AfterDawn: News

Ubisoft dumps Starforce

As many of you should already know, Ubisoft has officially confirmed rumours that it had ended its business relationship with Starforce. Starforce produces copy protection software that has been highly criticised by gamers in the past. "Ubisoft has decided to use an alternative copy-protection system to Starforce for upcoming releases," said a rep for the company. This confirms that the anticipated Heroes of Might and Magic V title will not include Starforce software.

Ubisoft was hit by a $5 million lawsuit by gamers who claimed that Starforce software comprised the security of their computers. "We are currently investigating complaints about alleged problems with Starforce's software," said the Ubisoft rep. Starforce copy protection technology is one of the biggest receivers of criticism and complaints.



Back in February, the company decided to deal with criticism from Cory Doctorow with a lawsuit threat and a claim the FBI had been contacted over harassment. Threats like this to silence critics have to raise alarm bells.

Source:
Gamespot

Written by: James Delahunty @ 15 Apr 2006 14:47

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• 13 comments

• sisph

  YAY!
  
  If you guys want to see something funny check out their forums. Go ahead and register if you want. You'll notice that after anyone tries to logically come up with a reason why Starforce protection totally screws up a system or causes problems they immediately either blame the user, call them ignorant, make fun of them, call them a liar, and then quickly close the thread. I don't have any links for that, but there are so many closed threads that you can find that it shouldn't be hard.
  
  YAY UBISOFT! Hopefully this drives Star-Force under!

  15.4.2006 15:20 #1

• lxfactor

  wow the boycott worked!!!!
  
  even tho some of their games sucked reguardless

  16.4.2006 08:44 #2

• Nick600

  @ sisph
  
  ... like this one here. LOL!
  
  http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=907

  16.4.2006 20:46 #3

• mmalyszko

  Finally after all these years, and so many complaints, its over. I wonder what kind of protection they'll use now.

  16.4.2006 23:47 #4

• johnodd4

  this company needs to be investigated for illegal activitys
  
  what i am starting to get tired of is all the software that is being produced with
  
  you have to install google search bar spyware or you have to install google desktop spyware or you have to install weatherbug spyware
  
  it is quite anoying when you want to try out freeware or shareware and it contains all of this garbage even themes for windows are doing the same thing

  17.4.2006 00:27 #5

• ZippyDSM

  Starforce sucks regaurdless they have alot of issues andthos that bent or broke the law to harass others need to be fired or sued,they might can stay in bissness if they use a commen since simple CD checking program but like most companys they want soemthign that will crash the system if it cant do what it wants ....

  17.4.2006 17:20 #6

• Earlacey

  Good. Starforce is crap!
  
  People are alwasy going to download games and crack them, it's just the nature of the beast.
  
  However, when I pay X amount of dollars for my legit copy of a game, I am under the pretense that it will work.
  
  Thansk to Starforce that was not the case and when I contacted Ubisoft's tech support...they said the game would not work on my computer becasue of my hardware...
  
  Funny, I am a gamer and every other game I play on my high laptop works, just not games with Starforce....
  
  

  17.4.2006 19:48 #7

• sammorris

  Quote:Finally after all these years, and so many complaints, its over.Oh, If only.
  I hope other companies follow suit. I'm surprised the FBI allow such complaints, but then again, it being a copyright organisation, it's above the law anyway.

  18.4.2006 14:04 #8

• Chris1000

  The biggest problem with StarForce is that it was hard-coded into the protection that it would NOT work with DVD-RW drives (Which are fast becoming the ONLY ones available!).

  18.4.2006 14:23 #9

• sammorris

  How do you mean?

  18.4.2006 14:37 #10

• p4_tt

  I always thought Starforge was like the best protection games could have but it is still annoying software that you have to install or you don't get to play the game which is not fair after paying for the thing although saying that it did stop a lot of piracy until it got cracked. Still am pretty shocked Ubi dumped it, must be some truth in the lawsuit.

  18.4.2006 15:03 #11

• ZippyDSM

  p4_tt
  now that star force is dead people need to look over STEAM forced Stat gathering feels a bit to much big brother is playing with you,forced online only with auto updates and stuff.so what happens if I am offline or STEAM goes under or net is down? I cant paly the game like you cant paly HL2 from the CD becuse it has steam forced onto it....yes it offers a offline paly mode but once you update it it becomes online only.
  

  18.4.2006 15:13 #12

• sammorris

  Steam is a pain in the backside, but it's far less illegal than starforce is. I'm glad some game developers have actually realised that starforce is a breach of the law, and have acted in the right way. I'm just hoping we can keep the SF infestation down before SF4 takes hold - instant reboots don't sound too pleasant.

  19.4.2006 00:51 #13