Then why didn't you say "blockbuster" in the first place? "Must-have" to me (and I suspect many others reading that particular combination of words) means a game that you must have.

Exactly. Some of those you mentioned, Teddy, sure aren't 'must-haves' IMO. Another SF game that I enjoyed besides those already mentioned was Soldiers.

I think if you have problems with SF you should take them up on their offer. If you think $1000 isn't much, then you can afford to get a new CD/DVD drive. Otherwise, don't play the games.

GW: Grad Mcgarth W/N Going to finish game before I start a new character me thinks

When I say "must-have" games I mean games that are the "blockbusters" of games, the ones that sell the most (since this was an arguement about companies losing money)

Eh?

Then why didn't you say "blockbuster" in the first place? "Must-have" to me (and I suspect many others reading that particular combination of words) means a game that you must have.

As in: not having the game is far less palatable than having the game. And in this case, you got some examples of games that people had decided they simply must have in spite of the CD carrying StarForce protection on it..

Lots of blockbusters are must have games, but they're two separate ideas; plenty of "must have" games don't sell worth shit. Trackmania Sunrise is a great example of that.

-----
GW: Tashen Boke [R/Me]; Rosti The Ninja [Mo/R]; Gort Grimley [W/Ne]

"spyware-esk progs like SF are pretty craptacular and pointless when it's so easy to get around. They just limit the person who actually wants to pay money for it."
That last point is a very good one. Usually these copy protection systems inconveniance legit customers more than non legit. But SF is not very conveniant to get around. I dont call unplugging cd drives conveniant.

This comment was edited on Dec 15, 20:21.

When I say "must-have" games I mean games that are the "blockbusters" of games, the ones that sell the most (since this was an arguement about companies losing money)

Whether or not you personally like Q4, D3, or FEAR, you can't debate that they sell more than any starforce game. BTW FEAR > AoE3 ;D

I'll definately pay for a game like FEAR just because they tried something different in the bland formula. Everyone agrees the levels are repetitive (did I just go through this same office room....for the past 10 hours? Owell at least it has slowmo), but it's not the cut and paste Q4.

I will admit that sequals are a big part of the degrading PC gaming industry. Mostly the ones that are slapped together, rehashed, and repackaged at 50 big ones. PC games are not going to self-destruct from piracy (just with movies/music/consoles), and it won't be saved because of StarForce (nor will it "destroy the pirating scene as we know it". If you knew the mentality of the people who crack it, they like the challenge of it.)

If they make a great multiplayer game, you can't play on non-pirated servers (most games), so that should be a direction in anti-piracy, perhaps the best one imo. STEAM-like apps are another means. But spyware-esk progs like SF are pretty craptacular and pointless when it's so easy to get around. They just limit the person who actually wants to pay money for it.

Keep bashing Starforce and keep your pennies from any games using them - good advice. Besides completely cracking it, these are the two best strategies.

I could say the same about more than half on your list. Civ4 had a number of bugs and not very polished. It felt very unfinished. Another month could have made it a killer game, but it just felt more of a chore to play because of the missing OBVIOUS needed interface features.
Quake 4, blah just another boring FPS, nothing special. D3's only thing going was better graphics, again, a fairly boring FPS. FEAR has great gun battles, and does a decent job at keeping you tense, but is very repetitive on level design. I mean come on, give us some non office building levels.
I wouldn't put hardly any of those in my "must have" list. HL2 of course, AoE3 yeah probably. But yes, I would put the new PoP game and X3 (at least when they do the 1.3 patch, its just like X2, not worth playing or buying until its patched up). Its a matter of opinion what is a must have game, and X3 has a decent sized cult following.

Its funny you critisize companies that sell sequals, and yet all of your games except two are exactly that, sequels. A really bad example of a sequel company is EA, which is quite well known for selling worthless expensive sequels (like the 3 or more worthless expansions for 1942 game).

BTW, I buy most of the games I like. I have a huge retail game collection, probably more than 1,000 games. As the guy below mentioned, its often better to try them out before you buy them.
This comment was edited on Dec 15, 16:12.

who the fuck writes these antipiracy programs: former pirates.

antipiracy is such a big industry now, do you honestly believe its in their best financial interests to truly, effectively stop it?

bull, its now a part of the circle of capitalism. the more people pirate, the more the companies will complain they're losing profit and thus justify the latest, most expensive, most elaborate anti-piracy scheme which also justifies a higher price, which in turn, forces more people to pirate...lather rinse repeat.

pirates love the challenge of cracking the newest stuff, and companies, in truth, profit from piracy. its win win for both sides...who gets screwed? the legit customer. hate to sound like a conspiracy nut but the 'threat' of piracy is such a hoax.

Yeah, because there is no such thing as pirating consol games..........................

Keep pirating PC software, all it will do is move the last of the game developers exclusively to consoles.

Reviews? Their worth is debatable.

I'd say it's only debatable to the person who wrote the review. Otherwise game reviews are worthless. It's like asking someone else if you will like a particular food. In addition, game reviews from the mainstream game industry publications are either fawning to the game publishers since they buy the ads in the same magazines or they are disingenuously provocative or controversial to generate sales of their own magazine. In addition you never (or almost never) see mention of the specific copy-protection used in a game in a review so consumers who read reviews still don't know in advance what copy-protection a game has based upon them. A review is no legitimate substitute to being able to try a game before purchase.

By the way, kudos for a well-written and thought provoking post.

there has to be SOMEONE with enough money to spend on a trip, a brand new pc, and the assurance of being able to reproduce the problem, so that WE in the end can point our fingers to starforce and say: BITCH!

The best way to punish those Starforce fools is to simply keep posting the horror stories on publishers' support websites and to not buy any games with Starforce in them. If you really want Starforce to disappear, that is what it will take.

Rather oddly the starforce rep had been saying there's no way to slow drives, until someone found out the nero thing.

LOL! And people are supposed to fly all the way to Moscow and trust those guys to payoff on this challenge.

I will never trust my PC and its valuable data to software from those clowns.

Pay for your games or have the decency and shame to just keep your mouth shut.

I have paid for several games that simply don't work. I have lost a lot of money on games like that over the years, and I will not be burned again.

We have a software market in which 80% of games are crap and depend on quick sales in the initial two-week release period to garner the lion's share of the profit from a particular release. Therefore we see a lot of advertising hype from publishers to try to squeeze as many sales out of that short timespan as possible. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I have bought many legit games over the years that were flat-out missing features or functionality that was hyped in ads or advertised on the box, or that simply didn't work at all without a patch or No-CD crack.

We also have a software market that does not permit the return of opened software. An unfortunate circumstance due to a few pirates ruining it for everyone else, but a circumstance nonetheless.

So as a consumer, I have no way of testing a game to see if I like it or if it is going to cause a problem for my system until I pay money for it that I can never get back. The industry has set up a system in which all of the risk of purchase is put on the consumer. Didn't like the game? It screwed up your OS? The game tells you you don't have your store-bought disc in the drive when you clearly do? Copy protection messing with underlying functionality of your computer? Tough shit. Figure it out yourself. That's the attitude you get from publishers that assume you are a pirate until you prove otherwise.

Due to the above circumstances I find it no surprise that many are taking the path of pirating a game first to see if they like it and it works with their system. The end user is simply reclaiming their ability to thoroughly analyze the software before making a decision to purchase it. Sure there are a lot of people who will download a game and never think about paying for it, but they never would have anyway regardless of Starforce or not. If they couldn't get their pirated copy to work they'd simply move on to something else. The developer would never see any money either way.

Reviews? Their worth is debatable. They are no more than someone's opinion of the game, and I have frequently disagreed with established reviews. (Still can't believe I wasted $50 on that piece of shit game Manhunt, thanks Gamespot.) Demos? For the most part, they are designed to take the most exciting aspects of the game and play them up, giving you a skewed view of the actual finished product. And besides, who wouldn't love to have Starforce installed on their computer just to try out a demo of a game!

The bottom line is that developers and publishers want to make absolutely sure they have complete control over my purchase from start to finish, and have rigged the rules of the game to the point where the consumer is the only one that loses if the software does not work as advertised or is not what was promised.

The problem is, they no longer have exclusive control of the distribution process, so it is no longer a choice that is strictly theirs to make. I pirate games so I can have the freedom to decide whether or not to make a purchase. I buy the games I like because let's face it, no one works for free and the only direct method you have of telling developers what you want is by buying their product. The last game I bought was The Warriors for the Xbox (which is fucking awesome, and anyone who even remotely likes games about fighting should buy it). Among people who download or copy games, are people like me in the majority, or are most just dirty pirates? Who knows. But it's irrelevant, because the honest consumers like myself are the ones who put money in developers' pockets, not the idiots that have no interest in ever giving them their money anyway.

So...Chaos Theory (perhaps the landmark SF game), Prince of Persia, and X3 (bug-riddled, more time on beta testing, less time on SF protection).

I'm talking must-have games like Q4, D3, HL2, AoE3, Civ4, FEAR, Most Wanted, CoD2. I just hate people that blame sales on pirates. I know free mods that spend more time and effort on games then some of these companies that sell 50 dollar "sequal" games.

name a "must-have" starforce game

Chaos Theory

-----
GW: Tashen Boke [R/Me]; Rosti The Ninja [Mo/R]; Gort Grimley [W/Ne]

Right fly off to russia with no fucking language skills and god only know what can happen to you. Plus starforce is the enemy why would you volunatrily go to enemy territory and help the enemy? It's a suicide mission and the mission of a traitor.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?

...or is it that we cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbours?

.. or wait! Maybe it's that we need to gain access to the central nexus before we can plant the destabilising viral program? No, that's definitely SF..

Eek I'm so confused!

-----
GW: Tashen Boke [R/Me]; Rosti The Ninja [Mo/R]; Gort Grimley [W/Ne]

there has to be SOMEONE with enough money to spend on a trip, a brand new pc, and the assurance of being able to reproduce the problem, so that WE in the end can point our fingers to starforce and say: BITCH!

Securrom drivers have been removed after install and NOCD patch used instead. Unfortunately, at this time, the same cannot be done with Starforce, so it will be avoided at all costs.

For a couple bucks and chewing gum, I don't think so. The prize money is an insult.

Ha ha this will be awesome to see all you Starforce haters get owned

Whats the matter, no one has the balls to try it?