StarForce looking to come back to US PC games

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StarForce looking to come back to US PC games

Posted Jun 17th 2009 10:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Biz, Hardware

Ah, StarForce. PC gamers around the world learned to hate that name as the Russian-based copy protection company found that its software not only angered gamers but may have even damaged PCs which had the software installed.

After some really bad customer and public relations a few years ago, StarForce became persona non grata among US publishers who feared that using the software would cause their sales to drop. Now the company is coming back with a new version of its software that it hopes will be used by more companies.

But has the damage of previous years been too much for StarForce to make a comeback? In a new chat at Gamasutra, the company's deputy marketing director Dmitry Guseff states, "We do not intend to repeat our past mistakes." Their new version allows the consumer to actually select to use either disk protection or online activation for their PC game. And what about people who think any DRM set-up is bad? Guseff states, " . . . choosing the right scheme for specific games and proper copy protection implementation does nothing to breach gamers' rights and could be an additional and very effective tool against piracy." Okay . . .

Tags: starforce

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

I bet it still messes up PCs.

Honestly, I'd rather use EA's draconian activation system from Spore and Mass Effect than anything made by StarForce. Hell, I think that any company that hires out DRM rather than developing their own should be avoided anyway.Posted at 12:56PM on Jun 17th 2009 by Covarr

I hate that shit with a passion Posted at 1:00PM on Jun 17th 2009 by Game_playa

Time to load up starfuck again. Posted at 1:41PM on Jun 17th 2009 by Dragan

I doubt the people at starforce are stupid, and this concept of using one of two types of protection selected by the user sounds interesting.

The only problem is that I like many others have heard that starforce protection has damaged PC's in the past. They are going to need a lot of work to fix that reputation.

Perhaps they could go the route that CCP devs usually take. A exhaustive investagation and a detailed publication of the results of the investagation and what steps will be taken to prevent any future problems in the problem area.

IMO starforce will not do anything like this so they get to wait a year plus however long it take for their software to be implement in several successful games to regain my faith. They could have it now if they would come clean about everything to the public and themselves... Maybe even offer to repair damage done.Posted at 2:18PM on Jun 17th 2009 by edward

"IMO starforce will not do anything like this so they get to wait a year plus however long it take for their software to be implement in several successful games to regain my faith. They could have it now if they would come clean about everything to the public and themselves... Maybe even offer to repair damage done."

I agree with edward on this one. How could I be expected to trust the product? No matter how good the game was, I would not even consider buying it until several titles had come out with no problems.

And with solutions out there like Steam and Impulse, why go this route anyway?Posted at 6:13PM on Jun 17th 2009 by Solice

I'll just pirate those games instead.Posted at 12:54AM on Jun 21st 2009 by Bob