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Ubisoft Steals 'No-CD Crack' To Fix Rainbow 6: Vegas 2
Ariastis writes "UbiSoft has long been against No-CD patches. Referring to them on their forums would get you warned or banned. But now, they have just officially released a patch for Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, which, when opened in a hex editor, can easily be identified as coming from the RELOADED scene group, not from UbiSoft programmers. A picture of hex analysis is shown in the story. See? Piracy isn't that bad! It saves you from having to code fixes for your own games! (Watch the drama on the Ubi Forums before it gets scrubbed clean.)"
Presumably the patch has been nuked for Stolen.Crack?
Stealing the intellectual property of these crackers that they so rightfully deserve -- how could Ubisoft do such a thing?
On a serious note, is Ubisoft actually legally allowed to distribute these cracked executables, because they are of their own product?
Mind, I don't get why, because they would have the original source code anyway.
Someone was either being very lazy or thought it was funny. I'm glad they didn't censor the forums to hell and back ala Apple...
Last post from the now locked thread:
It's entirely in the spirit of online freedom that all who use cracks live by. It's also a quiet nod to the expertise of those who wrote the crack.
I think we should all take this as a good sign of further co-operation in times to come.
Perhaps I'm a bit silly thinking this, but I have a lot of respect for the majority of the cracking scene.
Time and time again they've always proved just how talented and resourceful they can be.
I say props to them! At the very least, Ubi should sack whatever middle-manager that decided to release this as an "official" patch or lazy programmer that decided to submit this rather than build a proper executable and give THEM a job instead. I've had more "official" patches from both Ubi and EA (And a few others) break stuff than dodgy, pirate hacks.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Does Reloaded actually have any legal claim to their program/crack, given that there is no copyright and they freely distribute it for all to have?
I have seen this floating around all day. Slashdot is the first respectable source I've seen that is willing to push this story along... a 4 AM. I don't have the game, but could anyone with it verify this? I'd think grabbing a few Kb of the binary around that offset in the article could be compared to the crack. Or is this a case of someone just editing a random string inside a binary and posting screens? Smear campaign? FP?
10: SIN 20: GOTO HELL
Under which license is the crack redistributed? Does it allow including it in a closed-source project?
So, we now know what to do to D2Dize Ubisoft's games - ask reloaded. ;-)
They aren't "stealing" anything, the executable was theirs to begin with. If you spruce up my house with some fancy artwork it doesn't make it your house.
I bet this is just a case of a rogue programmer trying to meet a deadline. Instead of writing up his/her own fix, they tried to pass off RELOADED's work as their own. It passed QA and was released to prod. Congrats on the fine work form the RELOADED programmers!
So I read the... not the article. The forums. Yeah. Before they inevitably vanish. Too many jokes are going through my brain. -- I see comments about open source licenses are already going. -- Jokes about the cracking scene are hopping -- jokes about Ubi (being soft on this issue, etc) Argh.
Wait a second. You're suggesting that Ubisoft should be taken to task stealing some cracker's hard work? Sounds to me like fair play. Why waste Ubisoft resources on making a patch when they can just steal one?
Warcraft 3 v1.21b patch didn't had any changes in the game except nocd, which was indeed very nice, one do wonder why it took them so long though.
http://pc.qj.net/Warcraft-3-patch-v1-21b-released-with-no-CD-feature/pg/49/aid/113191
And for monetary gain no less.
Add that to the recent assholery displayed by the judge in the Blizzard bot case and ALL ubisoft customers are breaking the law by using the patch.
I can already see the torrent of people coming in to call all slashdot users hypocrites for calling this stealing but defending "piracy" as not stealing and all that, so I figure I might as well clear this up as soon as possible:
Thing the first: Slashdot is not one person, it is many people, so it's not inconsistent for vocal members of the community to call this stealing but piracy not stealing.
Thing the second: "steals" is still a bad word here. "Steals credit" would be better, if anything, but I still think the wording is bad anyway.
Thing the third: most pirates at least hold to the moral ground of giving credit where credit is due, which is clearly not the case here.
Hopefully this will head off those silly comments. Eh, who am I kidding, it's Slashdot. I'll probably wake up to 50 of them. Oh well, I tried.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Seriously. If there were no NO-CD cracks, I suspect companies like Ubisoft would make lots LESS money than they do now. I usually buy the game, download the NO-CD crack, and play. I'll never forget how the CD in my previous ThinkPad almost died from overwork before I saved it (and myself from going insane) with the NO-CD for HOMM IV.
It has come to the point that I do NOT buy a game until a NO-CD crack exists for it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
They did it for Starcraft too.... Blizzard probably realized that:
a) These things are so common nowadays that anyone who is going pirate the game can easily find one and
b) They save money in the long run by having to replace significantly less discs as they get old, dirty, and scratched.
Monstar L
...Why is that, Ubisoft?
(1) You're posting an illegal crack that violates YOUR OWN RULES on piracy
(2) You stole someone else's crack. Couldn't bother making your own? Sheesh. Now THAT'S French for you!
This french surrender business and now this "whatever is retarded is french" is so obtuse!
It's like saying all americans are morons and deserve Bush.
I'll change my sig when I have the time...
I've had quite a few games i bought that had media checks in them. A recent game came on DVD-ROM and the media check failed because my only DVDROM drive happens to be a burner. Remember I paid for the game, so whats the alternative then? This wasn't the first program to cause issues because of certain hardware etc, but you get the idea. I had no alternative did I? Also don't waste your time with call the support line, that joke gets old.
But Blizzard doesn't replace them do they? Afaik they ask for money for a replacement disk :(
This is my TFT-CD:
http://cdcrack.istheshit.net/
But I've borrowed a friends instead...
(On a mac ROC CD when you played TFT wasn't enough either, it's in Windows, fucked up because I hate looking for the CD and I never used NoCD crack once I had the original because I didn't wanted to risk getting banned from bnet.)
And no, I have no idea why they bother to check for the CD, it will be broken anyway so why bother about it?
This is the very definition of Irony. I wonder what the press release is going to say about this.
But TBH I have a feeling this was a decision from the higher ups in the organization, there has to have been a programmer that was aware of this but wasn't listened to.
Or you could just rip the cd to a .iso image, mount it in a virtual drive and install/play it from there.
It's not stealing if the original programmers were not deprived of anything. Whether the good guys ("pirates") do it or the bad guys (the "content industry") do it, unauthorized copying is not stealing and never has been.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
maybe they just wanted to put people using that NOCD crack on blacklist or something more sinister.. (so they used it for comparison)
Top management want answers *yesterday* regardless...
More to the point, you've got to understand the psychology of some management people. Here's an example - "we don't steal software". Five minutes later a request to load a boatload of stolen software onto a customers machine.
The truth is though that a widely used crack has likely seen more testing than any delta a maintenance programmer would cook up - although any sane dev team *already* has at least conditionally compiled code which builds to a No CD or backup CD version.
(You don't really tell *everything* to the people in marketting do you?).
Ubisoft should at least do the right thing a la Epic and some time after the initial release has made enough cash release a real update which doesn't need the CD or at least plays off a CD image . (c.f. Unreal Tournament).
Andy
Since Ubisoft used the crack (presumably) without permission, does this mean RELOADED can sue Ubisoft for copy protection infringement now?
his bounds. The summary makes it sound like Ubisoft used the crack in an official patch of theirs. Way to make a big deal about nothing, Slashdot!
It is a real shame that Game DRM hasn't gotten the same bad publicity and force for change movement against it that music has.
mp3's have, despite the music companies best efforts, proven to be what buyers want - not "you can only listen to this track on 2 machines" DRM files. That has been enforced by media coverage and scrutiny - pointing out and badgering the music labels that people don't want DRM junk.
This unfortunately hasn't happened with PC games - I guess they are less "mainstream" as far as media coverage is concerned.
I used to buy a lot of games, and enjoy playing them - but the situation has deteriorated very badly in the last 4-5 years. Games not only have the usual "key & cd/dvd in the drive" requirements, but I have encountered a number, which I paid hard money for, that refuse to install if I have CloneCD installed - others that refuse to install if I have Daemon Tools installed - both programs that I legitimately use (and not for games, just to avoid having to take tens of cd's around with me).
I bought HL2 - but haven't been able to play it for a couple years as I am behind a tight firewall and so can't register it. Consequently I haven't bought Ep2 or 3.
The games companies have to wisen up - I used to by 3-6 games per year - I now haven't bought a single one in the last 2 years - I can't be bothered with games I paid hard cash for treating me like I am a criminal. I am not interested (nor should ever need to) apply the various circumvention cracks to get around the DRM just so I can play a game I have bought.
The farce from Ubi-Soft only reinforces the situation - the same crackers who they decry as "destroying the games industry" are the ones they rip-off when they can't be bothered to write a patch (for a bug caused by all their neurotic DRM crap). Ubi-soft better hope there were no trojans in the crack - or they could find themselves on the end of a hefty lawsuit.
To make sure you had a legit copy to begin with. Even though they charge you for the replacement, they still are probably losing money on the venture as they have to have staff and facilities to maintain the program. Not cheap.
Monstar L
What a thread that was. All I saw were a lot of whiney people who wanted to see Ubisoft "fail". The thread was complete with some ludicrous reference to the Taliban being "oppressed" by the west. Presumably these people wait in the wings for someone to make a wrong move. What a load of wolves !
Maybe they lost the source to their own product? It would certainly explain why they've been dragging their feet on fixing the problem the crack addresses.
They created the no-CD patches to coincide with their "Blizzard Account" system which allows you to buy their games online and then download them. I'm assuming they wanted a consistent platform for all their users, and it doesn't exactly make sense to have someone purchase and download a game and then have to wait for the CD to arrive in the mail just to start it up.
Additionally, if you already own the game, you can enter your CD key on the site to gain the ability to download them directly from Blizzard.
Are the authors of the CD-Crack suing Ubi Soft for copyright infringement?
Except if you RTFA(I know,but I got bored) you'll see that they are selling the game Direct2Drive which means you DON'T GET a disc. And now that they have removed the crack it means anyone who buys the game Direct2Drive is getting a non-functional product. I smell lawsuit! Maybe NYCLawyer could weigh in on selling a product that you can't actually use without breaking the DMCA. Would it be fraud or just theft? And as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Shame on you, Ubisoft! This kind of rampant IP theft is what is killing the PC game pirating industry!
How does it matter? One need a cdkey anyway (atleast to play on bnet, for single player a crack would do), so I'd say it's safe enough to know that I have an original CD. They could even get my bnet accounts and current keys / keys from that case.
And earlier when they required the CD I thought it was a reasonable request to get a CD for free since they have their stupid copy protection to begin with.
Except with programs which breaks the copy protection you can't backup the CD either.
I sorely wished one of the guys who coded this would sue. I know it'd mean the end of their lives, but it'd be worth it for me :P
for a whole list of reasons, this does not always work. that is the drm part of the theft prevention
I'm the only one here with this problem?
Why is this modded down? He makes a good point. If you're downloading shady EXEs from P2P, then it's just a matter of time before you get pwned, because you are a sitting duck.
The filename says "RELOADED", and you think you can trust them, but is it really from them? If I wanted to get a keylogger on a bunch of computers, I could easily add it to a "no cd crack" for a popular game and put it on P2P. I'd put "RELOADED" in the filename and fake the text files. I'd make sure that the keylogger activated itself after a couple of weeks to maximise my infection rate. If I did this, how would you tell?
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
I wonder if the programmer responsible for the crack and the patch is the same individual? He probably just submitted what he'd already written as his own work. That's a much more likely scenario than the idea that Ubisoft downloads a NoCD crack off the web and releases it as a patch. This Slashdot story won't be good for him, if so.
In Tom Sawyer, Tom convinces a bunch of boys to whitewash a fence for him. He then later goes home and tells his aunt that he finished the job. The work got done, but Tom stole the credit and was rewarded.
Ubisoft did the same thing. They were trying to save face by releasing a patch they acquired through underhanded means. Dare I say, they STOLE credit for the work.
> Just semantics, I know, but UBISoft didn't steal anything. They haven't deprived the originators of any use of their CD crack.
So if I copy a game I had no intention of buying, I am not stealing either?
They should send UBIsoft's ISP a DMCA takedown ;)
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
That only works if you have terabytes of free disk space and you don't know how to use it all.
Most games just copy all the disc contents to the hard drive when you install the game anyway, so why keep a SECOND copy of that data in an iso? You have the original CD anyway if you ever need to reinstall. Better to just use a small crack.
Many "DRM"/copy-protection schemes can and do detect that, so while this works just fine for older games, more recent product is going to be a bit more of a challenge. No-CD works in this case.
Isn't such a "signature" very easy to forge by ubisoft in their own patch? Also, is the original RELOADED crack written in such a way that *!RELOADED!* needs to be there to work?
Of course, I'm ignoring the motive at this stage, just looking at the technical possiblity.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
...had to call up a car thief to open it for you.
That happened to my uncle.
A cop showed up seeing him trying to break into his own car, hollered at some kids sitting in the grass by an overpass, and told them they wouldn't get in trouble if they unlocked the door. It was open in about 30 seconds.
"What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!" Doctorow
I'm sure it was just there for theatrical effect, but now all the sudden "distributing duplicates of a program that can't be considered actual property and thus can't be stolen" (the usual /. argument) is STEALING?
See here and here. Basically, Windows' Explorer.exe crashes with ntdll.dll because of C:\WINDOWS\system32\CmdLineExt.dll. There's a fix, but doesn't work for everyone. I had to use a noDVD patch and disable this DLL. I had this problem since 7/9/2008 and fixed it yesterday by disabling it with ShellViewEx. Explorer even crashed in safe mode without networking!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Now Helios's Hook has caused some problems, but thanks to dissassembly, the hook can be watched to see the .dll file being hooked, and new protection can be made quickly. IF an anti cheater can get his hands on one of the new hooks.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Time to ban yourself for posting cracks ubisoft
So anyone know where I can find the disk software since I have the crack now?
I kid =)
Maybe NYCLawyer could weigh in on selling a product that you can't actually use without breaking the DMCA. Would it be fraud or just theft? And as always this is my 02c,YMMV
Of cousre NYCL would not touch your comment with a 10ft pole given that his expertise is in a completely different branch of Copyright and he wont waste time researching (i.e. reading) about the background necessary to answer a question asked by "hairyfeet".
If Ubi-Soft didn't require the CD to be in the drive in the first place, then they wouldn't have to go chasing down no-CD cracks in the first place. Idiots...
Requiring the CD-ROM in drive all the fucking time to start a game fits in the "You're doing it wrong!" category of game design requirements. Instead, they should change the approach to require the CD only to the point that the game is registered. Once you register, then you get a no-CD fix in an official patch and you don't have to dick around risking your computer to possible malware on non-official no-CD fixes. The no-CD feature then acts as a pretty good incentive for the game purchaser to register. Also if the registration process is designed correctly, they can actually assess what piracy there is (if any) via attempts to update from invalid keys, or many hits from the same key under different IP-addresses, etc. With the right data and approach, the company can develop measures to actually deal with the problem instead of saddling end users with needless DRM bullshit.
Maybe Ubi-Soft needs to learn some things from Gas Powered Games or a few other companies that actually listen to the users from time to time.
Piracy is defined in the dictionary as open water take overs of ships, it has nothing to do with software.
CFN.
If those companies outside USA didnt charge 40-100% profit margins, perhaps people wouldnt pirate it.
So why not get rid of all those scum resellers then , and give ONE EQUAL online price for the whole planet???
What do resellers offer any way?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Could it be that the QA department actually used the crack for their own convenience, then the crack made it into their distribution?
People smoke pot, take coke, or drink under age, whatever...
Do you really think they give a hoot about some stupid EULA? Seriously? Are you mormon or some christian Mr Bush lover ? People dont respect stupid laws when they see big govt people getting away with it especially wall street crooks, and lawyers.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"Two wrongs don't make a right, dude."
Two wrights made an airplane!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Hello,Mr. Coward,or can I just call you Coward? Look Coward,nobody was asking NYCL to actually DO any research,but since he IS practicing law,I can assume he went to law school,yes? And one thing I have learned about the law is that the difference between what you THINK someone should get busted for compared to what the legal definition of the crime is are often two different things. In this case it could go either way and without a better understanding of the legal definition of the two crimes in question it is hard to tell whether they are guilty of fraud,as they are selling a product known to be defective as working,or theft,since they are selling a product that is worthless unless you break the law. And finally about the name? To paraphrase a very old saying: "The coward dies a thousand deaths,Da feet dies but once".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'd personally trust many of these "scene" hackers more than I'd trust Sony to not to try to pwn my machine.
I would trust a random stripper more than Sony.
Since when is "circumventing copy protection" wrong? That's not what is wrong. Making/using an illegal copy of the software is wrong. Applying or modifying a legal copy to run differently is not wrong in any way I can fathom.
I *LOVE* no-cd/dvd hacks. I buy everything I play. But maybe I'm wrong?
So where is a good place to find such patches that aren't contaminated with viruses or malware?
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
How long until RELOADED steps forward and sues Ubisoft for the theft of RELOADED's closed-source application and demands payment per copy distributed?
that someone in the coding department is going to be fired. If you're going to steal/use someone elses code - COVER YOUR TRACKS FOOL!
Ave Molech Setting
A burglar drops his gun on the way out of your house. You pick it up and use it to defend against other burglars. Ha ha.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
As has been said many times here over the years, if you don't like a product, don't buy it. Video games aren't medical care or food, so you sure don't need to buy them (hint: consider buying your family a book, or better yet, getting them outside to exercise). And EA didn't mislead, you knew they had DRM on it. So you are hostile at someone not misleading you trying to protect their product?
I've used no-CD cracks simply because I could. But cursing a company for trying to stop piracy? Waste of energy and misguided hostility. Vote with your pocketbook.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
It really gets me when people poke at AC posters for posting anonymously, while they're posting under equally anonymous pseudonyms like Hairyfeet.
THAT'S generous of us, isn't it?
.
The German occupation of Belgium set the pattern for what was to come. The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War 1
The Zimmermann Telegram was authentic:
January 16, 1917
On the first of February, we intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep the United States of America neutral.
In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and make peace together. We shall give generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details of settlement are left to you.
You are instructed to inform the President [of Mexico] of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence with this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Japan and ourselves.
Please call to the attention of the President that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England to make peace in a few months.
There is much of interest here - not least the talk of an alliance with Japan.
The historical background:
April 22, 1915
The German Embassy publishes this warning which will appear below a New York Times marine add posting Lusitania's schedule:
NOTICE!
> TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY
May 7, 1915 Luistania torpedoed without warning. 1200 die.
August 1915 A Bavarian metal worker stamps out 500 or so back-dated commemorative medallions of the sinking -- which British propagandists will replicate in the hundreds of thousands for sale through British wartime charities.
August 27, 1915 The Kaiser restricts attacks on large passenger vessels.
September 18, 1915 Unrestricted submarine warfare ends
Even among pirates stealing somebody else's cracks without credit is a nuking offense. These guys have truly reached the ultimate level of complete gayness in both worlds now. The least they could do is own up to it- but no, these french fruitloops just lock the forums and hope nobody can read in the future.
"Two wrongs don't make a right, dude."
Tell that to those that believe in affirmative action
Ubisoft should possibly have coded the exe file them selves, but I guess theres a good reason why they did not (as in no coders available at the time)
there are ALWAYS idiots like this who rationalize and stomachs even the shittiest, dirtiest stuff - a company which was banning people for even referring to no cd cracks, STEALS (i stressed it out, its a direcet STEAL, since no credit was given) a CRACK/HACK group's code, and then passes it as their fix. see the hypocrisy, see the filthiness and shittiness. yet this guy is able to justify it within his poor mind with just a sentence.
these morons constitute the biggest voter base for corrupt politicians. thanks to their idiocy of accepting anything and smoothing it up in their minds to stomach it, we are not living in a better world.
Read radical news here
Needless to say we do not support or condone copy protection circumvention methods like this and this particular incident is in direct conflict with Ubisoft's policies.
get a load of that ! they do not condone copy protection circumvention or, hell, god forbid support it, but their programmers are using cracks to fix their games' issues.
now the irony and hypocrisy doesnt end there. this company, now the infamous ubisoft, would merrily sue any hacker group if they got the chance. thats the real sh@t here.
Read radical news here
I don't poke at those that are asking a legitimate question,but did you read his post? It seems like more and more of the ACs are either very rude asshats or blatant trolls. If you are going to be rude and insult someone,at least be man enough to take the karma hit. I never post as AC,because I accept my own opinions and the karma both good and bad that comes with them. But as always that is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Boycott the stupid fucks. Fuck Ubisoft, let em burn in hell.
If I had to guess, one of their coders got desperate when told to fix the bug, added the crack into the game, and is, as of this week, asking people if they would like fries with their meal. Source Control history is a b@#$%, ain't it?
Actually, the game Direct2Drive sells is quite functional, unless you apply the optional patch that Ubisoft offers. Which you shouldn't do, because Direct2Drive is quite clear that you should never apply retail patches, because they break the TryMedia version sold by D2D.
There's no potential for a lawsuit whatsoever.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Unfortunately, there's a difference between the 'fucking people over' represented by pirates who don't purchase the game and wouldn't even without available pirated copies, and the 'fucking people over' demonstrated when software developers intentionally cripple their product in ways that harm legitimate, paying users.
I don't give a fuck about the pirates, they're not going to buy the game either way. If you sell me shitware with broken-ass 'copy protection', I'm going to be pissed, and I will do everything in my power to avoid purchasing your products in the future, because you have violated your implicit agreement to provide working software to paying customers.
That is the issue. Copy protection, by definition, only inconveniences legitimate users, because the copy protection on any product worth purchasing will be cracked by a skilled hacker in a country with a bad enough exchange rate that it's more worth their time just to crack it. Do you really want to try to pass on your piracy 'losses' to legitimate users after they've purchased your product?
Copy protection is no longer a deterrent to pirates, it's simply an inconvenience for your paying customers, and the entities which fail to recognize this will continue to lose ground to those which do.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Interesting. And I just noticed they've given Brood War free to every Starcraft owner (their system detects a Starcraft key as a Starcraft Anthology key).
Thanks for the tip!
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Has someone thought of the UBI soft "patch" to be equipped with some code that scans for 'illegal' cracks executables containing the string '*!RELOADED!*'.
If that's so, UBI soft scans for illegal patches, and they did not per se steal stuff from release groups.
Anyone with de-assemble skills can confirm or deny this?
So basically ubisoft had broken their game with the CD protection DRM, something that nearly all games companies include, but I haven't the faintest idea why this is still a sane thing to do..
So now they have to use an "illegal" (or so they keep telling us) third-party crack to break their own DRM.
Or more likely, someone else's DRM that they purchased for a large sum of money, only to introduce bugs into their game and annoy their customers.
Sounds like great value for money to me! :)
Copy protection that is actively harmful punishes consumers for buying legitimately, yes. SecuROM, etc., suck ten miles of dick and should be not only avoided, but actively killed.
A developer won't every dissuade the pirates. But what copy protection does--in theory, at least, and at least in part in practice because most people are pretty dumb and can't find keygens, etc. that aren't virus-laden to hell and back--is keep the honest people honest. It's like a lock on the door of your house--it won't stop a determined thief, but it'll keep people who don't make their living (or, in this case, their entertainment) from piracy. (This is why the software I'm working on just has a basic ID/key combo. And I'm thinking about making it a web service, due to piracy concerns.)
The entitlement mentality of the asshole in the great-grandparent post is what pisses me off, though. Piracy isn't "free advertising" when it comes to games; that logic would work for Windows or Adobe, where the goal is corporate mindshare, but for games? Hell no.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Why do these companies insist on punching their paying customers in the balls with all this DRM that doesn't slow the pirates down one bit? Damned if I know. I do know that I won't buy a game that I haven't already found a crack for,as I've been burnt one too many times with CD checks not liking my drives. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"People use pirated software -> companies lose money -> companies invest in trying to avoid illegitimate usage of their software -> copy-protection schemes are put in place -> problems with copy-protection schemes arise -> "
That's one way to look at it, but you can also view it this way;
Companies that sell DRM solutions convince Publishers the sky is falling and they must buy their shovel ware or they will be bootlegged into bankruptcy by their own fans (thus begins the publishers adversarial relationship with its own consumers) > publisher spend lots of money on poorly written software that breaks the product that developers have worked so hard to create > consumers (fans) turn to pirated versions for a number of reasons, most prominently of course because they generally work better (this is DRMs number one problem) or another common reason is sheer attitude. Many PC gamers are just sick and tired of being treated like criminals (I fall into this camp) when they are in fact legitimate customers. "If publishers are gonna sneak spy ware on my PC and hamper my experience through sloppy coded DRM (which often creates massive security gaps in the users OS while simultaneously hampering the users experience regarding the very software that installed it), then screw them. I will get a 'clean' (pirated) copy of the game."
When the black market version of software is commonly referred to as the "clean" version, you have a really serious problem. The DRM industry really cracks me up actually (pun intended). They convince a publisher of a need (through distorted exaggeration), sell a solution to fill that need and then explain to the publisher how the problem has gotten worse (not better) so they must buy more of a product, which by their own admission had very little (if any) effect on the problem in the first place. It's a license to print money for those who have no ethical compass. Game publishers are addicted to DRM, its heroin to them. It creates a warm fuzzy feeling of security but does nothing to actually alleviate the problem of bootlegging. Honestly, if you ask most PC gamers (which publishers won't do, because PC gamers are considered criminals not customers), it likely causes more bootlegging then it prevents (thus helping to sell more of itself). I say again, PC gaming may be the first industry in history to literally scare itself to death.
Ohh spiteful one tell me who to smote and he shall be smolten!
The people playing devil's advocate need to remember something, and that is that Ubisoft engineers get paid to put out fixes. Reloaded did not get paid for their hard work.
When your JOB is to work on fixes, you work on fixes. It does not matter where you get it from, but if you use another person's fix without their prior approval, you always get rid of their name.
I work for a software company, a pretty big one, and as a programmer myself, it is a secret thing that I am pretty much revealing to you.
All companies do this. Nobody talks about it, but it is pretty standard practice. Yeah, you "engineers" just learned how your programmers get jobs done so fast. I started at this job about 6 months ago, and from working here, I found out that everybody does it.
The trick it this: proprietary software specifically for one company means that, hopefully, they will not look at the source in case you did not take all of the "evidence" out. In the case of reloaded, somebody looked inside and found something that was not supposed to happen. The programmers were not expecting people to look inside their code. If somebody looked inside of the code that my company does, it would be the same way.
I am not for one second saying that companies stealing code is a good thing, but it is standard practice.
I know that people will chime in saying that it is not true. Think of who is chiming in. Engineers are the people who "micro-manage" programmers. They do a good job at it, but engineers: have you ever looked at all of the code written by your employees? Have you simply asked your employees to show you the code they did and explain what it is doing? Programmers: if you work for a major corporation, you can chime in and say you don't steal code to save face, but if you truly don't, you know many people in your company that do. I have been a programmer for awhile (simply because I love programming), and have been employed for 3 major corporations.
What happens is that programmers do this, and when somebody catches them, the engineers/managers say, "Well we had no clue that they were stealing code".
I bet what happened was one single programmer was told that he needed to fix the drm issue, was given a super small time frame, and the person they assigned to it knew he could not get it done in time. The programmer did what any programmer would do, fix the problem within the time frame. You can try to be honest in this business, and eventually get a promotion, or you can steal code, get everything done incredibly fast, and be seen as one of the best programmers.
People can deny it all they want, but programmers do this pretty regularly. People who manage them claim that their employees don't, but whether they want to admit it or not, those managers honestly have no clue at all if their programmers steal code, they just assume that their programmers will code everything themselves.
From everything I have said, I have said it honestly and as truthful as possible. You can flame me if you want, but I assure you I am being very honest.
It is all the programmers doing this. It is not like the company said, "Hey, why not release the Reloaded crack? It works". I bet that it is what I said, where the assignment of fixing this was given to one programmer, and he was given a ridiculous time frame to fix the issue, so he did what any other programmer would do.
I am not playing devil's advocate, I am simply the messanger. Yes, I am posting this as anonymous to hide my identity from anybody in my own company that reads slashdot (and there are alot of people in my company that read this). Sorry guys, somebody had to speak up.
Do I like the fact that the company I work for does this? Of course not. Do I personally do it? Yes. Sometimes I do. Do I like the fact that I do it? Hey, at least I don't do drugs. I get paid well for what I do, just like most programmers around me.
Ubisoft is running like any other company. Hey, at least the dude cited hi