Quite some years ago (8 or 9?), I played a game called One Must Fall, a cool robot melee fighter game. Now they released a new version with cool effects, Internet play, and so on: One Must Fall:Battlegrounds. I just recently learned it was shipping (they did good job of press before it shipped, but I never heard about it after it shipped). My copy finally arrived in the mail today. I start it up, check it out, and after winning a level, the game quits with this message box:
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Protection Error
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Debugger detected  - please close it down and restart! Windows NT users: Please note that having the WinIce/SoftIce service installed means that you are running a debugger!
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OK  
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This is wrong. I work from home, as well as play games from home. I've got a few debuggers installed (not SoftICE though). At the time, I had Visual Studio closed, and hadn't been running the debugger since my machine started. But what's worse is that apparently they thought this perfectly acceptable! Note that this doesn't stop piracy *AT ALL*. Experienced crackers are going to crack the game, and serious “pirates” are going to apply patches. Having a CD check stops “casual piracy”. Having a debugger check stops wannabe crackers from cracking. That's it!

I've emailed support with my current plan of action: Try a pirated version and if that doesn't work, return it for a refund (something publishers don't like). Sigh.

Update: Well, I reluctlantly installed a crack from a game backup site. And guess what? It works just fine. No more debugger complaints (and I get to take the CD out too).

Last update: Got in touch with one of the developers. At first, they thought it was a problem with DirectX, or the video card or likewise, since their code doesn't do any checking. However, they were using SafeDisc (which is less safe than rolling your own, since there are a few tools that instantly remove SafeDisc). However, after I told them that a pirate crack makes the game run, he said he'd get me an unprotected version. Hey, at least their support is good!