Aurora_Boreas
10-27-2005, 09:14 PM
I sent this as an e-mail to the CEO on DreamCatcher's website. I dont know about you but having StarForce on the demo is a bit overboard. I would understand on a full release, but on a demo? They are worried people are going to distribute a free part of the game illegally or what? I've had problems with it in the past and I refuse to repeat those problems. Im really dissapointed and I wonder if there are others that share in my refusal to install this demo. I was really looking forward to play this demo.
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I am writing to you in the hopes that you will share this very important message along to your team and managers about my concerns with StarForce.
When I saw that your demo was up for download, I was very excited about the concept and gameplay that I spent the few minutes downloading it to my computer. But when I found out that it had StarForce, my excitement for this game was shattered. Its bad enough that games come shipping with this piece of malware, but why on a demo? I would understand that if I had bought the game, but why on only a part of a game that is distributed for free? That to me is so rediculous that a company would go so far as to put copy protecton on a demo!
I had to endure with the problems of StarForce from Silent Hunter III. My computer had slower boot-time and I would get random pauses in the system. Other users had problems of not even installing the game in the first place. After finding out how to remove the malware, which really irks me that they would install it in secret and offer no way to un-install without doing online research, I was done with all games that was shipped with this piece of "content protection".
I am glad that I was warned during the install, as it is rediculous for it to be on a demo in the first place and I was given the option not to proceed. I have now deleted this demo from my system and I do not plan on buying this game despite my anticipations. I also do not want to support a company that treats its customers as criminals first. I understand that piracy is a problem, but treating your customers like this by giving them more headaches like not being able to install a legitimately-bought game will only make it worse as StarForce has gained a bad reputation and there are already many people who are boycotting games that ship with this malware.
Please take this into consideration, I do not believe that integrating StarForce will help you with your profits at all. Instead it will get you blacklisted amongst gamers and you will loose customers and sales. In fact it may even do the opposite and encourage hacking/defeating of the copy protection and encourage piracy. These are all legitimate concerns that you need to address. Please reconsider or face the fact that sales will not be as high as they could be. Thank you for reading and taking this under consideration.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am writing to you in the hopes that you will share this very important message along to your team and managers about my concerns with StarForce.
When I saw that your demo was up for download, I was very excited about the concept and gameplay that I spent the few minutes downloading it to my computer. But when I found out that it had StarForce, my excitement for this game was shattered. Its bad enough that games come shipping with this piece of malware, but why on a demo? I would understand that if I had bought the game, but why on only a part of a game that is distributed for free? That to me is so rediculous that a company would go so far as to put copy protecton on a demo!
I had to endure with the problems of StarForce from Silent Hunter III. My computer had slower boot-time and I would get random pauses in the system. Other users had problems of not even installing the game in the first place. After finding out how to remove the malware, which really irks me that they would install it in secret and offer no way to un-install without doing online research, I was done with all games that was shipped with this piece of "content protection".
I am glad that I was warned during the install, as it is rediculous for it to be on a demo in the first place and I was given the option not to proceed. I have now deleted this demo from my system and I do not plan on buying this game despite my anticipations. I also do not want to support a company that treats its customers as criminals first. I understand that piracy is a problem, but treating your customers like this by giving them more headaches like not being able to install a legitimately-bought game will only make it worse as StarForce has gained a bad reputation and there are already many people who are boycotting games that ship with this malware.
Please take this into consideration, I do not believe that integrating StarForce will help you with your profits at all. Instead it will get you blacklisted amongst gamers and you will loose customers and sales. In fact it may even do the opposite and encourage hacking/defeating of the copy protection and encourage piracy. These are all legitimate concerns that you need to address. Please reconsider or face the fact that sales will not be as high as they could be. Thank you for reading and taking this under consideration.