Ubisoft drops Starforce
Off a cliff, hopefully.
Amidst growing complaints of potentially harmful security breaches and the recent filing of a class action lawsuit, French publisher Ubisoft has officially ceased its use of Starforce copy protection.
The controversial anti-piracy technology has been repeatedly cited the source of various problems, ranging from hardware crashes to rendering CD and DVD burners completely unusable.
Last month, Ubisoft, which was the largest publisher of Starforce protected titles, was hit with a USD 5 million lawsuit relating to potentially harmful security breaches on consumer's PC hardware as a result of the Starforce DRM system.
Ubisoft's official statement on the situation reads: "Ubisoft Inc. has been served with a complaint which was filed in the District Court of the Northern District of California relating to alleged unintended effects on end-user hardware and software relating to use of Starforce's software as part of some Ubisoft products. Ubisoft takes its customer concerns very seriously and is investigating the alleged complaints about Starforce's software."
"Ubisoft's goal is to find solutions for its customers if there are problems with Ubisoft products. As an immediate step, Ubisoft has decided to use an alternative copy protection system to Starforce for upcoming releases. Ubisoft is investigating other possible steps at this time," the statement continues.
The Starforce protection system will now not be used in the publisher's forthcoming RPG, Heroes of Might and Magic V, although there has been no official confirmation of an alternative anti-piracy solution so far, and Ubisoft is unable to comment further on the situation while the class action lawsuit is under way.
Ubisoft's decision to stop using Starforce follows a similar decision from Aspyr Media, who have stated that they will no longer be using Starforce protection for their forthcoming game, Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars.