Ralph:
"It looks to me like to like starforce is damaging sales, and future sales. But the companies that use this, only have themselves to blame. They're losing their legitimate buyers, fans, and casual gamers in the process. People who are unsure about what starforce does are frightened of installing games with it, because they lack the knowledge to rectify their system."
@Ralph:so far I have 3 games now with Starforce protection on my PC => Black Mirror, Syberia 2 (both adventures) and BD => no probs in installing either one. No problems with my PC (lock up, stubborn DVD or CD drive). No problem in playing them - Starforce versions do not seem to meddle with another. I'm not sure if the Spellforce addon is Starforce, but no prob here either. My CD read/write is even one that was named as being problematic with Starforce (not detecting the CD). I'm glad, my drive apparently does not know it is on a list of Starforce refusers. Maybe I'm lucky?
@general: I have no burn programs on my PC, no virtual drive - maybe this could be a reason for my non-probs. I don't download anything else than patches from the official sites, driver updates. C'est tout.
In any case, no protection has so far prevented me from buying a game I want to have - I have never burned a CD as a backup. The only CD I lost and had to re-buy was a game I lent to a friend, she broke it by accident, that's life.
I have never (so far) listened to someone telling me => don't buy this game, it won't run on... - I try it out myself.
I can't judge if a protection program damages sales - it doesn't in my case. And as you can see from the games I named => they are not all Larian <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> (just in case someone thinks this gamer here is merely a Larian fan girl and worships blindly)
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" /> @general: And about people not taking care of their CD => yes, I can underline this. I'm in charge of non-book media at my library and wonder how some adults (!) and youths treat DVD, CD-ROM, CD, videos. But this is not the fault of a protection program, hm? We make no backups in our library (regulations) - and I get very angry if I see a CD copy, because a member tried to cheat us <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/memad.gif" alt="" /> by keeping the original CD. If I can prove who damaged it, they have to replace it fully. In one case, I succeeded in blocking a member for a year because of this.
About the 3 games I mentioned => I have bought them for my library, no complaints so far - and members know, I check every complaint on my PC - so they can take another game for free.
Kiya
@general: 4 weeks ago, I had to check 3 games from the library - not sure if Sands of Time was the Starforce proggie, but it turned out this way => the gamer had not installed the Windows XP Service packs - after that he could play all 3. And I know, one of them was Starforce. Wish, I could remember the other 2 (one was a football game). Why I write this? Because it's not always the fault of Starforce... There are so many reasons why a game doesn't run - and in... some... very... rare... cases => it can be the gamer's system.