When Evil Genius came out, I think it was at the early point of SecuROM and other DRM programs, I would get locked out of my DVD Drive whenever I attempted to run Evil Genius. Game wouldn't run because SecuROM didn't let it, but then I had to reboot my computer to get usablity back on my own hardware.

Well I don't know about those two games, but I have installed Starforce on a few computers. You see I loved Space Rangers 2 enough to bite the Starforce bullet. Well, neither of the computers I installed it on seemed to be damaged by it. Still I must admit, if I had a game with Starforce that I didn't know whether I really cared about, I don't think I'd install it, unless I was feeling dangerous at that moment (which tends to happen every full moon!). Oh yeah. Bring it on Starforce, bring it!! *chest pounding* ;-D

I own both games from GamersGate as well, had them installed, and my DVD drive is still healthy. I don't think the version of Starforce that's attached to digital downloads does touch anything DVD drive related at all.

Thanks to both of you for your response.

We don't know! That's why we all hate it so much!
Next in line: magnets.

But no one hates magnets. They're awesome.

Dude, gravity. I mean. I drop a pen, it falls down. You can't explain that.

On a more serious note. DRM was a whole different issue when it was still used for disc based protection. The whole "DRM free movement" started there (the proper movement, of which I was proudly part of, not the current marketing campaign run by GG and other distribution services). Because back then DRM did some caused some serious issues with drivers, hardware and whatnot.

DRM for digital products is mostly server based (online activation, etc.) and very unintrusive, as it does not affect the hardware. There are still some exceptions however (And I will never use Starforce, because F'CK YOU Starforce, that's why).

SecuROM creates some folder that is undeletable and unaccessable by normal means. Probably there it saves if you have activated a game already.

If not, you must activate it (note: usually, but there are SecuROM titles without this, I think, or maybe it was just patched out there) on their server. You have either a limited or unlimited number of activations but run out of luck if their server is down.*

There are third party programs that let you remove SecuROM completely from your hard disk, but you should revoke licenses, if possible, before doing so.**

Reports of DRM breaking hardware have surfaced often, but with few exceptions the cases remain unsolved, so it might as well have been usual failures. It is possibly true that hardware can be broken by it, especially by StarForce.***


* In Germany, you could send them a notice about that and if they don't fix it within a certain amount of days - I think 30 -, you were allowed to circumvent this. Please ask your lawyer on details of how to do this, and if it still works this way. It did 10 years ago with GTA 3 where another DRM was used that made it unplayable because of CD/DVD usage.

** You lose all your activations if you do this and it probably reinstalls if you play a SecuROM game.

*** There are many reports of this, but as far as I know it was not yet proven to a court

RELOADED released info about Starforce

You're better off asking in reverse engineering and cracking sites/forums for this info. Also you need to know assembly (and C/C++) to better understand or use the info.
But anyway here's something to get you started

Securom
Special Issue for SecuRom 7.30.0014 Complete Owning
Special Issue for SecuRom 7.30.0014 Take2 VM Analysis

Starforce
STARFORCE.RE.TOOLS.READNFO-RELOADED

Lots of miscellaneous RCE info including protections and packers
AccessRoot/ARTeam tutorials
Tuts4You
Woodmann RCE forum
ExeTools forum
Also searching with protection name on scenenotice might turn up something useful

I've had the following problems. Note that this is related to the disc check versions. I'm also only listing personal experiences. Not just things I've heard could happen.

Incompatibility with modern versions of Windows. This is directly to do with the DRM as cracking it solves the problem. This one applies to Tages too. The rest are mostly Starforce issues.

Random crashes. Again, cracking solves.

Destruction of Windows. Refusal to boot after Starforce initiated restart. Formatting was needed as Windows was totalled.

Deleting large portions of the Windows folder (plus anything it can delete of the subfolders). Could simply have been down to the uninstaller not working properly rather than the DRM itself.

It doesn't.

/thread.

BINGO!

Batman Arkham Asylum had a glide that would always fail if you had a pirated version. This was something like an hour into the game. So, people who had a pirate copy could start the game and play just fine, but they would hit that point and be unable to continue.

A bit risky in case a bug accidentally somebody's copy.

and the pink scorpion which chased players on pirated versions of Serious Sam 3

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/07/serious-sams-drm-is-a-giant-pink-scorpion/