StarForce deeply unethical?

[ciril_bofh]

I just read an article about a StarForce employee who posted a link to a torrent file on their forums for a game, whose makers dared not to use any copy protection at all.
http://www.theregister.com/2006/03/12/s ... rotection/.
I mean, how deeply unethical is that and how far can those guys go in their righteous crusade against piracy?

[Tsar_of_Cows]

Yes, it probably is deeply unethical, and is also probably illegal, as it would be encourageing people to commit a crime.

[Antilogic]

This was already covered in the galatic civ 2 thread...and then split and locked. did you have to dig it up again?

[DrCBVI]

This was already covered in the galatic civ 2 thread...and then split and locked. did you have to dig it up again?

I really don't see the problem with this thread, the other one was locked as the poster said he was going to circumvent Starforce. The only one who seems to be advocating anything illegal here is, well, Starforce.

But really, that's incredibly pathetic for Starforce to sink even lower than I thought it could go.

~DrCBVI~
Mind you, they were already at the bottom, probably had to bust out a shovel and start digging a hole.

[xeon_1]

i smell a lock comming

[Tsar_of_Cows]

Hang on, let me get my "Moderator Crystal Ball" and anticipate their every move...

After a bit of thought, it seems extremly childish of a company to do that, and there is the inevitable "well it's going to get pirated anyhow" arguement.

Pirating these days is crazy, I mean Oblivion has actually allready been pirated, and it isn't out for another 2 weeks!

Perhaps getting rid of these obtrusive gammer annoyance / pirate speedbump things that supposedly offer protection is the way to go. I say pirate speedbumps because theat's all they are, the y'har me heartiesa! lot will plunder it anyway, while gamers, such as myself, who pay for things get the real punishment - hassle.

[Rapier]

A mis-guided employee on the company forum doesn't make a whole company unethical. The makers of Starforce have their take on copy protection, stardock have theirs, and we all have our own. The market will ultimately decide who is right or wrong, no matter what conclusion this debate comes to.

[Mars Mug]

Didn’t Starforce as a company take corrective action? I didn’t see the Gal Civ people getting too excited over what happened, they seemed more bemused than anything to me. As Rapier said, it was a mis-guided employee who started this, and I don’t see that the actions swing the copy protection debate one way or the other.

[xeon_1]

i hope the game developers will make an other kind of copy protection more along the lines of an unplayable game at release and then give a patch only to registerd users

[ciril_bofh]

In my opinnion they are responsible as a company for the damage that has been done.

For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary.

So much for them being amused with it (quoted from galciv site)

Stardock should look into this issue and try to file a case against them, at least that's what I think.
Anyway, feel free to flame me, I'm off to order galciv2, to prove starforce people wrong

[bladesofdeath]

moderators must be on holiday

[esd]

moderators must be on holiday

Or eating.

Yup, I'm locking this as previous discussions on Starforce we have allowed to continue have always resulted in a forum member breaking the rules by either linking to, admitting or justifying piracy.

[Belfrahn]

I've recently bought, and enjoyed X2 as a demo of sorts (before the demo for X3 came out). I was about to order X3 over the net when I ran into this article:

http://cgw.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148721

In my personal opinion, to see a company -Starforce- activley trying to harm another unless they comply as customers is called extortion and I, for one, will not participate in such malicious bullying tactics.

This, sadly, reflects on Egosoft (a seemingly wonderful company that has activley updated it's games and listened to its player base) that has made the mistake of associating itself with the aforementioned company. The results in my particular case will be to order another game (harmed by Starforce's bullying actions) instead of X3.

Egosoft, look who you associate with!

[Kraznor]

/hears keys rattling

[Rapier]

Discussed here and locked. For an idea of what may happen to this thread, do a search for StarForce.