Slashdot Mirror
The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work
spidweb writes "Much virtual ink has been spilled over Ubisoft's new, harsh DRM system for Assassin's Creed 2. You must have a constant internet connection, and, if your connection breaks, the game exits. While this has angered many (and justifiably so), most writers on the topic have made an error. They think that this system, like all DRM systems in the past, will be easily broken. This article explains why, as dreadful as the system is, it does have a chance of holding hackers off long enough for the game to make its money. As such it is, if nothing else, a fascinating experiment. From the article: 'Assassin's Creed 2 is different in a key way. Remember, all of its code for saving and loading games (a significant feature, I'm sure you would agree) is tied into logging into a distant server and sending data back and forth. This vital and complex bit of code has been written from the ground up to require having the saved games live on a machine far away, with said machine being programmed to accept, save, and return the game data. This is a far more difficult problem for a hacker to circumvent.'"
It's all about finding the sweet spot. DRM is invariably going to piss of a certain number of paying users but if you piss off too many you lose revenue, or worse yet, if your product gets a rep for being unreliable ... you're throwing away potential customers. DRM is a risky game to play, and if you're gonna do it you better make damn sure it works.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Even thought it's hard to crack, it's not uncrackable. A set of talented hackers/programmers can try and reverse engineer the system and build their own server (or a server might leak out). Then, changing the binaries or using some other technique, they can replace the server address with the address for their server. Given enough time, they might do it -- but the game will probably have become deprecated when they do it.
With that said, this is the most horrendous example of what the gaming society is becoming. I'd rather throw myself off a cliff than pay these fucktards.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
you'll have a non working game because Ubisoft will bother to have that old crap running longer or even Ubisoft could not exists anymore. No thanks.
It won't work, because all the crackers will have to do is emulate that distant server on your own box and route any traffic Assassin's Creed II sends through 127.0.0.1 (this is a simplification). That said, it may work for Assassin's Creed II, but for any subsequent releases (Splinter Cell Conviction, Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands, etc.) the crackers will already know how the system works and break it easily.
I'll go a step further. I'm not buying this game. I'm not pirating this game. This game is not getting my money, my time, or my tactic approval.
This is something that just bugs me about the attitude some people have about DRM and piracy. People will take the approach of "this DRM sucks, ergo I'm going to pirate it, instead of paying for it". This isn't a boycott, nor is it voting with your wallet. This is taking the approach that two wrongs make a right, and that pirating the game somehow "punishes" the makers of it for the sin of screwing over legitimate users.
Want to send a message? Do what I'm going to do. Don't touch the copybroken crap with a ten foot cable.
Because make no mistake, piracy rates for a game are measurable. If the game is popular, and pirated extensively, then the message sent to the publishers is that the DRM system, however extreme, still isn't "enough". That an even more extreme measure is needed to turn those hypothetical pirated copies into sales figures. And the developer still gets acknowledged as having made a game good enough for you, the pirate, to want it. If they think they can make a paying customer out of a pirate by making the game unpirateable, then they'll got to great lengths to do exactly that.
The only way to break DRM in the long term is to vote with your wallet, and simply ignore the very existence of companies that cross the line the way Ubisoft has. They need to be told, and have that information backed by hard data, that DRM is hurting their sales by making the legit users leave (you know, the people who actually pay for the game?)
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
This is another perfect example of how DRM *only* hurts legal, paying customers.
Want to be legal and play it on a laptop away from home? You're out of luck if you have a legal copy of the game.
Mr. Pirate...? He won't be affected at all.
No sig today...
Fine! Then stop treating me like a criminal, and maybe I'll buy your games, and thus you will get paid for your work.
The things that you are doing are keeping me–an honest customer–from playing my games. Your DRM is keeping me from playing when my Internet connection is down. It's keeping me from playing without having to have physical media on-hand. (This makes your software effectively protected by a "dongle.") Your DRM has at times caused anything from mildly annoying bugs to grossly compromising holes in my system's security. Meanwhile, even if you develop a 100% effective DRM solution, the pirates will still not buy your game! I fail to see how even that helps you get paid for your work.
I'm sorry, but there are more options than the false dichotomy of "give your game to everyone for free" or "enslave humanity," and if you really want to get paid for your work, then you're going to have to back away from your dug-in position. There are plenty of games out there without oppressive DRM that are doing perfectly well in the market. I'll simply choose those instead—and you'll continue to get nothing.
To all those who think Ubisoft should just let the pirates win...
Here's the thing- the pirates have already won/are winning. The DRM will be broken for any single player games. Even multiplayer games will have private servers hacked up. DRM doesn't work except against the most casual forms of piracy. I have no problem with games requiring a disc check or a serial key to discourage people from just handing the DVD to their friends to install. Anything beyond that is pointless and counterproductive (unless it's part of a larger online service, like Steam or a MMO, but even those have been hacked).
you have no idea how frustrating it is to spend many millions of dollars and several years of our life making a game, and then see statistics from our update servers that 15 to 20 people are playing pirated copies for every legitimately purchased copy.
So? I'm sure it is frustrating, get over it. Publishers shouldn't be looking at the number of pirated copies- it's irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the number of copies sold. You're not fighting a holy war, you're a business. Attempting to keep people from playing pirated games from some sense of moral outrage rather than acknowledging the technological and business realities a) doesn't work, and b) just ends up pissing off your actual customers.
PC gamers have $2000+ computers and drop $200-500 on a video card every year. But most of them are too damn cheap to buy their games. They grew up pirating them through high school and university, and don't see any reason they should stop now. Most of them have managed to convince themselves that (somehow) they aren't doing anything wrong.
And you're not going to change that, especially not with DRM that gives pirates a better experience than paying customers.
By the way, after the reactions to Spore and Bioshock (and a other heavily DRM-ed titles) we tried shipping the recent Prince of Persia without any DRM. Guess what? It was pirated heavily.. more so than any of the previous Prince of Persia games.
How did it *sell* compared to them is the question, not how much it was pirated. Guess what? Someone pirating the game and someone not buying it gets you the exact same amount of money. And no DRM at all, not even a serial/disc check seems silly, as it does nothing to discourage casual piracy.
So rather than give up on the PC market entirely (which is the other possible solution)
If the company can't make a profit on the number of games actually sold, then yes, you should get out of the PC market entirely. Again, the number of pirated copies is irrelevant. Perhaps I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem that hard. The people pirating games aren't your customers, by definition. More restrictive DRM won't change that, especially as it never works.
I can sympathize with you (I actually buy all the games I play), but if your post is indicative of the type of thinking within publishers, it's a shame as it seems entirely counterproductive and willfully ignorant of reality. Also, I presume you can estimate the number of pirated copies connecting to your servers but not which are which, otherwise I don't see why you'd be allowing them to patch...
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft. I write shrink-wrapped proprietary software for a living, so software piracy directly affects my income.
I am also a gamer. I have over 190 titles in my Steam account (granted, quite a lot of that are old games; a lot still isn't), and that's not counting the boxes. For some games, I have it both as a box and on Steam (e.g. Oblivion, Doom 3, Majesty 2), so I've actually paid twice for those.
Now, all that said...
To all those who think Ubisoft should just let the pirates win... you have no idea how frustrating it is to spend many millions of dollars and several years of our life making a game, and then see statistics from our update servers that 15 to 20 people are playing pirated copies for every legitimately purchased copy. PC gamers have $2000+ computers and drop $200-500 on a video card every year.
You have no idea how frustrating it is to not be able to start a game when your Internet connection is down (and you really just want some entertainment to pass time). Or, as I've heard you did in this new game, to have it exit as soon as your Internet connection goes down in the middle of a gaming session (I sincerely wish you guys are sued for this, and lose in a big way; it's far more sinister than anything I've ever heard about in this industry). Or how about limited number of activations, where you lose one if you, for any reason, cannot boot into your OS and need to reinstall?
All those things are reason why I will not buy any Ubisoft game ever again (and you're not alone on the list). Frankly, as a customer, I don't care about your row with the pirates. I don't even care about DRM as such! What I do care is when you drag me into the mess, and have the audacity to take my money, and then refuse the service (entertainment) that you have promised in return for some vague reasons of "fighting pirates". I'm not one; why should all of this be of my concern?
If you can come up with a DRM scheme that does not excessively bother me (a single-time Internet activation is fine, for example; server checks on connect for multiplayer are fine, too), I'm fine with that. I can even understand slip ups (activation servers going down unexpectedly etc), and am willing to tolerate that in minor amounts - though I would expect workarounds (phone activation, whatever) to be provided in such cases. But when you deliberately go out of your way to annoy me as a gamer, guess what? My money goes elsewhere, to companies like Valve, which understand these sorts of things.