Oh please, Starforce has never been an evil and destructive force. Hell, it was actually one of the better ones because they’d actually update the damn thing separate from the game so moving to a new OS was not an End Of Times event.
There was a lot of talk about problems, yet no one was ever able to back that up, even when Star-Force put up a bounty. It was just a casualty of the beginning of the anti-DRM movement.
That’s not to say that no one anywhere has never had a DRM problem, just that they’re overblown, and especially were for Starforce.
Of all of the disc check DRM systems, Starforce was the most insidious and extensive, fussing about simple stuff like the existence of virtual drive software. Oh noes, disc images are the exclusive domain of pirates! …except they’re not.
It’s not as bad as what’s being done with server activation, but it was still shitty.
I was able to back it up because it happened to me. And the problems were rather signifigant. After I installed a game with Starforce, it became impossible for me to play music CDs until I’d removed the DRM from my system, which was not an easy process back then. I had a few other problems with the DRM, as well, that I no longer recall; I just remember being incredibly frustrated.
Similarly funky Starforce-realted issues were being reported frequently by PC Gamer readers at the time. When contacted, Starforce’s position was basically that we were all lying.
Ok obviously I was exaggerating for effect. Given the other responses I don’t think it was an unreasonable question.
While I would imagine things have gotten better (which is why I asked the question), getting into a situation like Vederman’s is what I would like to avoid.
Holy shit, a Starforce defender. I didn’t even know you guys existed! Hey, can you do me a favor? Could you take a look outside, real quick? It’s not a big deal, I’m just incredibly curious to know what color the sky is in your world. This is the first time I’ve ever talked with an alien, you see. Purple? Gold? Teal? There’s money riding on this!
Just in case anyone is interested in this game that comes with Starforce, dont forget to check out the other thread for some info on how to patch it and restore some of the missing russian audio.
For what it’s worth, I am neither for nor against Starforce. I think I missed the period when everyone was in a hoo-har over it. It’s never caused me any issues (that I have been aware of anyway), so I am comfortable in my ambivalence.
Sweden (I think it was) had a consumer concerns kind of TV show once. On it they had a team demonstrate how Sarforce could damage hardware, after a viewer had written to them & bitched about it.
It was years ago, so you’ll hopefully forgive me for being unable to recall the specifics. But what happened was basically that they booted up the computer, put an (I think) RW CD in the tray, and in the attempt to read it, the drive ended up spinning the disk so fast it eventually came apart inside the drive.
What I’m most impressed with about the whole thing, is that Starforce avoided getting sued by people getting physically injured by it. Because in the demonstration, shards of the CD literally exploded out of the drive. So violently I can’t imagine you wouldn’t be covered in cuts & bruises if you were in front of it. But I guess the people it happened to were all lucky enough to be alone in the room and sitting beside their computers, rather than in front of them.
Of course, the TV show might have faked it. But I can’t imagine why they would do so. I can, however, quite easily imagine why Starforce would go through the trouble of promising a reward for being able to damage hardware with their software, under conditions defined & controlled by Starforce.
Plus, you had to arrange travel to Moscow for a personal presentation. IIRC, your travel expenses would be reimbursed only if your presentation convinced the developers that their product was flawed. Oh, and the challenge expired in less than five months, and happened to overlap the major American holiday season.
It’s almost like they didn’t want anyone to come visit them in Russia.
The big disqualifier was that you had to demonstrate to their satisfaction that the claim was true. Chances of them ageeing to any result? About 0.00000000000000000001%.
