Starforce Posts Thier Objections to Toms Hardware

[Soulcommander]

Hello all,
Well Now Starforce thinks they need to strike back at Toms Hardware so they have posted this article: http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658

I urge you guys to read it. I am very upset. They call us begginer level hackers. I am no hacker at all! Then they say they have had NO feedback from customers that have had to reformat their computers. Well they didn't fix my problem in the first place so why in the world would they even say that? Yes I did have to reformat, but it didnt make my problem go away. My CDRW was still not working. This article if you read it is so unprofessional in my opinion. I'm terribly upset and wrote to UBI to tell them how upset this made me feel.

For those of you who haven't gone through the Starforce fiasco you are so lucky. I am already starting to get letters from the people that have had problems and this Starforce article made them feel the same way as it made me feel.
Starforce will never be on my computer again!
If UBI acted this way the general public would never want to do business with them again either!

One other point I would like to make. Starforce wants us to come to them with problems right?
Then why when we do they lock the posts on their forum and later delete them all so they can't be read? Why? Because they don't want the public to see that their product is bad. They don't like negative feedback.

Enough said.

SC

[Soulcommander]

Hello all,
Well Now Starforce thinks they need to strike back at Toms Hardware so they have posted this article: http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658 (http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658)

I urge you guys to read it. I am very upset. They call us begginer level hackers. I am no hacker at all! Then they say they have had NO feedback from customers that have had to reformat their computers. Well they didn't fix my problem in the first place so why in the world would they even say that? Yes I did have to reformat, but it didnt make my problem go away. My CDRW was still not working. This article if you read it is so unprofessional in my opinion. I'm terribly upset and wrote to UBI to tell them how upset this made me feel.

For those of you who haven't gone through the Starforce fiasco you are so lucky. I am already starting to get letters from the people that have had problems and this Starforce article made them feel the same way as it made me feel.
Starforce will never be on my computer again!
If UBI acted this way the general public would never want to do business with them again either!

One other point I would like to make. Starforce wants us to come to them with problems right?
Then why when we do they lock the posts on their forum and later delete them all so they can't be read? Why? Because they don't want the public to see that their product is bad. They don't like negative feedback.

Enough said.

SC

[Kaleun1961]

It does come off sounding offensive. Fortunately, I have not had a problem with my optical drives after installing this game. I do have sympathy for those legitimate game owners who have had such problems. I fully agree that game publishers have the right to protect their product, but not by the route of damaging the game buyer's hardware. It is insulting for Starforce to fob off in this manner those who have a legitimate grievance.

I have no sympathy for pirates of games, music, software. etc. All of the software on my computer has been acquired legally, by purchasing if from a store. Same goes for my music, I buy it all from a store or order it online. My kids are not allowed to go into peer to peer networks and get pirated music or games. My sympathy is with those musicians and game publishers who have to invest in order to release their product. They have the fair chance to expect a return on their investment. As a paying customer, I anticipate that some of my money will go toward future products which I may desire to purchase.

It's too bad that the pirates have jeopardised this interchange between producer and customer. We all suffer in the end. The least innocent in this case end up being the most punished: the legitimate customer. We don't have the skills or the desire to illegally acquire our products, but somehow get hit in the crossfire between the publishers and the pirates, and it sucks.

[Soulcommander]

UPDATE!!!!

Today Oct 25 2005 I received a very LONG distance phone call from Aaron McKenna, the gentleman that did the article on Starforce Copy Protection. Seen here: http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/01/the_war_on_game_pirates/

He called all the way from Ireland to the heartland of the USA.

He is a very nice gentleman and we spoke about many things in regards to the gamming community. Aaron told me he wrote Dennis at Starforce after the Starforce article was posted here: http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658 (http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658)

Aaron has given me permission to post an email that he sent to Dennis Zhidkov of Starforce. Dennis is the man that posted the article that upset many in the gamming community that I referred to in this post at the beginning. I found Aaron McKenna's response to be very much the feeling of some of us that read the Starforce article that Mr. Zhidkov posted on Starforce's web site.

Aaron sent Dennis the following email. Which again I have been given permission to post this day OCT 25th 2005 by Mr. McKenna:


Dear Mr. Zhidkov,

Aaron McKenna here â€" I was the author of the piece to which you refer, and I find some interesting points of discussion in your letter.

First off, allow me to introduce myself. I am not, as you perhaps seem to be inclined to believe, a videogame pirate. I am a journalist who, at the time of writing that, was also working for such publications as PC Format, PC Gamer (UK) and the Games Developer Magazine.

I think, Mr. Zhidkov that you have misinterpreted much of that which I have said. In the opening paragraph, referring to Doom III, I was pointing out the ineptitude of copy protection measures on the game and the impact which this can have on the videogaming industry. I would point out to you that a similar opinion piece at the time can be found in PC Gamer UK, which is a much respected videogames magazine.

In terms of "delighting" in pirates successes, I think that you again misinterpret me. The point of my article from beginning to end was to point out the damage which piracy is doing to the videogaming industry, the currently and previously ineffective methods used by videogame publishers to protect what, as you rightly say, is theirs and the increasingly militant copy-protection systems which they are, understandably to a degree, now introducing.

I would not ask for your company PR line on the reliability of StarForce (among other systems), or its interference with machines. As I say, I have worked in the videogames industry as a journalist for quite some time, dealing with videogames on a daily basis for review. Myself and my peers have come across many games with StarForce, among other systems, installed and as much as one or two problems might be considered circumstantial evidence against the system, consistent and regular problems following the same patterns I would view as concrete beyond reasonable doubt.I appreciate however that as a member of the company which produces this software you won't be joining myself or my peers in condemning it any time soon.

The biggest irony with such systems that I have found is that they fail, in the most part, to do their job. You and I both know that the aim of any protection software is to delay pirates for the critical first few weeks of the games time on shelves. It would be technically unfeasible to prevent totally and permanently any "cracking" of the software, but we are content with holding the pirates at bay for a time.

The problem with systems such as the one produced by your company is that it doesn't do this â€" Silent Hunter III for example, from Ubisoft, came with StarForce and yet the game was cracked and available for download by pirates around the same time as the game was reaching retail outlets.

The most ironic thing of all in this is that games that are cracked come without the software which causes so many problems.

The one thing I would ask of your company and others is that you stop putting your hands over your ears and refusing to listen to those experiencing these problems, and admit that StarForce is a faulty copy protection system. Whatever you may say about the quality of your system, thousands of forum posts from average users and the experiences of professionals who deal with videogames, computers and StarForce on a regular basis cannot be totally written off as folly.

Thank you for your time and your letter,


Aaron McKenna



STARFORCE RESPONSE:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your response!
I respect your opinion.
Sincerely,
Dennis Zhidkov



Thank you for the opportunity to share this with the public Aaron.

Souclommander

[Kaleun1961]

Now I'm wondering as a legitimate owner of the game where I can get a "no CD" version of the game for the day when my DVD is scratched or broken and I can't buy another copy. I would at least like the ability to make a backup copy of my existing disc.

[Soulcommander]

Hi All...I just wanted to link this to here:
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/857101043/m/2091013073

You will find alot of threads on this topic here...Plus Aaron McKenna pays UBI.com a vist too! Yes he posts here!

Thank you....

SC

[tdc5013]

I think it's shocking that he said he wouldnt be surprised if the article wasnt written by a russian.

I don't know if I'm blowing things out of proportion here but is he saying that he wouldnt be surprised if it was written by a communist? Or just a Russian, either way its racist, but id like to know

[Soulcommander]

It seems that some were having a problem finding this post with Arrons McKenna's letter to Starforce. And since I have received numerous requests from seekers to read it, I thought I would bump it as they say, to get it back towards the top of the heep!

Thank you,
SC

[Capn_Ash]

Ok, i just realised i was posting in a Prince of Persia forum. lol

Thanks again SC for the info, it seems i feel like i have been following you around the net for a few hours now.

Just wanted to say that the work you are doing here is touching gamers like myself. I new nothing about Starforce before today. But i'm now just amazed!

The response regarding AM's piracy article is just unbelievable! It looks as though the guy has written it expecting no-one to actually read the article. He hasn't even put a proper link up to it. Just the webpage as text almost to put people off. It looks purely, to me, as politics to appease their (starforce) customers. i.e the Devs.

It is effectively slanderous towards Aaron. Being a well respected journalist, that could possibly have had ramifications to his career.

Just incredible!

The more i see of the way starforce are handling the situation the more adamant it makes me to boycott any game using this company to protect their games.

[Soulcommander]

Capn_Ash....Thank you for the remarks. You probably have been following me around the net. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-indifferent.gif I have been answering emails, posts etc since 10:00am this morning and it's now 4:34pm. I did take a break in their to eat some left over Japanese food (That wasn't to bad actually less the flying fish eggs) LOL...No I'm not Japanese lol.

Again its fine folks like yourself that keep me at it. A "thank you" goes a long ways!

[Capn_Ash]

Those Russian Starfarce chaps ar so helpful:

http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=457

[Soulcommander]

Yeah you see now why so many people got upset and were swearing and so on. Can you blame them. Thats why I say its best to just stay away....No one needs to deal with this in their life over a stupid game. Yes I love games, but when grief and despair has to go along with my $40 purchase, I say it's not worth it.

[Capn_Ash]

SC as you know i found SF on my system without having any games with it. Although i don't recall having played any demos with it, it could have come from a demo. One thing i was thinking is, are music publishers using SF also (is it even possible?) i have played CDs on my machine that have asked to load files to my PC, though of coarse you aren't told what these files are.

Also until the recently i was unaware of the SF issue, but have been having a lot of problems with my DVD combo writer. It would read ok but writing was a mine field of coasters. Actually that's not quite true. No CD/DVD ever got burnt to as the drive was failing to write at all. I have been unable to backup my system for months. Yesterday i removed SF and can now burn. Of coarse this could be a coincidence. I don't think it is.

Furthermore i took a look at my system event viewer and find quite a few cdrom errors at start up. So i have to monitor this now and see if that clears up.

I would test this by getting SF back on my system to see if i can replicate that problem. Fat chance of that though! I will not risk my system for â£30 worth of gaming.

Edit: i've posted this in Boycott Starforce forum, so no need to answer my queries here.

[GT182]

I just read some of the problems and responces from Sage. This guys needs to look a bit deeper into SF and get his head out of the sand.

Capn_Ash, it was no coincidence. I had/have the same problem. I still have to give it a try tho to copy and burn a DVD "I" made. No, not anything that's has a copyright, just a video I made.

[GT182]

I see an Arron has aquired Prince of Persia last week. And, is having problems too. LOL I wonder if this is Arron from Tom's Hardware seeing what kind of fix they'd suggest. Which was putting it of on something else... as usual. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/51.gif

[Soulcommander]

Capn_Ash, I would just say that your lucky that your drive has returned to normal after removing SF. The one thing I can relate to is your statement: "Furthermore i took a look at my system event viewer and find quite a few cdrom errors at start up. So i have to monitor this now and see if that clears up."

This same thing occured with me in the Windows event viewer. They were time out errors associated with the drive.

[Capn_Ash]

Yeah rgr that, i was getting controller errors which equated with timeouts whilst trying to burn.

It's not conclusive, but easily enough for me. I will monitor my system. At least if it re-occurs i know i still have a problem. Or maybe that SF wasn't even to blame. Though there is enough evidence of their bad customer relations and the shoddy programming for me not to go near it anyways.

On the other hand, if it stays clear then i know my own conclusions. Hell maybe i could even win $5000. lol

[Soulcommander]

Haha on the $5000. You have already lost before you get there.

[irR4tiOn4L]

Starforce is a Russian company, just so you know why they say 'russian hacker'. I hate them.