[Jatsie]

As this thread has served, and now outlived, its purpose, I have redacted it before casting it into oblivion where it shall forever gather virtual dust in the archives.

I vehemently deny anything purportedly quoted from me. It is all pure hearsay and thus legally inadmissible.

[seebaruk]

Hehe, good skills there matey. They really won't accept opened stuff back? That's pretty poor retailing there. By the way, what the hell is StarForce?

[Jatsie]

Originally Posted by seebaruk

What the hell is StarForce?

There's a thread on it here:

http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?t=14068

[seebaruk]

That sounds pretty pants alright/all right. Hey, I've got Still Life and I remember seeing it pop up when I run it. I've got a problem with that game, the sound occasionally cuts off after a few minutes and I have to restart the game again to get it back. I don't have that with any other games, do you think this StarForce bollocks might be causing it?

[Crunchy in milk]

Getting your money back via devious means might have been an ethical re-balancing of the scales but by its self, the only message your act of fraud bravery sends is your willingness to stoop as low as those who 'wronged' you (which I applaud).

No one associated with Starforce or Amazon will ever know (or at the very least, care) why you returned the product.

[RLacey]

On the other hand, some poor sod will now be sold a copy of Dreamfall that isn't actually new and sealed .

[Karmillo]

Oh it will be sealed allright, just badly

[seebaruk]

Well, it is technically sealed, and hasn't been played so it's as good as new. Unless the super glue trickled into the box and knackered the disc or something. I'm sure Jatsie was extra careful though

I still wanna get revenge on Orange for deciding to suddenly stop my free texts without telling me, it cost me 50 quid in the end cos by the time I'd realised and finally managed to get my tariff changed, it was four months later. I hope whichever cockface came up with that idea gets hit by a truck. Anyway, sorry, any excuse for a rant.

[SCRUGAtes13]

Originally Posted by Jat316sob

This is the story of how your valiant hero took on a large multinational corporation, and won:

For a number of reasons I decided to pre-order Dreamfall from Amazon for £17.99 (40% off the RRP of £29.99.) Upon receipt of the game I went about installing it and made the unsettling discovery of StarForce, which left me with a game I could not play.

I set about doing what any person would do when confronted with a purchase they could not use, that is to return it, however this was where I encountered a hitch.
Having never returned anything to Amazon before I was unaware they had inserted despicable a clause into their returns policy that affected my right as a consumer to obtain a refund for a purchase I was unsatisfied with. It stated that items must be returned "unopened (with any seals and shrink wrap intact)"

This infuriated me, the only way to know that the game contained StarForce was to open it.
I was determined to return the game, for me it was not about the negligible sum of money, it was about principle. I had vowed never to purchase a game containing StarForce. Money is the only thing these corporations understand, for as long as Empire put potentially harmful software on their products, I will deny them my money. If Funcom choose to support a publisher like this, I must withhold my money from them also, it is the only way they will learn.

Amazon had thrown a spanner in the works with their unjust policy, but as a man of convictions I was not about to be deterred. I demanded satisfaction, and that was exactly what I was going to get!

As fortune would have it I happened to have an unopened DVD, complete with cellophane wrapping. This gave me a cunning idea.
I carefully opened one end of the wrapping and slid the cellophane off of the DVD, step one was complete.
I took my copy of Dreamfall and slid it into the empty cellophane wrapping, which I proceeded to seal with superglue.

There, I had it, one sealed copy of Dreamfall, good as new. Now all I had to do was send it to Amazon and wait.

As you've probably guessed by now everything went to plan and I got my refund in full, including all shipping costs. I was hardly going to start a thread documenting my failure. Anyway I feel quite pleased with myself, that will teach a company to dare try to thwart me!

In the future I think I will stick to my usual practice of buying games from Game.

For now join me as I gleefully celebrate my victory.

well done mate, i think i will send you a beer!


If you - the consumer - have any problems with your beer then you cannot be refunded unless the bottle and the lid are tightly sealed and returned unnopened from the celophane wrapping. Failure to comply with these specifications may lead to your beer and/or your money being seized for fraudulent reasons.

[Lucien21]

Shiver Mah Timbers Matey.

Squak Pieces of Eight.

[stepurhan]

Not getting into the moral question on this one. I think their policy is pretty dodgy (especially since Starforce should prevent you copying the CD, which negates the only real justification for the policy) After all, there are plenty of things that could be wrong you couldn't find out without opening the wrapping (also skipping the whole "Is Starforce Wrong?" argument. I don't know enough and I generally only play old games so it doesn't affect me anyway)

Just thought I'd point out that technically what you did was fraud and you've just admitted it in a public forum. I haven't got a personal problem, especially since the game should be perfectly resellable but Amazon could try hunting you down through here if they felt vindictive (which big companies sometimes do.)

Don't worry, I'm sure we'll all come up with plenty of ingenious ways to break you out of prison. After all, we AGers have been practicing that sort of stuff for years.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Yeah. No-brainer for us picking a sliding puzzle locked prison door to bust yer fraudulent ass out.

[Jatsie]

Luckily, like another smooth criminal, I have Thomas Mesereau on a retainer.

[SakSquash]

I thought we came to the conclusion in another thread that Starforce, was in fact, not so bad?

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by SakSquash

I thought we came to the conclusion in another thread that Starforce, was in fact, not so bad?

No.

[SakSquash]

But Fov said it wasn't!

[Lucien21]

I've never had a problem with it.

[RLacey]

Neither have I. And, personally, I'm tempted to suggest that you deserved to be stuck with a StarForce-carrying copy of Dreamfall, given that there have been several threads on these boards that have mentioned it...

Anyway, I'll stop being annoyed now.

[Jatsie]

Well I chose not to read any threads regarding Dreamfall so as not to spoil my experience. The one reference to StarForce and Dreamfall that I saw, said that it would not be on it.

[Melanie68]

I'm not really sure how much research you did regarding the copy protection on Dreamfall. Relying on one reference that said it wouldn't be on there wouldn't have been good enough in my book if Starforce were such a huge deal to me (which is wasn't honestly). Also, given that different publishers in different countries do different things...

You can rant about Amazon all you want but in the end it seems Caveat emptor comes to mind.