 we-have-no-protection online activation, don't jump on conclusions and wait for the full story...
Re:Such as... (Score:2)
You can play as much as you want without cracking anything, and well... you can get patches as easy as you can d/l the whole game from P2P.
Sony's Blu-Ray DRM is region free in a sense you can play BDs from all around the world, but possibly only on your drive...... again, can be flashed and removed.
Re:Such as... (Score:1)
- Game "X" V1.0 being unprotected and advertised as such, while Game "X" V1.0.1, which fix the cannot-finish-game-fatal-bug, being protected.
- BR movie "Y" being watchable in HD on non-HDCP TV and being advertised as such, while BR movie "Y 2: The Return", released 6 months later, being watchable only in SD.
- PS3 console being region-free and advertised as such, but, like with the Xbox 1 and 360, the game "Z" will only playable on the Japanese m
Now what? (Score:1)
Re:Now what? (Score:1)
Actually StarForce is a pretty interesting copy protection. As someone who spent quite a lot of time studying Fravia [wikipedia.org]'s reverse engineering essays I've always thought a good programmer must know his reverse engineering, and StarForce is obviously made by talented people. I stopped using Windows in 1994 so I couldn't care less about proprietary software, but don't ditch StarForce's technical merits just because the company behind it has questionable ethics.
Funny, people who use free software [freebsd.org] don't have an
Re:Now what? (Score:1, Informative)
Nowadays groups are able to crack StarForce just like any other
Damn managers, poor hackers (Score:3, Insightful)
I have the utmost respect for the programmers of Starforce as it is a creative solution to a widespread problem, but such talented engineers are working for the wrong company. I truly feel bad for the programmers because their brilliance is overshadowed by their managers' childishness.
Re:Damn managers, poor hackers (Score:2)
just out of curiosity as I havn't had to deal with starforce and can't find any real information.. Just what was this creative solution.
Re:Damn managers, poor hackers (Score:2)
StarForce is believed to operate by measuring the physical angle between the first and last written sector on the CD.
Re:Damn managers, poor hackers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Damn managers, poor hackers (Score:2)
Ring 0 drivers are not rootkits - they are called Ring 0 Drivers. In the same way, you might as well call Video card drivers to be the equivalent of rootkits as well - they need to have Ring 0 for performance reasons (at least
Re:Damn managers, poor hackers (Score:2)
If they're lucky... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, I do two things... the aforementioned review checking, and checking to see what kind of copy protection scheme it uses. I refuse to buy Starforce "protected" games, and I refuse to install it on my computer. To me, they aren't gaining anything. At best, they're preventing pirates from installing their games and playing for free, but that doesn't net them any profits... because I seriously doubt those same pirates go "Oh well, I guess I'll buy the game!" and go out and purchase a copy.
I won't lie, I download games. But I also buy any game that I intend on playing. Generally I download to either get it sooner, or have something to do until pay day, or just to make sure the damn thing isn't a train wreck. But I also have several CD cases filled with hundreds of games I've legally purchased. I don't know very many other pirates who pirate exclusively, or who won't purchase a game they really like. All Starforce does, is make them refuse to purchase the game at all out of anger.
I don't understand why these companies think that by preventing piracy, these people are going to suddenly decide that they've seen the error of their ways and start buying software. It's not. You just piss potential fans off.
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:2)
The industry should care because I'm a consumer who makes money, spends money, and is at least partially responsible for the fact that THEY can make money. My point had absolutely nothing to do with moral or immoral, only that the industry can't paint their consumers as either "pirates" or "non-pirates", because it doesn't work that way. It never does.
Why would anyone in the industry care? I believe that most of them don't. Clearly some do, because
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:2)
"the point was that I would have bought the software if they had NOT included Starforce, and that including it not only stopped me from pirating it, but from buying it. That's a lost sale."
Exactly. My husband and I are both gamers, and we typically go on a game-buyig spree once a year. This year we made a list of games wanted (long list) and found out that 10 of them had StarForce on them. We're not buying those games -- copy protection that installs itself to your computer is bad enough, let alone any t
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:1)
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:2)
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:2)
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:1)
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:2)
Re:If they're lucky... (Score:2)
Headlines (Score:1)
Tecmo? (Score:1)
I thought Star Force [wikipedia.org] was by Tecmo [tecmoinc.com]. Or has Ubisoft bought Tecmo? Or does Ubisoft publish Tecmo's games in at least one territory?
Re:Headlines (Score:1)
Yes, off-topic, I know.
But seriously, I'm exttremely glad Ubi has ditched this in favor of a less crippling copy-protection scheme. If for no other reason than I can finally go get my copy of HoMM 5.
Re-release? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Re-release? (Score:1)
I'd love to play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory with a mouse, a respectable number of pixels, HDR...
I know some developer(s) patched out StarForce in a later version, but even that's not good enough in my opinion. I don't want AIDS medication.
Re:Re-release? (Score:1)
Doubtful (Score:5, Interesting)
Reason is that SF3/4 is now ineffective. Reloaded is getting grip on it, Daemon-Tools4 is owning it, while in the same time it is too expensive for something which can be beatenwhile for probably less money you can have Securom or Safedisc which still renders most simple attacks useless and sometimes can even be uncrackable or at least hard ot do it.
Year ago, Ubisoft released SC:Chaos Theory and protection was invincible for 6 months until sfcure trick came. Probably a world record for AAA PC game title (OK, not counting USB trick, but not many people had facility to do that). It just isn't possible to have that today, although SF4 might try again.
I'll buy it (Score:2)
Not crippling the customer's machine in fear that he might consider pondering about copying it.
Re:I'll buy it (Score:1)
Re:I'll buy it (Score:2)
So maybe I can get Heroes 5 after all (Score:2)
I will however wait until Heroes 5 is released because I don't trust Ubisoft not to use something as insidious as Starforce in protecting their games.
So... (Score:2)
I guess I can't really complain. There was an extremely tiny warning on the box that it might not work with all DVD drives. Unfortunately the only way to find out for sure it to buy it, open the box (at which point it becomes unreturnable) and pop it in the drive.
I wouldn't be so upset if they'd at least bothered to answer the e-mail or postal mail I sent them about the issue.