Game Protection articals

[AshenSugar]

ok these are centered around games, but the protectios talked about have been seen on some software apps as well.

also there are 2 articals for this one part one and part 2

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/Copy_protection/index.shtml

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/Copy_protection_pt2/index.shtml

First i would like to ask that anybody posting please fully read the articals befor you post, do no simplay reply to what others say.


i would also request that any mods who monotor this deal with those who clearly post without reading the articals just to argue with informed posters( u know the kind who READ THE ARTICAL!!!!)


the way i see it from vast exp with these protections is that the excuse that they need them to stop piracy is a crock, it dosnt stop anything at all in any way, other then making it so ligit users have problems.

the cost of adding these protections does acctualy raise cost and thus price, because if the protection chosen costs 7bucks a disk(some do) then they raise the cost 14$ or more to compensate.

also take into account that they have to spend more $ on support trying to fix protection related problems, and then the fact that they loose alot of paying costmers due to not being able to play games they payed 40-80bucks or more for or from word of mouth about things like starfarce.

one classic example of a game selling FAR more copys due to NOT BEING PROTECTED is oblivion, a HUGE number of people who pirated it went out and payed for it, as did people like my friend jake who refuses to buy anything with DRM on it, he infact got 5 copys (1 for self other 4 as gifts) at full retail price.

and the company that made it hasnt had to waist time and $ fixing any DRM related problems, leaving them time to focous on the game itself and making it better!!!!

you cant win a war based against pirats, its like trying to kill every terroist in the world, every time you kill one 4 more pop up, "the tighter you squeeze the more slips thru your fingers"

 

[technicks]

At first, i never had a problem with bought protected games. They all work fine with me.
I do think you are right when you say that putting on the protection is a bunch off crap.

It's just another way for a company to screw the gaming industry. Because the protections don't even work all that great. Can still be cracked.
When i first started playing pc games i must admid that i downloaded a couple of games myself.
But that didn't take long before i wanted to playBF2 on ranked servers so i bought it. The same with all the Simbin race games. I like them so much that i wanted to buy the originals instead of playing the downloaded ones and having troubles all the time.

I always look at it this way. If you have a store without any employees and people have the choice to pay for there groceries. You will always have the people who pay for there stuff and the ones who take it and leave without paying.

For a while back we had a problem here in the Netherlands with people stealing gas/fuel at the gas stations. They just filled up there tanks and drove away.
The police could not do anything about it, because they said that the gas stations were basicly asking for people to steal it because the fuel was for the taking. Now they changed the law so the can do something about it.

Here in the Netherlands internet piracy is not really a crime.
The law simply says privacy stands above piracy. This goes for the internet.
The providers don't have to give any information about the identity of there costumers. So the chance you will get punished here is very minimal.

 

[Darknova]

Being totally honest, about half of my games are pirated ones, if I had the money I'd buy them all, but I don't and a lot really are not worth the money.
Ashen is definately right about Oblivion, I downloaded that first, then when I bought Knights of the Nine last month I also bought a real copy of Oblivion (£40 for both).
I also have a Steam account with numerous games linked to it, but I've never had a problem (except during that storm that took down the servers) and am very happy to carry on with Steam.

Starforce is just a malicious program, it's no better than spyware and viruses. It's destroyed my friends £2000 computer, no joke. The DVD burner doesn't work, CPU's fried, motherboard won't detect HDDs, and all because he installed a Starforce protected game. I will never buy anything with Starforce, my friends and I have had nothing but problems.
Really Starforce just proves how far companies will go to "protect" their games. It's fucking disgusting.

 

[technicks]

Being totally honest, about half of my games are pirated ones, if I had the money I'd buy them all, but I don't and a lot really are not worth the money.
Ashen is definately right about Oblivion, I downloaded that first, then when I bought Knights of the Nine last month I also bought a real copy of Oblivion (£40 for both).
I also have a Steam account with numerous games linked to it, but I've never had a problem (except during that storm that took down the servers) and am very happy to carry on with Steam.

Starforce is just a malicious program, it's no better than spyware and viruses. It's destroyed my friends £2000 computer, no joke. The DVD burner doesn't work, CPU's fried, motherboard won't detect HDDs, and all because he installed a Starforce protected game. I will never buy anything with Starforce, my friends and I have had nothing but problems.
Really Starforce just proves how far companies will go to "protect" their games. It's fucking disgusting.

I doubt that the hardware failure has anything to do with starforce.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

interesting,it nevr took me so long to get up and running on hl2.and i have nvr really had a problem with starforce either.

iam not a pirate but i "try" certain games before i buy them,i have two foreign games atm(1 russian,1 czech) both installed the starforce thingy and both work fine with the images mounted on my alc120% drive.i must admit i have'nt burning a disc since i got them tho'.i also have about 20 games on my bought steam ac.

whatever the companys do,they will always be no cd's and other stuff to bypass the protections.

he has an impressive pile of games tho'.

 

[Darknova]

I doubt that the hardware failure has anything to do with starforce.

Well we can't be 100% sure, but after installing Rainbow Six Lockdown his computer got progressively worse until one day it wouldn't work. Tried the CPU in other boards (definately fried). Tried other HDDs on the motherboard (doesn't work). So in the end had to RMA the board, but they wouldn't take the CPU back. So it might not have been Starforce, but neither me or him will be taking that chance.

 

[technicks]

Well we can't be 100% sure, but after installing Rainbow Six Lockdown his computer got progressively worse until one day it wouldn't work. Tried the CPU in other boards (definately fried). Tried other HDDs on the motherboard (doesn't work). So in the end had to RMA the board, but they wouldn't take the CPU back. So it might not have been Starforce, but neither me or him will be taking that chance.

I have played Rainbow Six Lockdown to with no problems.

 

[Darknova]

I have played Rainbow Six Lockdown to with no problems.

Ok, that's fine, but as I said, neither of us is willing to take the risk. IF it was Starforce, then I don't want to bugger up my PC.

 

[AshenSugar]

Well we can't be 100% sure, but after installing Rainbow Six Lockdown his computer got progressively worse until one day it wouldn't work. Tried the CPU in other boards (definately fried). Tried other HDDs on the motherboard (doesn't work). So in the end had to RMA the board, but they wouldn't take the CPU back. So it might not have been Starforce, but neither me or him will be taking that chance.

acctualy i have personaly exp with boards having their ata/ide controlers fried by starfarce
this isnt a new story, google around for a while alot of really really bad things can happend with starfarce.

I have played Rainbow Six Lockdown to with no problems.

just because in you VERY LIMMITED EXPERIANCE you didnt have any problems dosnt mean many many many others dont have problems.

dont take you limmited exp with you computer to mean that others cant have problems, starfarce acctualy has a very bad rep and can do alot more then its leigaly allowed to in the us, its capable of wiping your whole drive(wont ever be done in the us), its capable of damnaging hardware, locking up the systme and many other nasty things, guess why its able to do these things.

because it would be the ultiment way to stop possable pirtats, RUIN THEIR COMPUTER, problem there is that it is gonna hit some non pirats by misstake.

in the US you would see mass lawsuits against starfarce maker and the game publisher if even a few systems where fryed beyond repair or had data scrambled/eraced by the game, and guess what even real pirats would win in court(as they should imho)

other protections have had this ability, but had it "removed" from the version acctualy put into international use, starforce has this ability but its not enabled, well its not suposeto be but that dosnt mean its not still their waiting for a chance to fry your hardware!!!!.

i had starforce break 8 sata add-in cards on systems i sold with starfarce protected games, guess what, they denied it, but the funny thing was i tested it on a 9th card and as soon as starfarce was on the system the card started acting funny, and then got VERY HOT, then died, (chip cooked) so i conntacted the card maker, they said they had a huge number of returns and where trying to figuar out why, i told them what to try, the tech support rep acctualy had me stay on the line as he installed 2 starforce games(one of the ones i tested and another with the same version of starfarce) and guess what, one of the cards started getting very hot as soon as he loaded the game once, fryed itself whal i was on the phone with him, the other got hot and he unpluged the board.

he said he would look into it more and that he would send out some new cards for me to try since he belived i had the 10 cards i said i had dead(it was 9 but hey i needed a good test card.

he emailed me later that they had to alter the drivers and bios/firmware to block some of the crap starfarce trys to do because it was what was FRYING the cards(they felt it was intentional but couldnt prove it)

again because you "never had a problem" or at least never knew you had a problem dont ASSume that nobody else has had a problem

yes pirates get rid of the protections, thismakes them USELESS WAIST OF $ that RAISES THE GAME PRICE.

they only hurt people who PAY FOR THE GAMES, pirats never have to deal with them!!!

 

[Darknova]

So we finally have confirmation. Well I wont be "testing" to see if it really is, but now I definately wont be touching Starforce.

 

[technicks]

acctualy i have personaly exp with boards having their ata/ide controlers fried by starfarce
this isnt a new story, google around for a while alot of really really bad things can happend with starfarce.



just because in you VERY LIMMITED EXPERIANCE you didnt have any problems dosnt mean many many many others dont have problems.

dont take you limmited exp with you computer to mean that others cant have problems, starfarce acctualy has a very bad rep and can do alot more then its leigaly allowed to in the us, its capable of wiping your whole drive(wont ever be done in the us), its capable of damnaging hardware, locking up the systme and many other nasty things, guess why its able to do these things.

because it would be the ultiment way to stop possable pirtats, RUIN THEIR COMPUTER, problem there is that it is gonna hit some non pirats by misstake.

in the US you would see mass lawsuits against starfarce maker and the game publisher if even a few systems where fryed beyond repair or had data scrambled/eraced by the game, and guess what even real pirats would win in court(as they should imho)

other protections have had this ability, but had it "removed" from the version acctualy put into international use, starforce has this ability but its not enabled, well its not suposeto be but that dosnt mean its not still their waiting for a chance to fry your hardware!!!!.

i had starforce break 8 sata add-in cards on systems i sold with starfarce protected games, guess what, they denied it, but the funny thing was i tested it on a 9th card and as soon as starfarce was on the system the card started acting funny, and then got VERY HOT, then died, (chip cooked) so i conntacted the card maker, they said they had a huge number of returns and where trying to figuar out why, i told them what to try, the tech support rep acctualy had me stay on the line as he installed 2 starforce games(one of the ones i tested and another with the same version of starfarce) and guess what, one of the cards started getting very hot as soon as he loaded the game once, fryed itself whal i was on the phone with him, the other got hot and he unpluged the board.

he said he would look into it more and that he would send out some new cards for me to try since he belived i had the 10 cards i said i had dead(it was 9 but hey i needed a good test card.

he emailed me later that they had to alter the drivers and bios/firmware to block some of the crap starfarce trys to do because it was what was FRYING the cards(they felt it was intentional but couldnt prove it)

again because you "never had a problem" or at least never knew you had a problem dont ASSume that nobody else has had a problem

yes pirates get rid of the protections, thismakes them USELESS WAIST OF $ that RAISES THE GAME PRICE.

they only hurt people who PAY FOR THE GAMES, pirats never have to deal with them!!!

Be proud off your knowlege. Nerdboy. Sad person. Ignored.

 

[AshenSugar]

im not a nerd, i keep having to tell people the term is COMPUTER GEEK!!!

and its sad but true, starfarce is evil, u know even securom can cause system damnage, if the company wanted that packet included, but its not included in the sorce of the protection unless the company spicificly wants it because if something went wrong and it was exposed/set off due to a bug there would be lawsuits over somebodys system being fubard by the protection. specly in the states where sueing peoples like a sport!!!

 

[Darknova]

Be proud off your knowlege. Nerdboy. Sad person. Ignored.

That is incredibly petty...how sad.