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Ubisoft's Constant Net Connection DRM Confirmed
A few weeks ago we discussed news of Ubisoft's DRM plans for future games, which reportedly went so far as to require a constant net connection, terminating your game if you get disconnected for any reason. Well, it's here; upon playing review copies of the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII, PCGamer found the DRM just as annoying as you might expect. Quoting:
"If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected. The game first starts the Ubisoft Game Launcher, which checks for updates. If you try to launch the game when you're not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft's 'Master servers.' The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen — all my progress since it last autosaved was lost."
Well the article is good enough to tell us which games to avoid due to horrible DRM. Maybe they're making some kind of 'level of DRM annoyingness' versus 'copies purchased' graph.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
to step on the ol' weenie with track shoes...
[Carnac] "What is 'people staying away in droves?' [/Carnac]
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Don't buy the game, and send them letter to let them know why you're not buying the game.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
This goes a long way toward making sure I will. I can understand some level of online authentication, but this is absurd. Then again, what am I think, I won't even buy these games. Not worth the hassle.
In ten to twenty years, when we're playing these games on emulators and reminiscing about the good old days, when these activation servers are dead and gone, we will be thankful that someone took the time to remove these checks from our games so that we could play them in the future.
And I wonder, in this never ending holy war against pirates, what they think that Pyrrhic victory after Pyrrhic victory will earn them? Countless fortunes? Unending wealth? Do they think that making your game difficult to play will somehow make it sell billions of copies?
I was going to buy this, but they can shove that rubbish fair up their arse.
Another fine case of screw the people who actually paid for it and the pirates don't have to put up with any of it.
Well done UbiSoft, you are a complete bunch of arsehats.
If this becomes acceptable, someday Windows PCs will require a network connection to operate at all.
With each new release, Microsoft Windows becomes more dependent on servers in Redmond. Someday they'll have an outage and the whole world will stop.
And the subsequent increase in piracy of this game will be blamed on DRM that wasn't draconian enough.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
At last, they've made DRM so obnoxious, intrusive and butt-fuckingly annoying that even the average Joe will become enraged at the audacity of the thing. Hope Ubisoft has a team of people standing by ready to explain to people with shaky wireless routers or traffic-shaping ISPs why their game keeps booting them out.
I'm calling it - less than three months after release before they patch this out due to overwhelmingly bad press. Christ Ubisoft, who do you think you are?
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
I know that's a vulgar comment, but that is vulgar DRM.
I actually pay for my games but I refuse to pay for such draconian DRM. If you have machine limit activations or need constant internet access I'll just get your game via more customer friendly means.
Ah I think I have it: Fuck Ubisoft.
I was likely going to get Assassin's Creed 2. AC1 was pretty damn fun. I didn't get it when it came out because didn't seem like my kind of game, but I got it on sale and man, I liked it. So AC2 was on the list of potentials for me.
Not any more. I will absolutely NOT put up with DRM like this. I have a fairly stable net connection but still, I don't care. This is way too invasive.
I mean I'll meet companies half way. I'm ok with Steam, I can also deal disc based ones that don't cause a problem. However in either case I have to have a way to play if the net goes down. I am not ok with protections that limit the number of times you can reinstall a game (like SecuROM) or ones that need you to be online all the time. Goes double since I know what kinds of server problems companies can have, having played MMOs and such. If my MMO of the day is down, I'm going to be REAL mad if I can't play a single player game.
So, no more Ubisoft games for me unless they change this, because it is retarded. The really funny thing is, of course, it won't hurt the pirates at all. Those versions will have it patched out so they'll have a good game experience. All it will do is drive legit customers away. This is a bigger problem than they might think just due to the sheer number of games these days. Currently, my problem is not finding games to play, it is finding time to play games. I have games I still haven't got around to yet because there's only so much time I can spend goofing off in a day.
So if a given games maker starts being stupid, well I'll just stop buying their shit. Plenty of others to play.
Speaking of which, I think I'll go play Mass Effect 2, which just has a simple disc check. It does like to talk to EA for content updates and such, but as I found out a couple days ago, doesn't mind at all if their servers are down and it can't connect. Game runs with no problems. That, I can live with.
What is even worse is that you won't be able to play to the game that you paid for when Ubisoft decides to not maintain anymore the server needed to play ...
Oh man, they are going to sell so many copies... of this DRM technology to other companies.
I mean, no one will want the games anymore, but if they market this DRM to delusional companies disproportionately outraged over piracy, they could make a fortune.
so, if someon DDOS their servers, all people on the world will be kicked out and lose their progress ?
hmm . . . what a great idea.
A month ago I bought my first online game - Battlefield 2142. What a disapointment 3 years after release there's no game server anymore. My lesson is learned. I will not buy another "online" game. Also considder how bad some internet connections are (like in Africa). Ubisoft will loose a lot of customers (at least I for one will not go for this approach anytime soon).
I'm assuming Ubisoft, EA and the like are starting to dream about gaming on the cloud- complete control over access to the content, mandatory constant internet connection to the servers, and no pirateable game files being distributed to consumers. In addition, it will become much easier to cite server costs as a reason to shut down a game after a few years.
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As a matter of fact, the customer is probably a rotten thief. Ubisoft is just treating us all like the criminals we probably are!
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
This will just annoy the people who did buy the game. The real issue is that most users aren't technical and will just buy it, put up with the shit and accept that's the state of affairs. One day somebody will offer them a crack and suddenly they'll realise the shafting they got.
What's worse is that I predict that there will be an enormous amount of cracks and hacks for this game. It'll be so bad that all software companies will use it as an example of why we need even more and better DRM and how evil consumers really are.
I drink to make other people interesting!
Some people don't pirate because they haven't been bothered enough by DRM to seek out DRM-free copies.
Ubisoft is creating a new round of pirates from formerly legitimate customers.
These really aren't Pyrrhic victories; they're just victories. The ill effects of these terrible decisions don't come around until the executives have long since cashed in their stock options and retired to wine and wealth. I think of these more along the lines of 'mortgaging the future of the industry in general'. But who cares? The gaming community will just bend over and take as they always have done. Remember the outcry against Spore with its oppressive DRM? That was about as organized and vocal as the gaming community have ever gotten, and Spore is still selling and still has brutal DRM.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
In ten to twenty years, when we're playing these games on emulators and reminiscing about the good old days, when these activation servers are dead and gone, we will be thankful that someone took the time to remove these checks from our games so that we could play them in the future.
Hehe, that's funny. I have another vision. No one will play these games now, or in the future.
Lack of wit, that is.
In the right corner we have Ubisoft, with their incredibly stupid idea that deserves nothing less than a Dilbert strip to glorify it permanently.
And in the left corner we have a large herd of sheep called game customers, who in recent trend have even been defending DRM schemes or believe it to be some type of chocolate bar.
Will Ubisoft succeed in shoving this latest endeavour with enough lube or will the bleating consumer do a back kick? Stay tuned as we find out just how high of a cliff a company can jump off safely.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
ubiwho?
Bring it on ourselves !! We pirate games because it's easy. If your customers somehow took 85% of your revenue, you'd do something - anything - to stop the hemorage. From another vantage, your boss deducted 85% from your pay, and "not because he needed but because he could - he would not have hired you if he couldn't". Sound faimilar? You'd be screaming bloody murder, hypocrits !! If you don't want the game, or you don't want the job, go elsewhere.
This - or something this annoying - has been coming down the line for years now. It was only a matter of time.
I can see the day where a game is going to come out and basically not sell - except for the number of copies required to crack the game.
In other words, the question's been less and less ambiguous as to whether DRM actually hurts sales and drives people to piracy. It's been obvious to *me*, but I could see how a reasonable person might think otherwise.
We might be at the point where a reasonable person can no longer lay the blame anywhere but at the feet of outrageous DRM.
On a sidenote - in 25 years when we want to play Bioshock again and relive the experience, what will most people think of the pirates? I'd imagine that we'll come to think of them as archivists putting themselves at risk but allowing us to enjoy a classic game.
Super Mario Bros came out in 1986, almost 25 years ago. Imagine if Nintendo required an always-on direct modem connection to Nintendo of America to play - and they shut off the modems 15 years ago. What would we think of the "dirty rotten pirates" who got a ROM dump and hex-edited out the watchdog code? It's not far-fetched to say that they'd come off like Robin Hood...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
What is ironic is that some games on the Apple // only exist in the cracked form today.
Right now, the economy is crap. So, bean counters at the game companies [1] have an assumption that a pirated copy is a lost sale. So they push for more intrusive DRM. More intrusive DRM just means that the pirates crack it (either by patching the executable, or running a process that emulates the heartbeat connection from the activation server so the game is never tampered with.) Legit players are the ones being screwed over, as usual. So, sales of the games will be down, the bean counters will blame it on piracy, and try to foist more Draconian DRM systems, perhaps online connections, activation, and a Warden-like program that would ban that serial number and that PC.
[1]: Same bean counters who view the console ecosystem as Utopia for software companies because of the locked down system and the ability to bleed players dry. Same bean counters who always whine about piracy to Congress in hopes of getting ACTA passed, and threaten to leave the PC platform... but never do because they know the second they leave, indies would move in en masse.
Piracy will help archive the games, ultimately rewarding Ubisoft for their contribution to culture.
The best thing to do is to NOT pirate the games. Obviously, don't buy them, either. But, also, don't review them. Mention them in the same hushed tones that ET for the Atari 2600 is mentioned with.
Just pool together enough money to have a decent botnet run a DDoS on their auth-servers for a couple months.... That'll create a shitstorm worth watching.
Unless they've invented completely new technology this will of course be bypassed by the pirate-scene or the cheat-scene (or both) hopefully rather quick and the only ones that are affected are consumers with a phone.
What they are doing is like telling the customers WE DON'T TRUST YOU and that ain't the way to run a business.
Granted, most of the game players are kids, so basically they are bullying kids with all those dreaded DRM thingies.
There lies a silver lining though --- game players are there, throngs of them.
If they don't play this game, they will play another.
Business opportunities opening up whenever there is some screw-ups and this one ought to be big enough for others to invest in an all-open online gaming platform, no DRM, nothing.
Just log on and play.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
But I for one (and I'm sure there are many others), still haven't bought it for that very fact.
Because um.. well lets see.. From the Fine Article:
But i guess actually reading anything is beyond expectation for an AC.
Secondly, from Ubisoft's own FAQ.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
Again, spore can still sell for one reason: the DRM doesn't affect the average person. IIRC, Spore had, among other things, a limit on the number of installations. Most people don't own multiple computers, so that doesn't affect them. One particular example of DRM that pissed me off was Mass Effect's Securom not letting me play it in VMware. This brings me to my next point: if someone actually cares, they'll likely just go find a crack and then forget all about it. Would you rather be sending angry letters to some CEO who won't read them anyway, or would you rather just download a crack and get on with playing your game?
Well, where are the dissenting opinions.
Let's say you really like the game. Then you would obviously want more money going to the game developers. Thus, you would be willing to put up with DRM, knowing that it's helping the developers. I don't see it as, "OMG They don't trust me!", I see it as, "hey, they spent so much money making the game, they need to protect their profits, and that's understandable. The experience is mostly the same for me, anyways."
Speaking honestly. Of the last.... 10 games I've bought -- I would have bought exactly ZERO of them, if I could have played them pirated. I'm not a fan of Ubisoft, but if I were, I would not buy the game if I could get a pirated version for free. After all, how much is my $40 going to mean to a big company? Doesn't matter a bit. But at the same time, I support DRM completely -- I know that pirating is not really looked upon as a criminal activity, morally speaking, and because of this, I understand the need for companies to have DRM. It's like Ubisoft is saying, "Look, the whole problem with pirating software is that people don't take it too seriously. That's why DRM is needed, and it's no big deal. We just need to make it hard for the hackers. Don't get offended, you'd do the same thing."
If only there was some way to obtain these games without the DRM...
The people responsible for this thrive on bossing other people around and generally imposing their will and being in control of their environment. Sometimes, they go overboard and do something crazy like this.
I surmise this came all the way from the top, from someone who makes a meaningful percentage on game sales and whose greed and need for control are excessive.
Do not buy any more Ubi Soft games. When they'll feel their loss of sales, they MAY be thinking again about it.
I pre-ordered this game. the DRM is annoying but just buy the game and download the pirated copy, that way you pay for the game. but you can use the copy that actually works.
Its nasty stuff like this that makes me not want to buy their games anymore.
The EA DRM as applied to Red Alert 3 is acceptable as I only need to connect to the internet once to authenticate the game AND I can un-authenticate that copy anytime to install on another PC or reinstall Windows or etc. (the DRM system in question uses hardware activation to lock the game to your PC)
This kind of DRM that requires a permanent internet connection just to play the single player is NOT something I will accept and I would hope enough people say "NO" to ubisoft to make them rethink the decision and move to a more acceptable form of DRM (be it CD/DVD checks, hardware-linked activation or whatever else)
With the online DRM which will boot you out every single time you have a dropped line, no one, not even those with pirated copies, will be spared.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
DRM has nothing whatsoever to do with fighting piracy. All those billions and trillions of dollars that pirates don't spend on games never existed, and spending money to chase money that never existed is, besides being insanely stupid, never profitable. Money spent on used games does exist and there is a lot of it; Gamestop alone had 8 billion dollars in revenue in 2009, and the game industry wants that money. If the game industry as a whole spends a few hundred million dollars to prevent tens of billions of dollars of used game sales, that is profitable and not stupid.
Did they really fucking do that?
Seriously?
expandfairuse.org
After reading this, Ubisoft has lost my sale; I was intending to buy the Super-Duper Deluxe version of Assassin's Creed II had they released it for the PC. 'Internet required' should only be for MMOs and not games which I intend to play in the quiet of my basement... er... seaside lair.
The added services to the game (unlimited installs
Wow, they make it sound like they're doing me a FAVOR by allowing me to install the game more than once. Screw the right of first sale, they're going to be charging you per install in a few years.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are plenty of games that I can only play online.
Granted, they are usually Flash games, and are little more than frivolous time sinks.
But they're free, and I can play most of them even on a low-end machine.
This looks like an expensive version of one of these games. Not interested.
Capable of killing! Now, join me!!!!111 Let's get those bastards for the evil they are doing!!!11111onetacular!
Or, you know, let them go bankrupt on their own pieces of shit.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
i mean, its stupefying. there is no other, elaborate, politically correct approach to what they are doing. its pure morondom. its like saying 'hey, we are going to sell you a product, but it may or it may not work, because we want it to be that way. because, see, there are pirates.'
Read radical news here
This might be insanely crazy...
Keep in mind that software companies have to pay to include DRM in games. It's not exactly made for free.
A point that's already been stated here is that the issue of DRM will probably never enter the public consciousness until it becomes way too annoying to ignore.
So...what are the odds that maybe Ubisoft is trying to, in the long run, do everyone a favor by making unacceptably obtrusive DRM that will piss off a large number of customers, thus creating public awareness about DRM and create a huge backlash against it?
Then Ubisoft and the other companies (well, maybe not Ubisoft by this point) will increase profits by advertising later releases as "DRM-free" so people will buy THOSE copies by the zillions. More money from more demand...and everybody saves in the end by not having to pay to include DRM anymore.
Honestly, if I wanted to start the process of killing DRM off completely, I'd direct my software company to do something just like what Ubisoft is doing now. It's all just a matter of making the public angry enough that they take notice, then vote with their dollars against it.
I know others have said what I am going to say. But this is nuts.
With people moving more and more to various wireless net connections more and more people are going to have intermittent connection issues. People are simply going to download the hacked version in order to play the game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that people will once again learn that the hacked version of the game is the most user friendly.
This DRM tactic is going to kill any potential profits.
MORONS.
I remember looking forward to SPORE. This game took forever to hit the market. Then what do they do. They put crippling DRM on it. So what happens. It becomes the most pirated game in history. I simply gave the game a miss all together.
DRM failed for the music industry. It's failing for Video. It is and will fail the game industry. DRM is only there to make greedy execs comfortable. It only results in yet more lost money and it hurts the customer.
I think it's more security theater to placate the investors than actual anti-piracy measures. Saying that there's a huge number of interested people who could be convinced to buy it with some technical measures sounds like much more of a growth possibility than trying to figure out how to make your product actually appeal to more people.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Imagine... every pirated movie and every pirated software in asia/eurasia/south america were paid....
What would happen to the US trade deficit and what would happen to happen to US debt... it would be significantly decreased.
By moving from manufacturing to computer software/media the involved countries hurt themselves because it is easy to bypass their protection.
The DRM used today may not be great but its evolving for better or for worse and hopefully in about 20 years time there might be something less intrusive.
That's nice. How did your protest against DRM work out? Spoiler: the story we're discussing here contains the salient evidence.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I wonder how long it will take some enterprising group of phreaks to realise that they could blackmail Ubisoft by DDOSing their "game continuation" servers.
A couple of years back I remember writing PC Gamer requesting them to add DRM info to their reviews. While DRM certainly won't make me buy a game, some DRM will most definitely rule the game out, regardless of score.
I was very happy when I saw it making an appearance along with a magazine redesign (obviously, I take full credit; I'm sure nobody else requested it). They seem to be fairly serious about including proper information there as well.
When a major games magazine makes a point of informing the public about what sort of DRM a game includes, isn't it about time the bean counters wake up and realize that perhaps it's not terribly good PR? I know one thing, the DRM info isn't listed as a sales point (except, perhaps, when it says "None").
As for this particular DRM, the first thing I found myself doing was double-check the date to make sure I hadn't warped to April 1st. Previous notions of requiring gamers to go online once every week or two to reactivate were vociferously shot down by the public. How did Ubisoft take that as a sign that the public are ready to accept being online permanently to play? It redefines the meaning of draconian.
I'm truly baffled this even got past the planning stage.
I may get arrested for suggesting this, but surely on release day, and for as many days as possible after, if there was a DDOS attack on Ubisoft's master servers not only would people like us not be buying the game, but normal people would return it to the shops because it "doesn't work"? Ubisoft would have a big commercial and media problem on their hands, hopefully so big that would cause them to re-think this strategy?
Or maybe they'll just blame the pirates for the down-time and use worse DRM next time? What would be worse than this though?
... not as thieving scumbags, and Settlers VII will be remembered as a holy text, not forgotten as a completely meaningless piece of entertainment.
If you want to put pirates on a pedestal, go right ahead. Just remember that they are just as responsible as the game corporations for DRM.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The money they gain by stopping second hand game sale, is not overwhelmed by the money lost in first hand game sale. They definitively lost my money first hand second hand or even under-handed. I tried to put up with "calling home at starT" and got fed up with even THAT (mass effect 2), so forget permanent connection. All those game are now a no-go for me. And I am an avid gamer with lot of euro. How many like me ? Who knows. Maybe a few. maybe a lot. But if it is a lot, they will have to back pedal.
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In ten to twenty years, when we're playing these games on emulators and reminiscing about the good old days
I for one won't have any good old days with this one.
I wonder if this is Ubisoft's way of killing off its PC gaming arm (and possibly having a go at killing off PC gaming in general).
I mean, lets look at the platforms. The XBox 360, PS3 and Wii are all single hardware platforms, yes there are small differences like the existence or size of a hard disk, but one Xbox 360 is (to game developers) pretty much the same as another, same with PS3 and Wii. If you look at PC's you have DirextX 9, 10 and 11, Windows XP, Vista and 7 and nVidia and ATI video cards just to start. Thats 14 different possible combinations with just those three options. Developing for and supporting (though you wonder if any games company actually invests in customer support) that kind of target hardware has got to be more expensive than console targets. What better way to get out of the market than saying its rife with pirated games, very few people are buying our games any more, its not worth the investment.
Of course with DRM this vile you'll incur more support costs for people who bought the game and have problems with DRM, you'll drive people to buy the game and crack it (exposing honest people to the seedy underworld of the game pirates) and even cause people who would have bought it just to download a copy. Honest people will be branded and thieves because of bugs in the DRM (I'm looking at you Microsoft) and Ubisoft will either go bust, pull out of the PC market or retire older buggy versions of their DRM (or maybe just disable a game because its too old) and in the process removing access to the games for people who have paid money for them while the pirates play on. I wouldn't bet on Assassins Creed II being playable in 3 years without a crack.
I will admit I was a naysayer with Steam but I've grown to like that platform now. In general it doesn't get in the way, you can spot games that have additional DRM and avoid them (and DLC that sneakily adds DRM, I'm looking at you Borderlands), you can still play your games while offline and Valve have shown they can run the service reliably (apart from those pesky release days where everything slows to a crawl). But the difference between Steam and Ubisoft DRM is simply this, Stream has a huge benefit. I can buy a game and any time in the future download the latest version of that game and patches can be applied automatically, no more searching around for the latest version. Where is the benefit to the end user of this DRM?
Its not often I can say there is a game company worse than EA, Ubisoft have claimed that title.
I was looking forward to Assasins Creed II, but I’m voting with my money and not buying it or any other game with this DRM in it. Bye Bye Ubisoft.
I buy games these days for one reason and one reason only - compelling online play.
I'll play the single player as a torrent and if its fun and I fancy a bit of PVP action the game gets a sale.Really its that simple, give me that and you have a customer every time.
Piss me off with this kind of ultra invasive drm and you wont even have that. You're relegated to playing on the 360 now Ubi and its a cold day in hell before I pay for xbox live
Added services?
What an utter crock of horse shit. Pure, grade A, USDA choice lawn fertilizer. I'm talking primo dung, the kind your Aunt Milly used to rub on your upper lip so she could say you gave her a moustache ride.
What a pity. Ruse was one of the major RTSs that I was looking forward to this year. Pity Ubisoft is distributing it.
I guess I'll just have to keep my hopes on Supcom 2 and the next Total War game . . .
... and I'll be avoiding anything tainted by Yves Guillemot and his four brothers, just as I've done for Smedley and Mcquaid after experiencing their inexcusable management of customer service with Everquest.
Funny how the quote at the bottom right of the page fits in so well.
I will definately download this game, looks good and worthwhile to play. It's a bummer I wont ever be able to say I bought it...
Maybe they should hire some of the hackers... apparently they can add these "services" without requiring a permanent online connection -- and they don't even need the original source code.
Come on, how am I a troll? Just because I don't kiss up to your greedy and selfish ways, I'm a troll?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I can't quite put my finger on whether you're an idiot, or just a masterful troll.
If you had read even 10% of the other posts, you'd understand that it's most likely that this DRM isn't going to prevent this game from being pirated.
Oh, I see later on that you claim to have bought 10 games which you say haven't been pirated. Which games were those, pray tell?
What is ironic is that as up-to-date games get more and more draconic DRM, the customers will find old second-hand games, whose DRM is much less bothersome (or even non-existant), to be relatively more attractive.
No more Ubisoft games for me, as long as they keep this stuff up. May they choke on their greed. Anyways, I keep spending more and more money at http://www.gog.com for cool stuff that runs on my netbook.
Once every game need a connection to the mothership to run, they could as well (and probably WILL) put some of the game code on the server. Not critical code that renders the frame, but what about the menus, options, all that slow stuff that wouldn't overload their servers. Then once they do that, the pirated version needs to fill gapping holes in the game with rewriten code ; a bit like reverse engineering a MMORPG server. Good luck with releasing pirated versions before the next version of the game is out.
A big FUCK YOU to Ubisoft. When I read about this a few weeks back, I could hardly believe it. This DRM goes WAY beyond reason and straight into absurdity. Is this how you should treat your customers today?
Ubisioft, you just GUARANTEED that I will NEVER buy one of your games again. As a long-time and frequent PC gamer going all the way back to DOS, I have never seen arrogance like this before. Boycott Ubisoft games and take the message straight to their bottom line. Of course they will blame everything on piracy as usual, so let them eat crow.
C'est la moderation.
Pirates are a part of the problem, but they're only a function of the overall system. Stronger and stronger DRM creates a self-fulfilling prophecy:
1) People pirate your game.
2) You put strong DRM on your game to stop pirates.
3) Pirates are only slowed down, not stopped. Repeat Step 2, but stronger.
4) The DRM is draconian enough that people won't buy the game because of it. People being as they are, a good portion of them pirate the game.
5) Oh noes! The piracy numbers went up?! I guess we need stronger DRM!
Repeat forever and ever.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Do we REALLY have to wait for the game to release before we file? :)
They could use honey instead of vinegar. Offer rich online experience, multiplayer, mods, ladders, community support. The people would want that and buy a legitimate copy.
But no, they're actually telling the customer "We know you're a petty criminal, we'll be watching you all the time, so you can't steal our precious product. Pants down and prepare for cavity search". Good luck with that attitude.
If games are dumped out when a connection to an Ubisoft server is lost, then there is a serious problem awaiting and an obvious target for attack as well. Send a DDoS to Ubisoft's servers and kill all games running everywhere. I think that is quite likely to happen. It reminds me of what happens to Blackberries when RIM's network goes down... it gets a LOT of attention and people get pissed off when they realize how dependant they are on this single vendor.
So, a simulated Ubisoft server? I expect to see some pop up in 5, 4, 3, ...
... more draconian drm...
Every time someone uses the phrase "draconian DRM" take a shot. Cue liver failure in 3... 2... 1...
Ditto
I can see 4chan organizing a massive DDOS on Ubisoft servers whenever they release big titles in the future...
They are not even slowed down. It goes more like this:
1) You bring a game into the market.
2) Pirates release a cracked version the same day.
3) Your next game has stronger DRM.
4) Pirates still release the cracked version the same day, your customers have trouble with the new check, people who downloaded it do not.
5) You implement DRM close to "hand over your firstborn as hostage".
6) Pirates release the cracked game the same day you do, customers refuse to hand over firstborn and instead either don't play it or copy it.
7) You wonder how piracy numbers go up despite more and more DRM in your product.
My only hope is that 8) is: You file for Chapter 7.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Send a letter? What is this, the 1970's? Get real, nobody is going to read your letter or care what it says and it will be junked as soon as it is opened. They are not going to rush your letter to the CEO personally letting him know that you are unsatisfied. The upper management won't care about some complaining doofus still writing letters, griping about something or other. You're targeting the wrong people with your letters and there is not enough distribution to them.
Instead write a Blog entry or a Forum post and get vocal about the reason why you won't buy the game. Have some people reply to what you wrote and start up an angry thread. Target the people who care about the issue, because obviously the game company doesn't otherwise it wouldn't be implemented, and try to reach a wider audience regarding your grievance. The more people who hear about the problem the more they know and the less likely they will be to spend money on some game where everyone is complaining about.
Would you buy a product that had terrible reviews online and by word of mouth because everyone and their aunt knew it sucked and they found out about the suckyness beforehand?
midicolorians! ... and it's not because I feel the crushing defeat of never again being able to pirate an Ubisoft title. Because lets face it, the protection will either be patched out OR an auth emulator will be written. Then it's left to Ubisofts pointy haired bosses to try to scheme something even more sinister to visit upon their paying customers.
I know this isnt a perfect solution... but what if the game companies banded together and you could buy a hardware key, you activate your software online and your hardware key is updated. Then you can play offline all you want as long as your hardware key is installed. You can then install the software anywhere you want you just have to have your hardware key plugged in to play it. The drm would be fairly effective and harder to break since it would be hardware. You wouldnt have to worry about their servers being taken offline too. You put a 1gb chip in there and you could hold the drm keys for 1000's of games on a single key. You could even build in temporary drm keys for demos... (example: Your temporary key lets you play the game unfettered for 30 minutes without the option to save or continue. Then you can make the decision to buy. The iso is available to download and burn yourself or go pick it up retail). If you keep the price of the key down to 10-15 dollars as a one time purchase or free with certain new releases, then the only people looking for the pirated copies are the people who never have any intention of playing anyway. Thoughts?
7) You wonder how piracy numbers go up despite more and more DRM in your product.
My only hope is that 8) is: You file for Chapter 7.
Wasn't EA trying to buy Ubisoft not long ago? This DRM scheme is worse than shooting themselves in the foot, it's dropping a NUKE on their foot! EA will buy them for pennies on the dollar. That is, if there is enough left of Ubisoft after the outrage over this extreme form of DRM destroys them to be worth even wanting.
Even clueless EA has learned to not use DRM anymore.
Corporatism != Free Market
Blizzard already does this with WoW, why the big deal? It is a proven business model that works for making money endlessly
I'm no extremist on the view of DRM but this nailed in the coffin that I won't buy AC2. Sad... the first one was very enjoyable.
"Time to die"
Would you people PLEASE stop shelling out your hard earned cash on companies that insist on fucking you over like this? Mod me flamebait if you want, but Ubisoft should die and their stockholders should all lose the money they invested in the company. It's the only way this shit will stop. If DRM kills Ubisoft, other companies will think twice about these stupid DRM schemes.
I guess they learned from Sony that even putting a rootkit on music CDs won't stop people from buying their poison products. Jesus H. Christ, people, stop letting these bastards fuck you over. Put them out of business.
Free Martian Whores!
And probably still not as good as the first version, in 64-colour (Extra-half-bright) 320x256 on an Amiga 500. So many hours spent playing that, listening to Soundgarden. Best game ever.
However it sounds like an ideal game to while away time on a laptop when you're not at home and can't access the internet, etc. Oh. Wait.
This DRM scheme is worse than shooting themselves in the foot, it's dropping a NUKE on their foot!
You're making an assumption that doesn't hold. This is dropping a nuke on their foot in the PC marketplace. That's not the only marketplace that Ubi is in. AC2 has been released on consoles, sold well, dropping in price just before the release of some new DLC. The AC2 that this affects hasn't even hit the market yet.\
One more reason to avoid purchasing anything that is DRM'd.
--Jason--
I've got satellite internet, which is usually touted as the alternative to dial-up for people in areas without broadband access. What actually ends up happening is I get speeds of 3X dial-up speed that sends in pulses. It's fine for web browsing, but since the satellite waits between each pulse I can't stream video or play games over the internet.
I imagine there will be people who will think "Hey, this won't affect me, I've got high-speed internet" and buy the game, then get severely pissed when they can't even get the thing to start.
The most anying thing with DRM is that in fact it just annoy those who pay for the game. Those that pirate it, dont have that hassle.. and since I do pay for my games, well that just mean I'll stop buying Ubisoft games altogether. Maybe i'll just go knock at their door to tell them. They have an office 2 floors up from where I work.
I used to be a big supporter of Ubisoft... I've purchased their games since the original Unreal all the way through the first three Splinter Cell titles. But once their DRM started getting burdomsome I stopped buying them. I will continue to not buy Ubisoft games because of their ridiculous choices in DRM enforcement. Luckily there are plenty of good games to buy from other companies that don't saddle me with such schemes.
I don't like the fact this could/would/will be a total invasion of my privacy.
I don't want someone mining my behaviour. I understad their why that it totally valuable for them, but just the thought of it is evil.
I would opt in, given it was an option. but not if it's hasn't been defined anywhere.
Having thought about this for a little while, it occurs to me that it's not so difficult as I envisioned, initially, to comprehend why they think they can get away with this.
It's due to the enviable, massive success of MMO gaming, thesedays - all of which is basically running this type of DRM, albeit in a socially acceptable manner, by virtue of the fact that they are "online" games, only.
Companies wanting this sort of DRM and to truly combat privacy need to build it in conjunction with a legitimate online component. You see this practice becoming more prevalent with companies choosing to do away with standard server models, instead, taking full control of their online component with their own multiplayer deployment. Sure, you get some industrious individuals managing to get onto these much more secure networks, but all in all, this is a form of DRM that is actually quite effective.
I record my sleeptalking
One of the more recent things I heard about ME2 was that it required you tie the game to your EA account, even on the 360. Maybe I heard incorrectly but that's been one of the major reasons I haven't bought this game. I got ME1 as a second-hand purchase, but I refuse to buy and game that's going to lock me in so that I can't resell the damn thing or lend it to a friend, etc.
Please correct me if I heard wrong, because it does sound like a good game, just with evil DRM.
I can't describe how excited I am to see the /. story on that!
*goes to 4chan and starts the Operation Ubistorm meme*
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
because it's completely new system and relies on online parts. It won't be cracked anytime soon.
You don't understand how cracking copy protection works. I'm going to explain it, and then you'll understand why most cracks are 0-day.
You see, regardless of what the copy-protection scheme is, at some point in the source code there must be a control branch where it is decided "is this copy legitimate? Run the game. Is this copy not legitimate? Run this other code." There's no way to get around that. Maybe you have registered the game online. Then there's an if statement somewhere, "if(isGameRegistered())", there's just no getting around it.
It doesn't matter what sorts of complex algorithm is inside the isGameRegistered or isGameLicensed or isCurrentlyConnectedToUbisoftServer functions. When that gets compiled into assembly code, there'll be a jump instruction. Jump to the part of the code that means everything's ok, or jump to the part of the code that means the user can't play the game. All you need to do is find that jump instruction and change.
There are ways to make it hard to find. There are ways to make it annoying to fix...you could have a vast amount of checks like that so it's not a matter of a single noop instruction or a single change of address. In the end, even with all of that it's still pretty easy, and the scene typically gets leaked games a few weeks before the games are even being sold, so they have more than enough time to get the crack out.
Ever heard of Metropolis? Famous movie from the silent film era?
Parts of it were lost, but a few years ago most of those were dicovered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(film)#Rediscovery) on a 16mm copy in Argentine that was not destroyed (as required) after showing the film.
Technically that makes the cinema owner from the 1920s a pirate, but thanks to his breach of contract(?) Metropolis is almost complete again.
C - the footgun of programming languages
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/40241/Ubisoft-Allegedly-Releases-Crack-As-Official-Fix
If it detects a pirated game, does it try to kill you with a forklift?
What is the big deal? I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but nobody is complaining to Blizzard that they can't play their game offline.
4chan is not your personal army.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
I don't know if they're accurate but these email addresses didn't bounce:
LAURENT.DETOC@ubisoft.com - Executive Director, North America
ALAIN.MARTINEZ@ubisoft.com - CFO
Firstname.Lastname@ubisoft.com
http://www.ubisoftgroup.com/index.php?p=63&art_id=
Disclaimer: I work at one of the big publishers (maybe even the one discussed in this article...)
Yes I think this DRM is horrible. Yes I think Ubisoft will get a lot of ill will from this.
But what you guys have to realize, is that we can tell from the downloading of patches, updates, etc. on our servers that more than twenty people pirate our games for every person who paid cash money for them.
The publishers are between a rock and a hard place; they have to do something, or they can't make any fucking money off of PC releases of their games and they will completely quit doing them. The vast majority of PC gamers have a serious entitlement mentality -- they pay $3000 for a PC and drop $500 on a new video card every year, but they won't pay $60 or even $30 for any of the dozens of games that they play each year.
People prefer to steal them instead. Trust me on this -- the publishers KNOW that the DRM is intrusive and they will lose some sales because of it and get a lot of ill will because of it and even drive some legitimate customers to become pirates because of it. But they really have no choice.
I've worked on a couple of AAA games that sold many many copies on console, and far fewer copies on PC (so few that in fact, we lost money on the PC port).
The DRM-free boat has sailed already. Things are going to be locked down like crazy for the next few years, anything that legit customers will tolerate will be tried.. because an entire generation of cheapass PC gamers grew up without paying for their games and now that they are adults they STILL feel entitled to just steal them. And they will make up any necessary rationalization to avoid feeling guilty about the fact that they are ripping off the very people who work so hard to make those games for them.
If you're not going to pay them, just simply don't play the game. Doesn't matter if it's "easier", etc.
If they're going to treat me like a crook, I'll just find alternatives- because they CLEARLY don't want my money. Making infringements just gives them more excuses to make things worse. Not buying at all, if there's enough of their customer base to make things like Asassin's Creed 2 flop in the channel, they'll get the hint vastly quicker and back off. There was the same sort of crap that went on early in the days of personal computers- and it swiftly died a horrible death after 5 or so years once they figured out that people weren't buying because of the copy protection schemes being vastly worse than the problem they thought they were solving with it.
It's not hard. Just do without for a bit. They'll get the hint. Otherwise, just keep going on and keep giving them reasons to make the laws worse and doing stupider and stupider things like this new play.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Anonymous is democracy at its finest. It may not be anyone's personal army, but if enough people particularly agree with something there will be more than enough motivation and little fear of retaliation.
Of course, if "Operation Ubistorm" really does get started, I preemptively take no credit for it.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I think the reason they force us to be online at all time is that their new drm stuff probably place some of the application logic on the drm servers.. Of course we'll hate not beeing able to play without beeing online, but I don't see how it can get cracked (if not some clever crackers reverse engineer the stuff controlled from the drm servers).
I've only ever purchased one Ubisoft title, and that was Beyond Good and Evil for the GameCube. I rather enjoyed this game, and am excited that a sequel is in development, though likely still a few years from being released. However, it seems unlikely that they will release a Wii version of BG&E2, which means that I was going to be dependent on getting the PC version to enjoy the game. However, if it winds up with the limitations of this draconian DRM, then I will pass on it entirely.
People have often complained about Steam doing similar things. However, in the case of Steam, it at least has an offline mode. You get authenticated against the server, and then you can play your games offline. I'm fine with the way Steam does things - my only real complaint is the lack of aftermarket sales, but I've never bought a used game anyway so it doesn't really affect me.
No single-player game should ever require an active Internet connection to play. Sure, it can be supported, allowing for saving progress on the server, but not required.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
In some jurisdictions this will create a gigantic backlash of the local authorities and/or consumer groups. In some countries deliberate malfunction of a product, even under certain conditions, is enough for legal action.
Expect a protest DDoS attack on the Ubisoft DRM servers, which lasts until one of following happens:
1) Ubisoft removes the DRM in question, and apologizes for its misbehavior.
2) Ubisoft is sued for deliberately making its products malfunction.
3) Ubisoft offers a refund to all people who own a product suffering from the DRM in question.
4) The DDoS attack is ended by police raids (highly unprobable).
5) Ubisoft somehow manages to cope with the DDoS attack.
A combination of these also belongs to the possebilities. One thing though, Ubisoft is in for a world of hurt if they don't fix this blatant abuse quickly.
We need to start making signs to put up in stores: Wait for a Crack. DRM Buyer Beware!
I mean, I'm not depriving anyone of the electricity. Not really noticeably. The difference is, I can be caught, and pretty easily, so I don't. Software, music, movies - not easy to catch me, so there, it's perfectly all right since I won't be caught. Probably won't. And no, God will not get me for that. Yes, he told me so! Now why wouldn't you believe me?
the first computer games I ever bought were on cassette tape for the TRS-80. My friends and I figured out that with a decent cassette to cassette recorder, we could make copies of the games and share them. Ooh, we were so proud of ourselves. Then they started adding 'copy protection' by added trivia questions at the beginning of the game that you had to look up in the manual. And we made photo copies of the manuals at the public library. Then they started using 'invisible ink' and code wheels. So we figured that out too. Then, I grew up. Piracy and DRM have been around pretty much since the beginning of computer gaming. DRM has never worked, and it never will. I don't game much anymore, and I haven't copied a game in a LONG time. But I do still make sure that the games I do play are not loaded with annoying DRM.
This is no different than steam protection. My friends and I all bought MW2 and there are times when we can't play or get booted from the game just because the steam servers are having problems.
Won't do it again. Sorry UBI. Your games are not compelling enough to me to overcome the wrong that you are doing.
And I'll be robbing your home
Yup, you'll go to hell
never played spore never will , one person at a time
That's actually the way it is today.
An example, there is a torrent out there that offers every major Amiga commercial program ever released. The majority of games included in the collection are cracked.
Yet if you look at the Amiga Software Preservation Society, the majority of their archives are of the uncracked retail edition. Great for preservation, bad for real world use.
This doesn't even sound like it should be all that hard to break. Download/code a script or application that makes your computer think its connected when its not plugged in. It might be a little more difficult if the game chooses to verify the status of the connection by continually attempting to pass data over it, but I have faith that some entreprising cracker will come up with a way around that too, should the need arise. Also, when did the people coming up with this stuff get so godawful stupid? This is the best they can come up with? Come on.
What the hell were you playing ME in VMWare for?
What you say is true. Back in my day we used periscope hardware debugger to find such branch instructions and nop them. That part is quite trivial.
The difficulty comes in when you get into issues such as encrypted code segments on disk (how to you write the altered code back to disk so that the check is skipped on load?)
Hmmmm.....
Pay big bucks to legally play a game that puts me at the publisher's fickle mercy and demands constant internet access - and bandwith - responding with draconian punishment if I fail to provide this.
OR
Pay nothing and get an illegal copy that works fine from the word "GO"
Decisions, decisions...
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
N/T
Within a year or two, Linux will finally catch up to Windows in terms of gaming capabilities. Finally, every game that refuses to run on Linux will also refuse to run on Windows, and we will have achieved parity. Just a little longer!
I purchased a game from these clowns approximately 5 years ago. It was Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. I then read about how this thing installs hidden device drivers on my PC. The serial number was also difficult to read, being printed by what looked like the cheapest printer with confusing 0s, os, s's, and 5s and all.
I will never buy another product from Ubisoft again. If they produce something I absolutely must play, I'll just buy it used to screw them over.
I notice a distinct attitude difference between E-Book readers and PC Gamers. Gamers seem to feel slightly naughty if they download a cracked version of a game they paid for and are entitled to play as they see fit.
Quite a few E-Book readers, on the other hand, have a policy that they will not buy an e-book unless it is either DRM-free or has easily-cracked DRM that they have the crack for. I know I'm one. We've seen too many proprietary formats come and go, rendering eBook collections useless when the authentication servers went away; we've seen Amazon revoke people's books (the "1984" incident), we've seen formats that should be the same (Sony EPUB and B&N EPUB) turn out to be incompatible due to different DRM schemes (and no mention on the bookseller's site, either), so when we buy a DRM-infected book, the very first thing we do is strip the DRM off. AFAIK, no one who buys eBooks feels the least bit guilty about this; we're protecting our investment in our own property, and many thanks to the code-breakers who figured out how to strip the DRM.
Of course, we actually paid for the eBooks. We like reading, and we don't think the publisher or the bookseller has any business telling us how or when or with what machine we can read our books. Bugger them, it's none of their business once the check clears.
What gamers need are easy-to-use scripts & programs that let them do their own DRM-stripping, like we have for eBooks, so you don't have to download whole pirate versions of games. Then you could buy a legit game that's known to be strippable, run the program against it, and voila! no DRM, but no encouragement of acquiring stuff without paying for it. Convincing game companies not to use DRM would be even better, but I'm not sure that's going to happen any time soon.
---dragoness
I bet in the next 5 years you wont even buy games anymore. You will just be given a plane ticket to the a secret location where you can play the game naked, in a white sterile room with cameras everywhere so the publishers can keep an eye on you.
Has anybody thought about the fact that this awful DRM might only be on the preview copies distributed to the media? I have no evidence or insider info that this might be the case, but I think this draconian DRM might only be in place to possibly delay pre-release leaks.
The gaming industry has had that happen to them too many times, and that's what I'm thinking this is for. There's no way in hell they would be able to get away with implementing this system on the retail game without a class-action lawsuit within the first month.
To add to this, it is FAR more difficult to write and MANAGE complex code than it is to crack it once. ONCE is all you need and the cost of the later is magnitudes smaller than the former.
Most things come down to opportunity costs. No one hides $1 in a $1000 dollar safe. No one will hack that safe (to get at the $1), but lets see anyone sell that package for less than $1001 (whose inherent value is $1). Game companies do more like $1000 in a $1 dollar safe (and this is the best of the best safeguards), but it costs 1 cent to crack it.
I think it worked. Didn't they lessen the DRM? And I think much less people bought it than would have if it wasn't for the DRM. I am included in that. Well, that and I heard the game wasn't very good.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
blah blah blah, this hurts consumers, blah blah blah, developers are stupid because the put DRM in expecting to end piracy, blah blah blah.
Developers aren't stupid; they know the bottom line. That DRM drives away a certain type of customer. And guess what? That's fine with them. They aren't interested in customers who are gamers. They are interested in customers who put up with their shit and still pay for it. You aren't their target market. Their target market is Grandma who buys whatever little Johnny wants. Or the guy who doesn't care about archiving games because he'll be onto the next one within a week.
-- MrMud
It was a while ago. My laptop's DVD drive was broken but I didnt have the money to replace it because the laptop had more important things that needed to be replaced. So I loaded up the ISO ob an external hard drive and installed it only to get a securom error. Googled it, and sure enough, securom explicitly prevents you from playing in VMware.
BTW mod this informative.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I know slashdot has serious groupthink issues with its pet topics (piracy being one of them)
But the opposing viewpoint also deserves to be heard.
This is exactly the problem with all these sorts of copy protection! Perhaps not so much in Britain, but in the United States the entire point of copyright is to enrich the Public Domain, and if you can't preserve the game then it never enters the Public Domain. Because of that, these jerks that insist on Draconian copy protection don't deserve to be eligible for copyright to begin with!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You've just guaranteed I will never buy another non-Valve PC title again.
I think what we will see developing in the video game industry is a thick line of separation between shitty mainstream sellers, that are thrown together and marketed to make a quick dollar, and the games that are made by developers who make games that they want to play. This is based off of the current state of the film industry, where genuinely good films are far and few between, and every year is littered with stacks of sacks of shit: unwarranted sequels, umpteenth remakes of destroyed franchises, and cookie cutter films. Heck, we already are seeing a clear bias in the media - he who shells out more money, gets better reviews and coverage from gamespot, etc. I could give you 100 reasons why you shouldn't have bought your xbox or blockbuster game, but the problem is that we dwell within a sea of idiocracy, there are too many idiots buying these shitty games from these mega companies, and our protest will (and has to date) accomplish(ed) very little, so here are our options: 1. Study every game being released, and only buy what is in favor of the end user. 2. Become a developer, make games without bullshit, and be hugely successful, and therefore change the industry 3. Demand regulations from your corresponding government to break publisher monopolies and outlaw things such as DRM That's all i have to say. And you know, its quite a shame where talented, aspiring developers need to piggyback on a publisher for their software to be successful, and to think that only 10-15 years ago 2 man companies were developing games out of their garage.
When will game companies figure out that no amount of DRM is uncrackable. Why didn't they just go with Steam's simply DRM, especially since they were already selling the game on steam. I am a self-proclaimed pirate and even I buy games occasionally off Steam when they don't have DRM and they are actually innovative. I downloaded Mass Effect 2, played it a bit and then said screw it. I uninstalled the pirated copy and bought it on Steam. Same thing for bioshock, I had a copy for my xbox 360 already burnt and I ended up buying it off Steam.
As much as Steam isn't perfect, at least I can play games offline and I don't have to put a CD in. I have a decent sager gaming laptop so I played Mass Effect 2 mostly on my laptop when I had no internet at all, and I also did the same for bioshock 2. If they had this kind of DRM there would have been no way I would have bought it although I could have tethered on my WinMo phone but it kills the battery on my phone and why in the heck should I have to do that for a damn single player game.
Ubisoft is being ridiculous....really...they put out an old ass game for the PC and cripple it with terrible DRM. It is more than a year old, piracy is the least they should be worrying for such an old game.
When will companies learn that the PC is still king and avoiding it just because it doesn't have the same protection as consoles is ridiculous. I mean its actually easier to play pirated games on the Xbox 360 for me. No no-cd cracks, I can play online, no waiting for someone to crack it, and no trouble with updates. I can even go to blockbuster and copy a game from them. Basically there is absolutely no difference between the experience of playing a pirated game and authentic game. Then again the experience is actually better for playing pirated game vs the authentic one if your playing AC2.
Maybe if Ubisoft put out games for the PC when they were actually released and didn't treat their customers like crap, people would actually buy their games. I mean EA already learned their lesson that harsh DRM isn't the way to go after the outrage people had for the DRM on bioshock and mass effect.
If you think their DRM nazi-ware is shit, you should see their customer service when you lose / forget your sign in details for their online chess games aka: Chessmaster 10 = "We don't give a fuck - so we will just ignore you".
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
I think Ubi are just trying to further kill off the PC games industry. They want you to buy the Xbox and PS3 versions.
a) Don't buy the game.
b) Pirate it.
Yet another boost to "piracy" from clueless top-executives...
--
El Guerrero del Interfaz
Do a quick Google on "Spore pirated", just for fun. Page after page of links to articles about how Spore's DRM did affect pirating. Now if that hasn't reached EA...
Spoiler: it has, EA has in fact announced they'll use less obtrusive DRM in the future. Plus, they released this tool to reduce DRM obtrusiveness from certain games, including Spore.
Unfortunately I think 8) is PC gaming gets even deader and an even larger fraction of gaming moves to consoles. Afaict the PS3 still hasn't been cracked and while the xbox 360 has been cracked applying the cracks carries a very real risk of a permanent ban from XBOX live.
I don't particulally like closed platforms but copy protection on an open platform is doomed to failure and ends up getting far more intrusive than the systems closed platforms use.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Spore has DRM?
Hrm, my release didn't have it ;).
And this is the huge point that Ubisoft miss, is that the DRM makes playing the legitimate version of a game much MORE annoying than playing the cracked version. Once people are using the cracked versions of software that they have already legally bought _purely_ because the annoyance of the legit version has driven them to it (it happens rather alot already), whats the incentive for them to buy newer versions games rather than just obtain warezed versions?, a case in point would be new releases of the ubisoft games in question.
Note that I'm not saying that no DRM is the answer here, but when will these executives learn that crippling software in this manner is NOT the answer, and their assurances on problems in using this software in the future are sounding pretty hollow. How would people get patches to reinstall the software in the future if Ubisoft no longer exists? Statements about their best intentions are just words. Are they going to put titles into some kind of trust to ensure access, or is abandonware going to mean that games are no longer playable by the people that have paid for the right to use it? How much of the current trend ignores the basic tenets of First Sale?
Personally i do feel that the likes of Ubisoft would love to kill off pc computer gaming. Much better (and cheaper) to produce software for very limited platforms, with vastly less scope/depth (they can sell additional content via addon titles this way). Moves like this smack of an attempt to just annoy people rather than legitimate DRM measure because it's not going to slow down the speed at which their games are going to get warezed, and they know it. THeir better bet would be to actually reward people who log into their service and verify the legitimacy of their purchase wth extra content etc.
Sorry but no way is microsoft capable of 5 versions of windows in 10 years!
I don't see at all what they think they'll accomplish with this. I mean supposing it could actually prevent the game from being cracked, ok, but it can't. It will be cracked, probably on the day the game is released. As such all it'll do is piss off legit customers and have some of us take our money elsewhere.
I think part of the problem is that companies confuse stopping pirates with maximizing profits. Their goal should be profit maximization, which means getting as many happy customers as possible. Dealing with piracy should only be a concern if that increases profits. However they get so focused on it that they'd rather lose 10,000 paying customers so long as they can prevent the game form being copied 1 time.
It's just not good business. Thankfully, it seems like some publishers are starting to realize this, and trying to go with things that don't punish paying customers.
Stop Buying - Boycott any company which puts itself above customers.
This may say more about my state of mind than anything, but I think - perhaps - it's a calculated decision to actually *increase* the amount of piracy going on. If a game company can point to rampant piracy, as in it's not a fringe thing anymore, and it's demonstrably affecting sales (even if they practically force people to do it) then they win.
They win because piracy will become more of a legislative issue, it will get more press, it will be like, "even previously law-abiding citizens are doing it now".
It's funny how gamers say, "hell, I'm not buying this, it's unfair, so I'm going to pirate it instead" and think that's a perfectly valid response. As some kind of revenge, they won't just not buy the game, they'll do something illegal. That's what they're saying all over the net because of this, and my guess is that's exactly what companies like Ubisoft want. It's helping them no end to lobby government for legislative changes we will enjoy a lot less than their games.
As an aside, I also wonder if software companies get tax breaks for "lost sales" due to piracy? Regardless of the high probability that most people who pirate a game weren't going to buy it in the first place. Though that may be less probable soon.
I know a couple of tweens that are sticking to PS2 because the PS3 is "too expensive" and they (their parents) don't want to pull out the bills for the games (this in Brazil, where PS3 games cost R$ 300.00, US$ 1.00 = R$ 1.80, i.e., each game title is over a cool US$ 160.00)
But this isn't Sony's or anyone elses' fault. This is due to taxes. Expensive games drive piracy.
OTOH, the parents are morons. They have the money. They just don't want to pay. The result is that their kids are little morons living in a time capsule. All the kids in that neighborhood, in fact. They are missing out being in touch with the times. They're five or more years out of sync. What their stupid parents don't realize is that, by promoting piracy, they guarantee that only a minority - such as I - but the games. Hence, not enough people get mad at the 60% tax on games, and not enough people fuel competition for smaller profit margins of the game stores.
Why people think they can just not pay for goods is beyond me. Maybe it's because it's all bits and bytes, but still...there's a fundamental market mechanism moving this wheel. Ubisoft and others aren't charity.
I say to hell with freeloaders. This DRM backlash is because of you. Suck on it. Now you will also need a broadband connection. What's next? Will the gaming industry demand you buy a satellite connection? They've just found a goldmine. Thanks, freeloaders.