Piracy & PC Games

[norb]

The securom was cracked right away, but I don't think the fully cracked exe ever completely worked. I base this on the number of people that posted problems playing on the MMG boards that were found out to be using the cracked exe.

I do believe that in time, the copy protection can be removed in a patch. Once you are over the initial surge, you can remove it without hurting your sales.

[louie raider]

yeah, i think i read that if you can get the game past the first month without anyone cracking it, you've done an excellent job... most popular games can't even get past the first day without getting pirated, which obviously severely impacts any possible profit...

i don't envy the choice you'll have to make about which way to go with this... the game has a few things going for it vs. piracy (niche audience, specific demographic, etc) but the copy protection is a tough issue to address...

[ironsight]

Louie R. Wrote: I read the article's take on SecuRom and StarForce and it seems that a lot of their problems were misconceptions,..

Louie, there are NO misconceptions as far as StarFarce at least as far as on the user end! It screwed up my old PC big time! It utilizes hidden drivers started at bootup which run ALL the time whether the game is played or not. Further, it runs in the highest priority innermost root kernals along with and competing with the OS. It intervenes, intertwines and subjugates each and every optical driver and in some instances can mechanically ruin an optical drive. It does NOT uninstall when the game is uninstalled.
UbiSoft received so many complaints regarding this piece of sh_t that it discontinued its use a couple years ago.

Granted, some of the newer PC's are somewhat semi-immune to StarForce to a greater or lesser degree, but i ain't ever going to install a PC game with it including this new game if it unfortunately utilizes it.

Boycott Star Force:

http://wiki.boycottstarforce.net/index.php/Main_Page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce