March 14th, 2006
Starforce Promoting Piracy!?!?
By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
There has been a lot of news recently about a new video game called “Galactic Civilizations 2“. The reason it’s made such a fuss is not some huge advertising campaign like Sony regularly pulls with its products. The game also wasn’t anticipated by every person who has ever called himself a gamer, such as the Quake, Halflife, and Civilization series. Nope. Galactic Cilizations 2 comes from Stardock, the company that was made somewhat famous because of its popular Windows Blinds software. So, what is special about this game? It has no copy protection.
That’s right. In this world of rootkits, extra “drivers”, and otherwise very annoying DRM Stardock decided to release this game devoid of any copy protection. Was this a smart move on its part? Well, it seems to be paying off. News of the game has spread to many of the largest online news websites and consumers seem to be having a very positive reaction. So, this makes everyone happy, right? Stardock is making lots of money selling its game to happy customers who know that they’re supporting a company that is not trying to hinder fair use. It’s a win-win situation. That is, unless you’re a maker of DRM software.
Starforce, the infamous maker of copy protection schemes that tick off gamers to no end seems to be scared to death that a game with no copy protection would be successful. Where this really stops being funny is when you find out that a Starforce employee posted a link to an illegal bittorrent download on Starforce’s official company forums. You can see a screenshot here.
Legalities aside, this alone has given me enough reason to boycott anything using Starforce protection (not to mention wanting to avoid crashing my computer). I’ve always disliked DRM, but when a DRM company goes so far as to promote piracy of software that does not include DRM they have crossed the line. This is simply indefensible. If you’re so inclined, feel free to write Starforce an email about its illegal and highly unethical behavior. You can email them at sns@star-force.com Also, visit the Boycott Starforce which has a list of games using Starforce DRM as well as directions on how to remove it if you’re unfortunate enough to already have it installed on your system.
John Francis says:
From http://www.galciv2.com: “We received email from StarForce today apologizing for the incident. We appreciated them taking down the link. It also gave us the opportunity to request the various meta-torrent sites to remove links to illegal torrents.” BTW, Galatic Civilizations II is an _excellent_ game…
March 14th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Thorndike says:
Do you honestly think that any emails sent to that address will be read? I would bet that they are all just systematically trashed as soon as they arrive.
March 14th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
dangaz says:
gripeline@stardock.com is for stardock, the makers of the game. NOT for Starforce, the copy protection company.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:50 am
Peter says:
Actually — I’d say that Stardock *does* use DRM — it’s just not in their game. Instead, it’s used for obtaining updates. Granted, it’s just a CD key instead of an intrusive stealth driver , but one can’t say Galactic Civilizations is 100% DRM-free.
That said, I am all for Stardock’s model of DRM rather than the one promoted by Starforce, as Stardock’s DRM not only protects the game studio’s right to make money, but also does not assume that anyone who tries to install the game will try to pirate it.
March 15th, 2006 at 7:43 pm