FileForums - Starforce thoughts

I was in a well known Games shop in the UK yesterday, when I heard 2 guys talking about buying Toca Race Driver 2. They were going to split the price of the game between them. Then I heard 1 guy say to the other "Wait, we can't get this, as I won't be able to copy it, as it uses that new protection". Obviously one of them was going to copy this game and give it to his mate - completely illegal of course, but this was interesting to me. They eventually settled on a different game, no doubt one they could copy. Now don't get me wrong, I don't condone piracy, and never download from illegal sites. Virtually every game I own is original, But it does seem that to some degree the games industry and piracy are uncomfortable bedfellows. The fact is that many NOCD game cracks come from the rip of the full game, so it is ironic that we use a small part of pirated material in order to play our original games without the cd. Myself and many other users are very wary of buying a game that can't be backed-up. And that brings me on to my next point. I know a lot of nocd cracks are related to full rips, and the crackers don't give a hoot for original game owners, but if Starforce or future protections become to secure to rip, will this mean the crackers will no longer make nocd cracks, or indeed give up the scene altogether? I won't buy a Starforce game, because of all the problems I've had. I'm just praying to god that the crackers can find a way around it. It's ironic that if and when Starforce3 is cracked (and it's a big IF), I'll be swarming my local games shop for all the titles I've missed. The game developers will be getting my money-because of piracy! I think that if Starforce 3 is not cracked, it could be the start of the end for the PC games industry. I wouldn't mind if CD's were indestructable, but they're not, far from it. I consider them volatile media, and am not at all happy if I can't backup my investment.