The revolution just keeps getting stronger - one voice at a time!

What we really need is a global month long boycott of purchasing ANY game titles with copy protection. Further a solidarity boycott from the console people regarding titles for those platforms from the same companies.

That will send the clearest signal to the industry they have every herd.

Tycho on Penny Arcade summed it up pretty well in wednesday's newsposts. We all don't like copy protection, but nothing to we is going to stop developers from using it.

It's somewhat pointless to "boycot" games that use starforce unless someone in the media is trumpeting your boycot as a big deal expected to have X impact on sales.

Between Iraq, midterm elections, and a whole lot of real issues going on right now, I don't think StarForce's crappy business tactics are going to get a lot of attention anywhere but on G4TV...which hardly anyone watches.

Well, Starforce in particular, aside from essentially saying "You should pirate GalCiv II", puts software on your system that can, after time, literally cause irreversible hardware failure in some DVD burners. Also, the principle of the thing is, for me, even more important. When I buy I game, I want to be buying just that, the game. I don't want to be purchasing what essentially amounts to malware, that installs itself and grants other applications low-level access to my system.

The copy protection is always circumvented somehow, anyway, and all this does is degrades the experience for the very people who aren't pirating the games. When it's the paying customers getting the shaft on the deal, something just isn't right.

Between Iraq, midterm elections, and a whole lot of real issues going on right now

There ARE other places in the world than the US of A you know?

The European market has a host of different bodies that could start pulling the plug on StarForce if it is proven to cause security issues.

I would say Asia too... but everything out here is pirated anyway... even the StarForce "protected" games.

The European market has a host of different bodies that could start pulling the plug on StarForce if it is proven to cause security issues.

ROFL, yeah....European politicians are less corporate-money lackeys than ours in the US? gimme a break. It was only after enough people threatened to sue Sony, that they stopped using their rootkit. To my knowledge, not one single politician said ANYTHING about it.

Heh, Newsweek reported that almost 90% of software in China was pirated, 72% in India, and somewhere around 70% for Thailand

That's rather normal.
Some companies really do not mind being pirated by the large poorer masses for some time. Microsoft surely didn't mind the third world and developing world using warez copies of Windows and Office. Those people weren't gonna pay anyway so if they use something it's still better that they use your product stolen than a legit copy of a competitor (or even better, no copy at all). Microsoft penetrated the markets and only now they're starting to put pressure on certain area's of the world to start paying something ...

Same goes for Adobe Photoshop and 3D Studio Max. As long as developers, companies and anyone else who makes money of using these programs or just uses them professionally pays 500 to 5000 $ for a license they're fine. They know thousands and thousands of teenagers, students and other home users are using cracked versions of their programm, but again, those home users are not the target group. Those warez copies won't cause lost income as no teen or student got 500 bucks and is willing to spend it on a toy (that's what it is for us, let's be fair), but they do help to make THE standard product.

Two goals here :
- Let potential future buyers get used to your software and charge them later
- Let people outside the target group increase the overall popularity of your product.

That's the problem with comparing games to standard applications though. For games, the younger crowds are the main target audience, while for almost all applications they're not. Therefore game developers often feel more threatened by piracy (done mainly by the youth) than application developers.
Sure, some pirated copies will increase sales. I admit I downloaded a pirated version of the GC Altarian Prophecy myself, only to actually buy GalCiv II earlier this week (which I wouldn't have if I never played GC at the time when I didn't have cash to buy it anyway). But overall, I think it's safe to assume that game developers have the most to lose when it comes to piracy as it their target audience that pirated the games... I would probably have bought more games myself if I didn't download warez that often in the past, I'm honest about it. I would never have bought PhotoShop or 3DSMax though.

But also in the games category, strategy games are less vulnerable to piracy than FPS or RTS games which are generally played by a younger and poorer audience that is way more likely to pirate the games (but then again, those games are all copies of the first FPS or RTS with new graphical updates, but that's just my opinion)
So from a strategic point of view, yes, it is very logical that game developers with a target group existing mainly of teenagers are more "protective" of their software than application devolopers and therefore some statements like "Office of Adobe Photoshop don't require you to insert the disk everytime" are a bit of a malice comparison.
Stardock, being active on both markets, probably know this as well and are using their "no copy protection" as a major publicity stunt to get their relatively unknown games out to the large audience, in which they have succeeded very well. I wouldn't be very surprised though that if they'd make a GC 3, they'd put some mild form of copy protection on the game because it has gotten truly big now and piracy will eventually hurt them more than it did before. That is what I would do at least ... or perhaps I'm just a bit too capitalistic.

Just my take on all this

I'm not as hip to this copy protection crap as most gamers appear to be, how new is this Starforce thing? Does someone have a link listing which games use this brand of c.p.? I doubrt I have any games using this (my pc is out of date so I can't play a lot of the newer games), but I want to avoid supporting that sort of business model when I buy games in the future.

What motivated me to get GalCiv II wasn't the no c.p. thing but something I saw on this site that I haven't seen in at least a decade: a dev that actually gives a damn about thier customers. I'm sure there are other devs out there that DO care about thier customers, but I suspect that the majority of their goodwill is squelched by the publishers they work with/for.

EDIT: As a side note on piracy; in China you can buy any (pirated) DVD for $1, regardless of content. To combat this, the "legitimate" DVD market is selling their movies for $2 each (while I still pay $19 to $25 per disc here in the states). I guess the lesson to be learned here is: Do the right thing and still you pay top dollar; steal like crazy and you get a steep discount as punishment.

The sad part is.. for all the hassle you need to go through to play Half-Life 2 and how worried they are worried about how their then $50+ precious game is going to get pirated.. they failed to realize one thing..

1. Gal Civ II has no piracy protection.
2. Gal Civ II is cheaper.
3. Gal Civ II and Stardock have a fanbase that is actually loyal to the company.
4. Gal Civ II is actually leaps and bounds better than Half-Life 2.

Keep up the good work Stardock and everyone there. You've got a customer for life.

And Izra'il Metatron, there's a list here: http://www.similarities.org/starforce.html

I don't really care about most of those, but the upcoming HOMM5 is supposed to use it. Sigh.

Edit: I did notice Heart of Winter has it...anyone know if Icewind Dale II does as well?

The thing is - if the software industry was REALLY serious about stopping piracy - they'd set up a standard national (or even international) software licensing system... One of the main problems with computer software is that it's kinda half-way house between flat copyright protection, (like music cd's or consoles - which dosen't really work so well anyway) - and a 'proper' licensing system instead of the joke EULA's we have atm.

The upside for the industry from a proper licensing system, is that piracy should be minimal since any leaked copy can be traced back to it's original licensee - so they'd know who to punish...

The upside for the consumer is that there will be NO copy protection etc. - since it will be illegal - (the length of the license will be for the licencee's lifetime - at least under UK law, so it's illegal to stop them from backing it up).. In some ways similar tot he system Stardock has, TBH

Of course, the downside is the cost of setting up and maintaining the system, but....

I don't mind the milder forms of copy protection, having to have a CD in the drive, etc.

I agree. CivIV is like that. Most times I'll concentrate on one game and play it to death, which means the CD is going to stay in the drive anyway. Until it came time to load GalCivII, I hadn't even removed my CivIV CD since the day I'd installed it. After installing GalCivII, I was happy to find that I didn't need the GalCiv CD in the drive to play, so I returned the CivIV CD since I'm currently in an SG game over at CivFanatics.

But "copy protection" that loads to your machine's boot sector and hijacks drive functions, that's just wrong.

anyone know if Icewind Dale II does as well?

It doesn't. Or at least, when I purchased and installed IWD II a couple of years ago I did not have to deal with starforce.