With all the problems that Starforce had caused, several publishers chose not to implement the protection program in their games.

First, Auran, the Australian developer of Galactic Civilizations 2:Dread Lords announced that the game will be released without Starforce:

“With the full support of the developers, Auran is publishing this game with no copy protection, instead relying on a quality product that provides registered users with frequent updates, additional features and outstanding support to create a best-seller.”

The only protection that Dread Lords has it’s a serial number which give access to the users to download patches and updates for the game. The first update will be release late this month.

Aspyr Media, the publisher of Spellforce 2 for North America made the following statement:

“We wanted everyone to know that Starforce will not be included in the retail release of this game. Starforce is being used in the demo in cooperation with the European publishers of the title, JoWood Productions. This is to help prevent reverse engineering that could lead to our product being put up on illegal software networks. We apologize for any inconveniences Starforce may have caused and would again like to reassure everyone that we have chosen alternative copy protection software for our final release product.”

But what is Starforce?

Starforce is a software copy protection tool installed by PC game publishers, which is designed to prevent the casual copying of retail CDROM applications. It installs as a hidden device driver, without the end-user’s knowledge or consent. And with all the problems that Starforce had caused to many PC users, the Starforce team asked the publishers to release patches that will remove the protection.

Happy gaming.