Gamasutra reports that CDV, like Ubisoft, has dropped StarForce and will now use its own copy protection scheme, called “TAGES”:
European-headquartered game publisher CDV has announced that it will be stopping its use of the controversial StarForce PC copy protection scheme, in a short press statement which explained that, “in response to consumer demand”, it will be be migrating to TAGES copy protection for future game releases. […]
CDV’s new system, TAGES, will first be integrated into the retail release of Glory of the Roman Empire, scheduled to ship on June 26 across North America, and CDV “will continue to integrate TAGES on a case-by-case basis.” […]
However, CDV’s Chief Technology Officer, Teut Weidemann, commented of this latest announcement, making it clear that the company had changed its overall strategy: “We believe that TAGES will provide a sensible balance between protecting CDV’s intellectual property rights against piracy, while at the same time minimizing the restrictions experienced by legitimate owners of our products.”
Its nice to see publishers continuing to drop that crapware.
I just don’t understand why one of the respectable copy protection companies can’t come up with a protection scheme that works but is unobtrusive to the user.
In other news: I’m testing out games on Vista beta 2, and I can’t seem to get Starforce games working. The SF driver install fails (duh…it’s an uncertified Ring 0 driver) and that prevents the games from working. Anyone hear about any kind of Starforce Vista driver? Even a beta? I checked the starforce site and they have a news release from a week ago crowing about how they just passed “made for XP” logo certification.
I should say: the driver “installs” and Vista prevents it from loading. But a real annoyance is that it tries to load, and fails, every time you boot up. So you get an error message about how this driver failed to load due to a compatibility problem, and would you like to search for a solution, blah blah blah. Every time you boot up. And of course, uninstalling Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (the game I tested it with) doesn’t remove Starforce.
You can get the Starforce removal tool to work, if you tell it to run as Admin. Yeesh.
Are you testing under an x64 or x86 Vista install, Jason? x64 blocks all unsigned drivers, but x86 allows them with a warning due (necessary so folks can run no-longer-updated drivers). Curious as to whether you’re hitting the x64 block here, or another security feature.
I have so many fucking games that I don’t dare put on this nice new computer because they’re StarForced. I don’t want to fuck up my DVD burner or my overall performance, so no Silent Storm for me.
You might want to check me on this, but I think even the x86 version of Vista blocks ring 0 drivers if they’re not signed, right? But it’ll let other drivers through (webcams, sound cards, etc) if they’re not signed, with a warning. That’s the case with the Vista beta drivers for the Audigy 2, for instance.
