[JP_Russell]

From the "How it works" section, it sounds like the latest SecuROM 7 with activation limits is what is used, which I'm okay with. However, I had tried to find out some time ago (a bit less than a year, I'd guess) what copy protection was used, and found in one of the information sections for the shop on the site that apparently all the games here were protected with StarForce (even those that were not when bought boxed, as though StarForce was the universal protection for the shop). I do not trust this potentially harmful DRM. Does the shop still use StarForce (if I'm correct in thinking it ever did), or does it now use SecuROM or something different? Or do all games from the shop just have their default copy protection, so games that used StarForce will have StarForce in the game download from here, games that used SafeDisk will have that, games that had none won't have any, etc.

Thanks for any replies.

[Melanie68]

As far as I know the StarForce used for the downloaded games (I'm not sure if they all use it or not) is not the same Starforce as that on CD-ROMS. The one used for the downloads is a digital rights management system and doesn't have any associated files with it.

The Adventure Shop folks (or another person in the know), will hopefully confirm and/or clarify.

[JP_Russell]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

As far as I know the StarForce used for the downloaded games (I'm not sure if they all use it or not) is not the same Starforce as that on CD-ROMS. The one used for the downloads is a digital rights management system and doesn't have any associated files with it.

The Adventure Shop folks (or another person in the know), will hopefully confirm and/or clarify.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying the DRM we typically know as StarForce is not used in the downloads, but a seperate DRM that is also called StarForce?

[Melanie68]

It's digital rights management. But it seems what people don't like about Starforce (and they seem to be directing their wrath at SecureRom now) are the files that the protection system installs to check physical CDs. As far as I know, those kinds of files are not used on downloaded products. It checks serial numbers, how many times it's been installed, etc.

Like I said, I'm not an expert, so I'm probably out of my league here.

[Marek]

StarForce is the name of a company and they sell many different copy protection methods. As far as I'm aware there aren't any games on Adv Shop that use the version of StarForce that caused people problems.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, every publisher who puts games on Adv Shop is allowed to choose their own copy protection solution if they want to, so it may differ per game. I'll ask the Adv Shop guys to clarify.