Slashdot Mirror
Ubisoft's Authentication Servers Go Down
ZuchinniOne writes "With Ubisoft's fantastically awful new DRM you must be online and logged in to their servers to play the games you buy. Not only was this DRM broken the very first day it was released, but now their authentication servers have failed so absolutely that no-one who legally bought their games can play them. 'At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum that they couldn't access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games.' One can only hope that this utter failure will help to stem the tide of bad DRM."
I don't know anything else that should be said here.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Why would this stem the awful DRM? They have the money, gamers are still going to play, life moves on.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Does it really matter though? If they're using something like this, they should had have hardened and test the system properly. Things like this are completely unacceptable. I would have thought they did as otherwise its going to backfire so good, but it seems stupid people never cease to amaze you.
Stop supporting games with this kind of DRM
No it is called Digital Restrictions Management. They restrict how often you can play as per the current demands of parental and religious groups
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble feeling sorry for people who support DRM (those who bought the game).
They paid for it. They got what they wanted.
Find someone else's sholder to cry on.
Do I smell a class action lawsuit? Seems like it might make sense.
Can't find it now, but definitly NOW the DRM protection WILL be the discussion topic on the schoolyard. And maybe company lunchrooms too. People who bought the game will ask around, especially their "IT clued" friends what they could do to play what they paid for, and they will be informed about how to get cracks.
People who never pondered cracking will now be introduced to it. So far they did actually buy their games. Either because they simply didn't know about it or, worse, because they didn't want to go through the hassle and thought that paying 50 bucks is easier, faster and less of a problem than futzing about with cracks and copying this and cracking that and executing this registry tuner and writing that into the registry...
Now they learn that buying games leads to more futzing, more frustration, more "it doesn't just work" than finding it in P2P and downloading it. Legal copies just lost the only edge they had over cracked ones: Ease of use and "just working".
Great job, UBIsoft. Just as the software industry finally regained some footing in the battle against copying, you go and aim the bazooka at your (and the industry's) foot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You knew the game had this DRM, you knew that it was susceptible to server crashes, you whined about it endlessly, AND THEN YOU WENT OUT AND BOUGHT IT ANYWAY. How stupid can you get? Ubisoft must be laughing their heads off.
It doesn't really matter to the user, does it?
And before you say "A DDoS wouldn't be UBIsoft's fault": Deliberately and needlessly introducing a single point of failure to your system is patently dumb, and most definitly the fault of the party that introduced it if it fails.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When I saw this story: *laughing for 5 mins* *gasping for air* *laughing for another 2 minutes* wooooooooooooooooooooooooo! ha ha ha
Seriously, obey, or you will be fucked by it.
Disagree != mod troll.
First time I've heard of a DDoS attack being used to break DRM...
It didn't break the DRM, it broke the game.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
We should all send flowers or candy or something to Ubisoft Headquarters. They've done more with one game launch to torpedo the use of DRM than a thousand indignant ./ stories and editorials.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I guess the same way google, microsoft update or similar sites do it. Massive bandwith, redundant servers, a little black voodo.
Deliberately and needlessly introducing a single point of failure to your system is patently dumb
Quiet! You'll give them ideas.
...which would have cost them more than the game will earn in profits.
No sig today...
you're only thinking of the hardcore that knows to hit forums. All it takes is 1 phone call or email and they've lost all the profit on the sale, even if the call consists of "Servers down, try again later!".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So let me get this straight: the pirated[sic]/counterfeit product is superior to the real thing, just like with Windows?
I'm shocked. SHOCKED!
Well, not that shocked.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I guess the same way google, microsoft update or similar sites do it. Massive bandwith, redundant servers, a little black voodo.
Having servers in 2-3 (or more) distributed data centres and using anycast (or geo-based DNS). This way any DDoS only hits servers that is "closest" to the zombie, and the attack's traffic is centralized into one location.
Conceivably, but they could still wind up on the losing side of a class action suit by all the people that were unable to play due to the DRM scheme preventing them from doing so. I'd bet that it would only be a couple dollars a person at most, but losing a suit like that might just make companies think a little harder before screwing their customers.
But, who am I kidding, they'll just chock it up to losses to pirates and shake their fists all the harder because they can't directly access people's bank accounts.
No, it's a good thing! If one company patents it, no one else will be able to do it for 20 years without spending a shit-ton of money!
Then implementing something that requires your servers to be available 24/7 OR ELSE is patently stupid.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
DRM manages rights the same way prisons manage freedom.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ok, so please inform us how you would had hardened their systems against the DDoS if there was one.
Uhhh..... Not have playing the game tied to an online authentication? That might help. I think that's kinda the point.
Actually, it broke the game for the paying customers.
Ok, that's a bit of a stretch. While I would probably find it amusing if someone like the /b crowd went and messed with the auth servers to get a kick out of it, it's not what I'd consider something like a "political statement". Or a necessity because I'm so angry at them.
I'm not angry at UBIsoft for creating that DRM scheme. While I find it quite disappointing that I can't buy a game that I thought would be great (companies make games and set the terms, but I, and only I, get to choose whether I accept them), it's not like I'm "angry" over it. If find it amusing, though, that time and again my prophecies about games and why I do NOT buy them come true. MW2: Lack of servers will make cheating run rampart. Result: True. AC2: Mandatory internet connection will hurt legit players and not affect crackers. Result: Judge for yourself.
So I'm not angry. I'm smug.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
IMHO, that's rather backwards. Doing whatever I want with something I payed for ought to be legal. Receiving money for something then remotely disabling it ought to be illegal.
This is common sense. This is societal expectation. Why is this not the law?
(Thought question, no need for politics.)
Depends on your point of view. It is their rights that are being managed, not yours. Personally, I just won't buy this shit.
...which would have cost them more than the game will earn in profits.
I doubt it, but still a fatal flaw. Among many. The game only lasts as long as the servers are up and active. The servers are up and active as long as the game is still making a profit. The profitable window for games is not very long. So the game is fucked by design.. Long live stupid DRM. Every pissed off user is another nail in the coffin.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
No, proper means "That which is right, suitable, or appropriate." Digital Restrictions Management is a much more suitable term.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
How would they do that? As far as I know, the pirated version doesn't even try to phone home, so there would be no way to track pirates.
I find it endlessly amusing that the only people who can play AC2 right now are the people who pirated it, despite the fact that the DRM is intended to prevent piracy. No pirates are inconvenienced by this outage; only customers who have already paid.
The problem I see with this is "How do you keep it on the Cartridge?"
Which is not different to trying to keep it on a floppy, a HDD a CD, a DVD or other.
Once placed on the cart, it is nothing more than computer code that can be copied to any other medium. Even if the cart itself was a specific dongle, it would be no different to when games required a CD to work. "Virtual drives".
Good thinking though.
. .
1) Gamers may try and return the game. I suppose Ubisoft could refuse to issue refunds but that opens them up to lawsuits. Like it or not, a sold product does have an implied warranty of fitness, meaning that it will work for the purpose you sell it. If it doesn't, customers can get their money back and if you won't give it to them, a court can and will force the issue.
2) It puts off people who haven't bought the game yet. Not everyone buys a game on the day it comes out. Plenty of people wait a bit. Well, they see this, realize that it is true if the auth servers are down there's no game to be played, and decide "Nah, I'll buy a different game." I mean we do not at all lack for good games these days, people can and will take their money elsewhere.
3) It can lead to these people refusing to be customers again. Sure you got their money this time, however a business does not live based on selling one product. You need repeat sales. People who get burned by this (or just hear about it) may decide to give Ubisoft products a miss in the future because of it.
The idea of "Oh well they got their money," is rather short sighted. When businesses operate like that, screwing people over and saying "We already got the money so who cares?" the end result is often the business suffering or going broke in the future.
"Then implementing something that requires your servers to be available 24/7 OR ELSE is patently stupid."
So is buying a game from such a company...
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
right now... are the pirates?
that's just completely hilarious. I posted in the recent thread on this saying the pirates were the ones that were going to ultimately get the better product, and looks like I was right. I want my cookie now.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It didn't break the DRM, it broke the game.
Which forces the developer to remove the DRM from the game so that their paying customers can use the product.
If this is a DDoS attack it's essentially a ransom. It's like creating the world's most secure data network only to have the CEO's daughter kidnapped and getting a ransom letter for the password.
Instead of attacking the DRM you attack the human interests of those who have the keys.
> Dozens of customers complaining daily and it took them three months to finally figure out "gee the whole block is down, let's go look at the router for this block."
That's what you get if you streamline your business by only hiring phone droids and cable monkeys. They are not paid to think, so they don't.
The sad part is that it's likely quite a few of these actually have engineering degrees and real problem-solving skills but learned within a few weeks of starting their jobs that thinking for yourself and trying to find solutions that would not only temporarily fix a single customer's problem but also avoid having the problem happen to anyone else is not only not encouraged but downright discouraged, because thinking about things like that is what management is supposed to do.
This is at least how my experience with working tech support was, a bunch of guys, ~50% of which were engineers or computer scientists, sitting in a room applying the same stupid workarounds all day every day and complaining amongst each other about how they weren't being put to good use.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
If you paid for it, you own it. Learn how to install cracks to disable DRM for the software that you own. EULA are not legal because you already bought the software at the store based on the doctrine of first sale. You own that copy of the software 100%, don't let anyone tell you different.
If you get on a jury regarding anything pirate and DRM related, do whatever it takes to get on the jury and then vote innocent.
Any reason he can't do both?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I do agree, though. Don't advocate breaking the rules. Advocate better rules.
A friend of mine had to wait two weeks for his new computer to make it from the internal IT dept to his desk. The reason? Some kind of tangled mess involving license keys that were valid, yet didn't work. Lots of time on the phone with Microsoft, and finally he got his new machine. Then he had to go and download the software he needed from various websites, and click through all the questions and license agreements to get it all installed. Total employee time taken? I don't want to know.
Meanwhile, I got my new computer, popped in my Linux disc, and used Aptitude to install my favorite software while I was having lunch. Total employee time taken? A little over one hour.
The reason I could do that is that many people have rejected the conditions that come attached to the major proprietary software packages, and given their support to free software, instead. The same can work for games, too: play the games that don't come with onerous rules, and refuse to play the games that come with too many strings attached. Breaking the rules won't solve the problem, because it doesn't give the right incentives to the producers. We don't want to break the rules, we don't want the rules to be there in the first place!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Now is the time to send a message to Ubisoft that this sort of intrusive DRM will NOT be tolerated. If the servers had stayed up and people just refused to buy the game, they would have written the poor sales off as being caused by "pirates." Now, you have a chance to prove otherwise. Every single person who bought this game on PC should return it to the store. Yes, most will attempt to deny the returns due to policy, or to exchange with a new copy since that one is perceived as damaged/defective. Do not stand for this. Tell them that yes, it is defective, but ALL copies are defective. Let them know that the software itself works just fine on your computer, and in fact ran EXACTLY the way it was supposed to. However, you are forced to return it because it does not work properly on yours or ANY system, because Ubisoft's servers weren't online to allow you to play a game that you legally purchased and met all the requirements for being able to play.
Ubisoft won't be able to shrug it off as "piracy" when their sales numbers for this game begin to shrink due to returns and angry retailers. THIS will hit them in the pocketbook more than a simple, dubiously effective boycott. When they are forced to start handing money back because of their failures, that will speak much louder than never having been paid that money to begin with.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
Chances are pretty good that this outage was simply due to incompetence.
That said, it raises a rather interesting issue. It really demonstrates that there is a single point at which the game can be brought down.
I have to wonder if in the future, if other games include even more draconian DRM schemes that also require constant Internet access, if pirates might just intentionally attacking the servers involved (probably DDoS). I could see them doing this just to discourage such DRM (that may be harder to crack in the future, such as if more of the game data is held on the servers).
DRM could really be turned against the publishers. Ironically, by trying too hard to stop the pirates at launch, they may just be making it easy for pirates to destroy the launch.
Here's the problem - that works wonderfully as a theory. It fails utterly in practice.
Really? Based on what metric?
The simple fact that PC game developers are still in business and still making money, despite wasting who knows how many millions of dollars every year on failed anti-piracy measures is all it takes to prove otherwise. And that's not even mentioning the small developers that are being successful despite using no DRM whatsoever. Here's just one excellent example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_solar_empire. Here's a bit I'm quoting from the page itself: "As of September 2008, Stardock's CEO, Brad Wardell, has stated that the game has sold over 500,000 units, with 100,000 of those being digital download sales, on a budget of less than $1,000,000. It sold 200,000 copies in the first month after release alone." And since the sources for that quote are extremely relevant here, I'll link those as well. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20026 http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/14383
The only possible metric you can use that would make what you said in any way correct is the one the big corporations use: that every pirated copy is a lost sale. So I guess it "fails utterly" if your metric is that they aren't making near as much money as they "could" be.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.